Horchata (rice water)   Serves 8 to 10   ● 3 cups rice   ● 3 cups milk   ● 3 cinnamon sticks, broken in pieces and lightly toasted in a skillet   ● 1 1/4 cups sugar   ● 6 cups water   Soak the rice in water to cover by at least 1 inch for 3 hours. Drain the rice, and purée with milk and cinnamon. Strain the mixture, discarding rice and reserving the liquid. Dissolve the sugar in the 6 cups water. Combine the rice liquid with the sugared water. Serve cold or with ice.   Nutritional data per serving, based on 8: 420 calories (5 percent of calories from fat), 2 g fat, 91 g carbohydrate, 8 g protein, 7 mg cholesterol, 55 mg sodium, 1 g dietary fiber.   ● "Frida's Fiestas: Recipes and Reminiscences of Life With Frida Kahlo" by Guadalupe Rivera and Marie-Pierre Colle (Clarkson Potter, $35)

FORT WORTH, Texas - His name is Victor Hugo. Victor Hugo Espinosa. And he is telling me the story of "aguas frescas." It's a classic. It has Aztecs and canoes heavy with a harvest of fresh fruit. As the 15th-century farmers paddle their way through the marshes of Lake Texcoco, the sun and humidity accompany them. In the bustling market of the capital city of Tenochtitlan, in the shadows of the great, golden temples, vendors mash the fruit, extract the pulp and juice, and mix them with cool water, producing refreshment for emperors and commoners alike. Behold the creation of the thirst-quenching Mexican juice drinks called aguas frescas. Espinosa's co-workers at Esperanza's Bakery on Fort Worth's north side are enjoying the heavily embroidered story, although clearly it's not the first one they've heard from the animated Mexican who is named after the famous French author. Everyone's laughing, gathered around the bakery's 10-gallon " jarrones," huge glass jars filled to the brim with brightly hued aguas. I turn to Frank Munoz, who is shaking his head good-naturedly at Espinosa, and ask, in Spanish, "Where do aguas frescas come from?" "From the heat," Munoz replies succinctly, Papa Hemingway-like. Indeed, go to any park or city square in Mexico or Texas' Rio Grande Valley on a sunny summer afternoon and you are likely to find an aguas frescas vendor, rivaled in popularity only by the " paleta," or Popsicle, man. You will know the aguas frescas man by the large glass jars of aguas, or juices, that he keeps cool in his cart, using blocks of ice. Aguas frescas are made from fresh fruit - watermelons, cantaloupes, pineapples, limes (which Mexicans call " limones"), guavas, mangoes and strawberries. The drinks are also made from more exotic ingredients: fermented rice, fresh pomegranates, dried jamaica (hibiscus) flowers and tamarind pods. In her many authoritative books on Mexican cuisine, Diana Kennedy weighs in on aguas frescas, deeming them delicious, healthful and refreshing - with the exception of the classic horchata, made from rice water and milk, which she calls "just plain dull." Year-round, you will find aguas frescas at parties, church festivals and restaurants that accentuate the "Mex" in Tex-Mex. Esperanza Bakery's Munoz remembers making and selling aguas frescas with his brother outside the community school in the town of San Francisco, in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. Baseball games, church festivals and fiestas on surrounding farms were all opportunities for the boys to make money selling cups of aguas frescas made from whatever fruit was sweetly in season. Munoz is many decades removed from the farm boy he once was. Every morning at Esperanza's, the silver-haired Munoz is in charge of making aguas frescas for the North Main Street eatery. It's a laborious process that he nonetheless whips through in less than an hour. His tools are a sharp knife, an industrial-sized juicer and blender, and a metal whisk as long as a machete, which he plunges into the 10-gallon glass jars to blend the fruit juice, sugar and water. He reserves some of the fruit to float on top of each jar - pungent green circles of lime, chunks of sweet watermelon with their bright-green rinds, heart-shaped halves of strawberry. With the ease of a man half his age, he carries each jar from the kitchen's sink to a counter behind the restaurant's cash register. There, he adds a layer of ice to keep the aguas cool and places a plastic ladle atop each jar. By far, Esperanza's most popular agua fresca is horchata. To make horchata, Munoz stabs tins of sweetened condensed milk with a large knife. He adds the milk to well-soaked rice scented with vanilla and cinnamon and whirls it all in the blender. Then he strains the horchata into the jarron. The result is a milky drink that is at once sinfully rich and oddly comforting. Horchata (rice water) Serves 8 to 10 ● 3 cups rice ● 3 cups milk ● 3 cinnamon sticks, broken in pieces and lightly toasted in a skillet ● 1 1/4 cups sugar ● 6 cups water Soak the rice in water to cover by at least 1 inch for 3 hours. Drain the rice, and purée with milk and cinnamon. Strain the mixture, discarding rice and reserving the liquid. Dissolve the sugar in the 6 cups water. Combine the rice liquid with the sugared water. Serve cold or with ice. Nutritional data per serving, based on 8: 420 calories (5 percent of calories from fat), 2 g fat, 91 g carbohydrate, 8 g protein, 7 mg cholesterol, 55 mg sodium, 1 g dietary fiber. ● "Frida's Fiestas: Recipes and Reminiscences of Life With Frida Kahlo" by Guadalupe Rivera and Marie-Pierre Colle (Clarkson Potter, $35)