Ecuadorian Family and Food Extravaganza!!

We have been eating our way through Ecuador with the help of our new adopted family Veronica and her mother Sara. Another great Couch Surfing experience led us to these wonderful people in Guayaquil, the biggest city in Ecuador; and if it weren’t for their amazing hospitality and through them the meeting so many wonderful people, our first taste of Ecuador would have been completely different. And by taste, I mean we’ve tasted way more stuff here than I think I have in my whole life. The food culture in Ecuador is great, with certain regional specialties, and Veronica and her mother insisted we try every single one. That includes salchicha, which is any and every part of all different animals you would never want to eat- stomach, intestines, stomach, organs… the overall taste of the soup, good; the “meat”… not my cup of tea I have decided. Peanut butter lovers that we are, we were excited to find peanut butter everywhere, but they are not so boring as to only put it on bread, here they cook with it and make some amazing dishes. Here are some of the things we scoured cities for or had put in front of us by our wonderful host, in no particular order, certainly not by preference if you can tell by the first one.

• Salchicha – still not quite sure. A soup with a lot of unidentifiable animal parts
• Bolon – a delicious ball of mashed green plantains and cheese
• Humita – a sweet ground maiz (corn) mixed with cheese and boiled in a corn husk
• Carne de seco – All about the sauce, throw in the meat and your golden
• Encebollado – A scrumptious fish soup
• New fruits like tomate de arbol, taxo, uvilla, pepino dulce
• Congrejo – Crabs (Yum!)
• Bollo – peanut butter (not sweet), fish, green plantains, deliciousness
• Cazuela - like bollo but a soup (possibly our favorite)
• Pan de yucca – tasty bread made from yucca
• Hornado – whole roast pig with mote (corn thingies)
• Twenty different homemade ice creams from fresh fruit
• Llapingacho – Fried mashed cheese potato stuff (yes!)
• Locro – Awesome potato, corn, and avocado soup
• Guatita – sheep’s stomach and potatoes with a peanutty sauce (enough said)
• Quimbolito – cake like substance in a banana leaf
• Trucha – typical trout plate
• Dulce de higo – dates in a sugary sauce with cheese (that's right, cheese)
• Polo Seco – Same incredible sauce, different meat
• Yaguarlocro – take locro and add dried blood and sausage (umm….yeah)
• Menestra – a really good legume (usually lentils) stew
• Alfenique – a mix between taffy and a rock
• Fajitas- well, not an Ecuadorian classic (we actually made this one) but with their fresh vegetables- ricissimo!

Now if you can match the food with the pictures in the collage, you win a culinary tour through Ecuador, good luck!