Why Do Colombians Put Cheese in Hot Chocolate?

The answer: Bogotá, Colombia

When the city government's news portal asked cooks at Bogotá's Plaza La Concordia market about the capital's traditional food in 2022, chocolate santafereño was on the list next to ajiaco and puchero. Cook María Pinzón said it is drunk in the morning, at onces (the afternoon snack) and at dinner, above all on cold, rainy days, with cheese, almojábana and bread.

The name is a clue to its age. According to the historian Alfredo Barón Leal, quoted by the same portal, the city's founder named it Santa Fe in 1538, people began saying Santa Fe de Bogotá in the 17th century, and the city was renamed Bogotá in 1819. Santafereño means from Santa Fe.

How to eat it

The chocolate itself is milk or water with Colombian chocolate, often spiced with cinnamon or cloves, whipped in a chocolatera pot with a wooden molinillo. Pinzón's rule is to beat it at least three times, until it foams and gives off its aroma.

Then the cheese. The Bogotá newspaper El Tiempo describes dropping pieces of cheese into the cup, where they soften and soak up the chocolate before you eat them with a spoon; other cooks put the cheese in first and pour over it. Tasting Table names queso campesino or queso doble crema, soft white cheeses that soften in the heat. Our chocolate santafereño puts the cubes in first, and fresh mozzarella stands in well.

So why cheese?

Nobody has written down when or why the cheese went into the cup. SBS Food reports that Bogotanos have drunk cheesy hot chocolate regularly since at least the 19th century, when falling cacao prices made chocolate an everyday afternoon habit, and the Colombian site Las2orillas says many 19th-century drinkers put their doble crema straight into the chocolate.

Chocolate already had a long social life in the city. In Las tres tazas, a famous 1860s sketch of Bogotá manners reviewed by Colombia's central bank cultural journal, José María Vergara y Vergara opens with a chocolate party held on May 13, 1813, with independence leaders Antonio Nariño and Camilo Torres among the guests.

Our best explanation is the plate itself. The cheese and the cheesy breads were already on the table, and a bite of mild, salty cheese soaked in sweet chocolate does the same job salt does in a chocolate chip cookie.

Not only Colombia

Ecuador does it too. Writing in National Geographic Traveller Food, Jez Fredenburgh called chocolate con queso the most popular way Ecuadorians consume cacao, served with bread and cheese on the side. A Quito hotel concierge told her his grandfather put all his cheese in the cup to melt, then ate it with a spoon, adding, "there really is no one way."

Compare it with the cinnamon-spiced, molinillo-frothed Mexican hot chocolate and the rest of our hot chocolate of the world collection.

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