TRADITIONAL FOOD AND DRINK
Horchata: the OG Non-Dairy Milk from Valencia
Complete with its own apocryphal origin myth
As anyone from Valencia will tell you, above all the many cafés and companies serving and producing the region’s signature beverage, horchata (orxata in the local language, Valencian) has a colourful etymology. Legend has it that on arriving in the region on his crusade of reconquest against the Moors, King Jaume I of Aragon was served a chilled and nourishing glass of the local drink by a young peasant woman, to revive him after his arduous journey on horseback.
Delighted by the sweet, creamy, refreshing brew, he enthusiastically proclaimed in his native Catalan (which his troops incidentally brought to the region to evolve into modern-day Valencian):
¡Això es or, xata! (That is pure gold, my girl!)
And the drink was thus royally baptised.
It’s a nice story, which unfortunately lacks any basis in historical fact. The mundane truth is that it is derived from the Latin hordeata, or barley milk, and shares its name in other Spanish-speaking countries and regions with a variety of alternatives made from other grains and nuts: almond horchata from Murcia and Almeria further south, rice horchata from…
