On Ecuadorian typical food

Historically, Ecuador is the land of potatoes, maize, quinoa and turkey, just like most other Andean countries. However, nowadays the most popular plate is rice with chicken in any form. There are some specialities to be found around the country though. You have different kinds of soups, like locro, a soup of potatoes, often with maize and avocado. There is caldo de … and there you fill in whichever kind of meat. Other starters include the empanada, a maize or plantain pastry filled with cheese or meat.

Main courses usually consist of meat, with cuy being something special. We usually keep our cuys in the house as pets or we experiment on them: guinea pigs they are. If the dish doesn’t come with rice, there is also mote, a white, peeled maize variety; canguil, which is just popcorn, this usually goes with soups; or potatoes. In the coastal area you have patacones and bolones, which are plantain specialties. Sometimes they are made with cheese, but not always. Another coastal specialty is the ceviche (though there is a vegetarian variant in the highlands), which resembles a soup made with fish or shrimp, where the seafood is usually raw, marinated in lime juice and chilli. In the Amazon you are more likely to find dishes with yuca (cassava), like fried yuca or yuca cheese cakes. Communities there also eat all sorts of wild meats, including gusano, a type of caterpillar.

A number of snacks include humitas, a yummy mix of ground corn, cheese, butter and sugar wrapped in corn leaf and steamed; bolones; empanadas; quimbolitos; and onion rings. While deserts are usually a pudding of some fruit or morocho de leche, which is rice pudding, but I haven’t seen that anywhere yet. Of course you have ice cream from pingüino (the Dutch Ola) or Hagen Dasz, but there is also a special ice cream called helado de paila: made in special wok-like pans, usually made with juices and the like.

Vegetarian food is easy to get in the bigger cities, where ‘health food’ is growing. Most vegetarian restaurants serve almuerzos (lunch) with a soup, rice, salad, vegetables and a small desert. They are a bit hippy-like on the interior, but you’ll see all kinds of people sitting at the tables. Mostly Ecuadorians, though: most tourists go to the Indian restaurant in the center or to one of the many Chinese restaurants.

The best thing about the food here, though is the large variety of fruits. Often made into fresh juices. Just a short list of fruits you may encounter: Maracuyá (passion fruit), granadilla, tomate de árbol (tree tomato), naranjilla, pineapple, orange, guanábana, chirimoya (custardapple, we saw these in India as well), taxo, mora (blackberry), babaco, different kinds of bananas, melons, strawberries, apples (but imported), papaya, avocado, uvillas (gooseberries), etc. And these are just the fruits that are available in the city and in season. I have yet no idea which fruits I will find in the Amazon.