Comida (Food), Part 1

Cuy


Fried pig´s head in a Quito market

I was going to wait and post about food in one great flourish near the end but I had an eating experience this week that I didn´t want to wait to share.

Before coming to Ecuador, I was dabbling in vegeterianism (I was, I guess, what Michael Pollan calls a flexitarian), but I decided that it would be too difficult to execute here. Often if you tell an Ecuadorian (or a Kentuckian) that you are vegetarian, they will politely ask, well, how about chicken? Besides, I´m not very principled.

The fruits in Ecuador are the jewels of the eating experience. They have fruits we don´t have in the States (guanabana, taxo, tomaté de arbol, and other names I cannot spell correctly), and they are often prepared as juice (jugo) or with milk (batido). They taste like smoothies, but better, because the fruit is simply better here.

Generally, most meals come with soup, potatoes, chicken or beef, more potatoes, and well, rice and sometimes more potatoes. My favorite eating is consistently the empanada, which is kind of like a samosa, but can be prepared with a fried crust of corn or platano (a kind of banada, de verde), with whatever meat or cheese you want inside.

But beyond fruit and strange variations of prepared corn, most of the exciting eating opportunities are carnivorous. My trials include meat from a pig´s head (la cabeza de choncho) over boiled corn kernels, soup made of lamb´s stomach (yuagarlocro), soup flavored with chicken feet (sopa con las patas de pollo), and cooked lamb´s blood in salad (ensalada con sangre de oveja).

On Wednesday, though, a generous and hospitable local family (Ecuadorians are iconically hospitable) took me to Otavalo, a town famous for its indigenous market crafts, and then north to Atuntaqui, a small farming town famous for its cuy, or better known to us as the annoying American pet, guinea pig. Cuy is considered a delicacy in other countries, like Japan and Germany, who are importing the meat from Ecuador, although I don´t know why, they are easy enough to grow and kill and cook without South American help. But in Ecuador, cuy has been a common meat for some time, and often in the past, it was the easiest meat for a poor rural family to cultivate and feed their family with. It is not common in most restaurants today, but it is always available if you search for it. In Atuntaqui, it is the cornerstone item of each restaurant´s menu. I ordered the animal expecting a part of it, but instead they served the whole little beast, splayed along its belly to fan out the rest, so that it appeared like a fried flying squirrel, still smiling at me on the plate. All the parts were there, even the teeth, and it reminded me of high school biology class when we dissected frogs, except that you get to eat it, too. The best part was probably the liver, fried and placed to the side, which tasted similar to eggplant. The meat itself was white, soft, and lean. It had more meat than I expected, and when I couldn´t finish it, Tito, the father I was traveling with, declared, "Y el ganador es... el cuy!" (The winner is the cuy!) We raised its severed claws in triumph, but then I thought about this, and decided I was the winner, and I bit off its face. It is good to eat meat guiltlessly again.

More on more food later in the trip. Tomorrow I leave for Mindo, a cloud rainforest in the mountains. I don´t know how long I will be there, or when I´ll be able to post next, but until then, buen provecho!

Some edible spanish for you readers (the genders might or might not be right):
Aguacade - avacado
verduras - vegetables
frutas - fruits
Choncho - pork
Fritada - fried pork
marisco - seafood
canquil - popcorn
bistec - steak
cuy (coo-ey) - guinea pig
most importantly, cerveza - beer