Mexican Hot Chocolate Is A Breakfast Must-Have For Dia De Los Muertos

It's that time of year again when thousands of people in Mexico, the United States, and other places in the world honor their late loved ones in a celebratory fashion. The Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a two-day holiday observed on November 1 and 2 every year, as History explains. Traditionally, the days consist of a myriad of festivities including parades, elaborate decorations, altars (ofrendas), and cooking traditional food and beverages.

Among the common beverages for this annual celebration is Mexican hot chocolate. According to Pima County Public Library, chocolate is a popular component of those aforementioned altars and decorations, including sugar skulls, made to honor the dead. It can be presented in a solid or liquid form.

If you've never had Mexican chocolate, it isn't the same as your basic powder-and-milk hot chocolate. It includes a mixture of flavorful ingredients, and it's intended to serve a distinct purpose on Dia de Los Muertos.

Mexican hot chocolate is a rich beverage that typically consists of a mixture of chocolate, milk, and other ingredients like brown sugar (piloncillo) and/or chili powder. Ingredients vary from recipe to recipe, but most people, including award-winning food blogger Yvette Marquez-Sharpnack, add cinnamon. Other recipes, like Cacique's on the Dia De Los Muertos Recipes website, include masa harina. This version is called champurrado.

According to Big 7 Travel, the use of chocolate in rituals dates back to Mesoamerican times, and Mexicans drank it hot to keep warm. HuffPost adds that earlier Mayan cultures embraced chocolate as a means of escorting people through their journey after death. It was considered a life force, one that "anointed the transition from one world to the next."

Today, the drink is still part of rituals for the dead, but its inclusion in modern Dia de Los Muertos altars points toward other reasons as well. Celebrants of the holiday believe that offering hot chocolate and food on altars will entice the spirits of their deceased loved ones to return for a visit, as NPR explains.

HuffPost offers another explanation. Although the chocolate is intended to honor the dead, the living typically drink the chocolate at the altar, whether it's in a home or at a gravesite. It's often served with freshly-baked Pan de Muerto (Bread of the Dead), a sweet dome-shaped loaf of bread (per Mexperience).