Food in Quito

By Robin Fillner – SALUD Program Guest blogger traveling in Quito.
Some people in my family were wondering about where I live and the food we eat in Ecuador so I thought I'd write a blog about it. I live in a really neat little apartment in kind of the older part of town. There is just me and the mother of four older children who all live and work around Quito. She has family dinners with them on random nights and every weekend.
One of the sons, Jose Luis, works out of the bottom floor of the apartment. He deals in exports/imports. Another son, Freddie is a lawyer; her daughter Tanya is a social worker, and the other daughter, Christina, is studying to work with computers. Isabel, the mother, has three grandchildren who are all extremely cute and a lot of fun. Nickolas is the son of Tanya; he is 11 and swims most nights of the week. He is very serious about his swimming and eats a special diet. He speaks a little "Ingles". Sometimes Isabel has him interpret. He loves to play video games and watch TV, but works very hard on his studies and sports. I am usually gone on the weekends. While I am gone, Isabel usually has the whole family over for dinners and while Ecuador was in the World Cup, the family came over to watch the games.
Isabel makes breakfast and dinner for me every day. I try extremely hard to help her but she always says "manana, manana," you can help me tomorrow. I try to sneak in washing or drying some dishes, but she tells me to sit down. She puts out butter, jam, cream cheese, coffee, hot chocolate, and so many other little jars on the table every morning – so I sneak those back in the cabinets to help her clear the table. Every morning she makes fresh juice of some sort.
There are so many delicious fruits, they are so different than in the US. There is one called a narajanita – a tomato looking like thingo that grows on trees like an orange. It tastes like sunny delight but is completely natural. She makes these little empanadas – fried tortillas with cheese and usually meat inside. I am bypassing the whole vegetarian deal right now b/c it's just to hard to explain and a big deal to make a special meal just for me. But I think she knows now and she is cutting down on the meat.
We had scrambled eggs this morning, but also breads, fruit salad… pretty much the same as in the US. For dinner, we've had rice, empanadas, beef, pork chops, always a bowl of soup with potatoes, or cream of mushroom. She makes veggie salads with cucumbers and tomatoes. We had some little yucca balls that were white and floury with cheese in the middle, extremely delicious. Sometimes she cuts of pieces of corn but not just the kernels but the whole cob part as well and throws it in the soup. It's really good. We had some little fried broccoli with cheese thingos that were really tasty.
On the street I had some fried plantains with cheese in the middle that was incredible. My friend calls the street vendors 'diarrhea markets'… but I haven't had any problem with that in the least. There are also a lot of restaurants – mexican, chinese, tex mex, ice cream (mmm….)… and a lot of specialty shops. I went to a cafe called 'xocoa' and there was the most impressive selection of delicious chocolate. I had an Irish chocolate with a little bit of liquor and super thick chocolate; so thick I had to almost chew it with a deliciously thick blob of whip cream.
Overall, I think they eat a lot of potatoes, yucca, beans (lentils, garbanzos), and meat with most meals. But everywhere there is fresh fruit juice to be had… it's really inexpensive as well. You can also buy a dozen roses for a dollar! We always have fresh roses in the house. A lot of businesses have fresh roses as well.
Well, time to get with the group!