Submitted by Helena Garcia on the 2016 summer session program in Salamanca, Spain sponsored by the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures…
My father’s family, the Garcia-Domenech’s, have a long tradition called El Chocolate. This tradition is one started by my great-grandmother Pepa where every couple of weekends on Saturday or Sunday nights the whole family gets together and drinks “chocolate”, better known as hot chocolate. Having participated in this tradition numerous times in my trips to Ecuador, where the bulk of my father’s family lives, I simply assumed that this was an Ecuadorian tradition—after all the country is famous for its chocolate. However, after having studied abroad in Salamanca, Spain and telling my father about the traditions and customs I witnessed and lived, he told me that the concept of El Chocolate is not an Ecuadorian tradition, but instead, a Spanish one. His grandmother, after all, was born in Catalonia, Spain. After learning this, I am not sure how I did not make the connection earlier, after all I lived off hot chocolate in the mornings for the whole month and spent hours in cafes across Spain drinking what are probably the national drinks, hot chocolate and café con leche. The hot chocolate I had each morning even tasted similar to the one my family makes! Although I have always known about my family’s connections to Spain, it has been so interesting to find small little things like this that feel like more concrete connections and I cannot wait to go back to Spain someday and find even more.