Tojori

Tojori is a traditional comfort drink of the Bolivian highlands and valleys, built on maize and rooted in the Andean tradition of corn porridge that long predates it. It is made from willkaparu, an old valley corn variety whose Aymara name carries willka, the word for sun. The whole grain is coarsely crushed on a batan, the Andean flat grinding stone, then simmered for several hours, leaving it somewhere between a drink and a porridge and meant to be spooned. In La Paz it is sold steaming from market stalls and street carts before dawn, served in tall glasses and often paired with purple-corn api, fried bunuelos or pastries to fuel paceños and cochabambinos through cold mornings. It is an especially familiar sight during the Alasitas fair that opens each January 24.

Thick and porridge-like, it is gently sweet with warm cinnamon, clove and anise, and carries a soft, nubbly chew from the cracked corn grains. The chancaca lends a faint caramel depth. It is soothing, filling and made for cold dawns, spooned slowly from a warm cup.

Long simmering is what thickens the drink. Maize starch begins to gelatinize between roughly 62 and 72°C; over the steady, gentle cooking the coarse corn pieces slowly hydrate and swell, and amylose leaches out of the granules into the surrounding liquid, thickening it to a spoonable consistency, while the larger fragments stay only partly gelatinized and keep a tender, grainy chew, giving the porridge-drink its texture. At the same time the aromatics of cinnamon, clove and anise and the caramel notes of chancaca infuse throughout.