Close your eyes and let your senses travel to Ecuador

Abundance, if you go by what Chef Gonzalo Davila Trueba says, aptly summarises the culinary culture of Ecuadorians. The elderly gentleman, flown in from the capital Quito by the Ecuadorian Embassy, spreads his arms wide to the edges of the table and claims, “This is how big some of the bananas can grow. One banana and one fish could feed 20 people.” Trueba is of the opinion that even the poorest people in Ecuador will still be able to afford pork and fruit, at the very least; though he points out that perhaps that is why their commercial culture is laid-back, even lazy.

While we can only blissfully imagine a life as serene as that, the week-long Ecuadorian food promotion at the ITC Grand Central is as close as it gets to experiencing their culture through food. As with South American food in general, the cuisine emphasises on fresh ingredients and simple preparations which leans towards meat and, in coastal regions, seafood. Having said that, Ecuador, though tiny, has abundant fruit and vegetables (especially corn). “Corn originated in the Americas and we have lots of varieties of it,” Trueba informs. As if on cue, we nibbled on the roasted corn that garnished the two salads on offer; the welcoming scent, golden colour and starchy yet not sweet flavour had us at hello.

The salads themselves were lovely, with a palm heart and tuna salad competing closely for approval. We would recommend the barley soup that manages to make the fact that it is healthy the secondary reason to consume it. The star to look for is possibly the ceviche (or cebiche), a simple dish of raw seafood marinated in lime juice, with regional variations along the South American coast. Given that Ecuador is so small that it takes two hours to drive from the coast to the mountain capital (and at the most twelve more to the border), it doesn’t really change that much. “In Quito, we grill shrimps instead of using them raw,” Trueba says. A dish similar to Indian coastal food is the coconut-based Esmeraldas style fish; thus proving that if one gives a man fish and a coconut, he will make a curry roughly the same way anywhere in the world.

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