Dinner is Served

I figured since it's been about 3 weeks now I should make a post about the food here. As far as Ecuadorian cuisine goes there's good news and bad news. The good news is, just about everything I've eaten here has been delicious. The bad news is, this is not the place to come if you're on Atkins. Seriously, any dieter here would be well and truly screwed. The reason being that 90% of the Ecuadorian diet is made up of simple starches. Every single meal is is built around rice, and has an accompanying starch as well, sometimes two or three. You really will not lack for carbs here, let me paint you a picture of a typical menu.

Breakfast: White roll with jam (starch), banana (starch+sugar), instant milk with instant coffee (more on this later)

Lunch: Soup with two or three of the following, rice, yuca, potato, noodles, beans, corn (all starch)
            Main Dish is two cups of rice (starch), beef with a sauce, some kind of potato (starch)

Dinner: Same soup as lunch (starch)
             Main dish is two cups of rice (starch), pasta (starch), and chicken with sauce

I'm not exaggerating here either. They really love their rice... Literally every single meal is a mountain of rice with potatoes or noodles or yuca. Sometimes I have nightmares of suffocating under a giant pile of rice. Here are just a few of my favorite meals that I've had in the house. Dinner one night was rice soup, followed by rice and pasta with cheese sauce. Lunch one day was yuca and potato soup, followed by a massive plate of rice fried up with corn and beans. Oh and then there's the all famous noodle soup with french fries in it... yes they put french fries in their soup, don't ask me why, all it does is turn into a soggy potato sponge. When you're really lucky, they make plantains, which are absolutely delicious... but they're still just starch.

Of course there are many many other things that Ecuador does very well, or very poorly for that matter. I'm going to list here some oddities/highlights of the Ecuadorian food scene that I've found so far.

1.) Everything is instant. Ecuadorians are obsessed with instant milk and instant coffee. Yes that's right, in a country that produces some of the worlds finest coffee you will be hard pressed to find anything other than freeze dried crystals from the mega-mart. Seriously, even at 95% of the cafes and restaurants in Quito you cannot find real Ecuadorian coffee. I recently asked a tour guide in town if he knew of a cafe in Quito or a store where I could get some good domestic coffee and he was honestly stumped by the question, I never got an answer. Chocolate is the same way. There is one company in Ecuador (Republica de Cacao) that sells good Ecuadorian chocolate, the only catch being that they charge more than $5 for a bar (in Ecuador $5 would be like paying $20 in the states.) The worst part is that Ecuador is world renowned for producing some of the finest coffee and chocolate; in Europe and the States you will find their products in the most gourmet upscale food shops and restaurants, but good luck finding it 20 miles from the farm. The reason for all this apparently is that almost all of the domestic gourmet food products from Ecuador are exported. So anywhere in Europe or the States you can find top-notch organic Ecuadorian coffee and chocolate for reasonable prices, whereas in Ecuador you are forced to cough up $5.50 for a little bar of chocolate or enjoy the bitter metallic taste of CAFE ORO instant espresso.

2.) Alcohol in Ecuador is an issue. There are two types of beer here, both of which taste like sweaty fermented bathwater, and the wine isn't much better (think tin-foil mixed with old tomatoes and spiked with some rubbing alcohol.) Of course if you want you can purchase imported wine, beer, or spirits, you will just have to pay more than double what you would in the States or Europe. The same good Chilean or Argentinean wine that costs $12 in the States should cost much less here right? After all, they're so close. Well think again, those bottles will set you back up to $30 here. The reason for this being that Ecuador has extremely high taxes on imported food products (the same reason Nutella is $10 per jar.) Unfortunately for people living here the imitation food companies haven't really figured out how to copy good beer or wine yet, so you're stuck with a hole in your pocket or a hole in your gut, the choice is yours. That brings me to my next point however...

3.) Enjoy tasty Tostitos! No I did not misspell that. Because of the very high taxes on imported food, many imitation food companies have arisen to create products that are "similar" to foreign brands, while still being made in Ecuador. That is why if you walk through the super market you will see such well known brands as Tostitos corn chips, Rufles potato chips, Magnem ice cream, and Carnatien instant milk. You see, by  changing just one letter of the brand name and using similar packaging, these companies can piggy-back off of the international marketing campaigns while still getting the "Mucho Mejor si es Hecho en Ecuador!" seal of approval (and tax break that comes with it.)

4.) Here's one upside of living in a hot climate without air conditioning: ice cream. Every day from 11AM until 3PM it gets blistering hot in the sun. To combat this issue, ice cream shops have popped up all over the place, and they know what they're doing. These are the kind of places that would charge $5 for a cone in the States, here you get the same quality for $1.50. And of course you have the benefit of being in a tropical climate, which brings flavors such as Passion Fruit and Guava into just about every shop. Speaking of which...

5.) Passion fruit and guava... Oh. My. God. Most certainly the best thing about Ecuadorian food is the fruit. Vegetables are not such a big deal here (see rice.) But when it comes to fruit, they don't mess around. The ice creams, jams, smoothies, and juices, wow... oh man the juices are amazing. At almost every meal you are served a fresh squeezed juice, and it is the best part of the day. Blackberries, nectarines, passion fruit, mandarins, kiwi, cherry, pineapple, guayabana, borojo, tomate de arbol, and then the one and only: guava. Guava is really hard to describe, suffice to say that guava juice, jam, ice cream, and smoothies make up about 50% of my fruit intake (the other 50% being passion fruit/blackberry.) However many pounds I have left on my suitcase going home will be stuffed with guava jam I'm sure.

6.) One final thing. Manjar de Leche, look it up. This has become my latest addiction and it's a bad one. I went to the store the other day and literally bought all of the Manjar de Leche they had in stock (3 kilos.) In one sitting I eat about 300g of this stuff... and that's not good, considering that it's meant as a condiment. Manjar is a type of Dulce de Leche or caramel. It's think, dark, rich, complex, and too good to be true. It's meant to be used as a topping for desserts or spread on biscuits, but I just eat it with a spoon. This one may be competing with the guava jam for space in my bags.

Well I know this was a long post so thanks to anyone who read it. Buen Provecho!