La Comida

When I left for Ecuador, I never expected the food to be quite as different as it is.  I can still find ingredients for my PB&J (if I’m willing to splurge $9 on a jar of peanut butter) but for the most part I’ve had to adapt to a very different eating style.  In the US, our meals (especially breakfast) consist of very different foods.  Breakfast is almost always toast, cereal, coffee, and maybe some eggs and bacon if you’re feeling adventurous.  Here, ceviche and encebollada (basically cold and hot versions of the same fish soup with lime, red onions, and cilantro) are popular breakfasts here on the coast.  The soup is served with chifle, which is something like a potato chip made out of plantain.  You crunch up the chifle and pour it in your soup bowl, and then shovel down the entire concoction.  At first that whole process just seemed really strange (and not so appetizing) but now ceviche is one of my favorite meals, and I can’t go a day without eating chifle. I have a 9:00am date with two Ecuadorian friends and a fellow Americans to grab encebollada on Thursday.  Luckily, my stomach is finally adjusting to this kind of diet, and I’m feeling pretty confident that I can prove myself tomorrow as a true Ecuatoriana.  Lunch and dinner usually consist of a bowl of  soup and then a second course of meat, rice, and some type of “salad.”  I have yet to figure out what the soups consist of, but I usually resist the temptation to ask.  There are usually hunks of cheese and meat, cilantro, potato, etc. I’ve also learned this much about the mystery soups:

Sticky, gooey, brown, balls: plantain

Stringy, potato-like pieces: yucca

Soggy bread-like circles: rosca (sort of like a ring shaped cracker)

Lentil-ish stew: menestra (pretty much the same thing as lentil stew, but a different species of plant)

With the soup comes a plate with white rice, some kind of meat (usually cooked through VERY well done, and served in very thin slices), and some type of salad (macaroni salad, a cucumber, lettuce, and tomato salad, plantain (verde = less ripe, served whole with margarine and peanuts, maduro = “mature,” sweeter, usually served fried in slices).  Unfortunately, they aren’t very big on veggies here. I dearly miss big green salads.  For drinks, my aunt usually makes “jugo natural” or natural juice, which is absolutely incredible.  Everything from pineapple to passion fruit, to some fruits I’ve never heard of—guanabana, níspero, etc. goes into these juices.  For snacks, I usually dig up some crackers or chifle.  I’ve also recently discovered Magnum ice cream bars, which are imported from Europe and are as delicious as anything with 420 calories. 

Overall, my appetite has expanded, I’m learning to appreciate the food more, and I’m definitely putting on the classic exchange student weight. I’ve heard “Amy, ¡te engordaste!” [Amy, you got fatter!] enough times to know that it’s a true fact.