-Aguacate-This is avocado, which is becoming more prominent in American food because of the spreading Mexican influence. These were fresh from the Colomas' tree in their little garden; Magalay made some incredible guacamole with it and slices of aguacate are also put into several traditional Cuencan soups. In Salcedo, which I talk about in Vamos Ecuatorianos 3, they make incredible aguacate ice cream as well.
-Babaco-There is no translation for babaco. It looks like a longer, much wider cucumber or zucchini and is green and yellow. Nellie explained to us that some Cuencans eat it fresh like a cucumber, but that this was way too tart for her and she expected it would be way too tart for us too. She does however have a really good babaco pie recipe. I can't really explain the flavor of the babaco in the pie, because it isn't really like anything I've tasted before and it wasn't a strong enough flavor for me to remember it distinctly five days later, but I remember that the slices in the pie had the same texture as apple slices in an apple pie.
-Ca
-Coca-This is a plant that is considered sacred in Ecuador. It only grows in warm weather, but is the best natural energizer for transitioning into high-altitude life. Even the Colomas drink it every day when they travel to the mountains in Peru, which are a third again as tall as the ones in Ecuador. It's also very helpful for recovering from flus and other diseases. It totally demolishes any hunger you may think you had before you drank it as well. I've had it as a tea, which is called mate de coca, and I drink it with every breakfast that I can because of how energizing and filling it is. We've also had it in hard candy form. It's kind of like Halls, but instead of cough drops they're altitude drops. You should also know that coca is the base plant for cocaine, but cocaine is over a thousand times more concentrated than any of the ways by which coca is taken for health reasons. It's also a blend of the coca plant with other things that aren't in the candy or the tea. So there's no worry about any drugy things when you eat or drink the coca plant.
-Guanámana-This is a fruit that looks like a green melon with prickly spikes coming out of it. The inside produces a fruit juice which is white and sweet. It has some pulp, but not thick pulp like orange juice pulp. It tastes like a sweet fruit juice but not like any other fruit.
-Guayaba-This is the guava fruit. I have no idea what it looks like, just that the Hotel San Francisco in Quito has jugo de guayaba that is incredible. The juice was pinkish and tasted very sweet. Until the waitress told us what it was, Leslie thought it was another fruit she can't remember right now.
-Horchata-Horchata is the name for any mixture of medicinal herbs that can be combined to make horchata tea. Horchata tea is simply any tea that is a combination of medicinal herbs. Most restaurants that serve traditional Ecuadorian food have an horchata on the menu; you can also buy the herbs to make horchata in grocery stores or at the Cooperativa (our veggies store) in pre-mixed bags.
-Mora-Moras look almost exactly like raspberries but have a different sweet fruity flavor. I've only had it as a juice, but Leslie bought mora jelly thinking it was raspberry jelly and realized when she used it that it tasted different. Good, but different.
-Naranjilla-Naranjilla sounds like it should just be little naranjas but they're a completely different fruit. They look like yellow-orange tomatoes that were green before they ripened. It's still a citrus fruit; I've only had naranjilla as a juice and it was citrusy and sweet but not orange juice.
-Oritos-This is translated "little golden ones." They are little bananas that are about the size of a swollen forefinger at full-size. They're just like bananas except for their size and their sweetness. We just peeled them and ate them. They were more on the ripe end, so we had to cut out little bruises on some.
-Pepino Dulce-This is translated "sweet cucumber." They are pear-shaped and before they ripen, they are green and taste like cucumbers but sweeter. When the are ripe they are yellow and they bruise purple (like bananas) and taste more like melon. We had them when they were ripe; we just peeled of the skin and ate them like apples.
-Piña-This is just pineapple, except here the inside is white instead of yellow and is sweeter. We ate slices of this for dessert.
-Pitajya-this translates "The fruit that looks like Lisa Simpson's head." Not really, but that's what people call it English: the Lisa Simpson fruit. You're gonna have to imagine how it is pronounced, just remember that "Js" in Spanish make a soft "h" sound. It's very sweet and delicious; you cut it in half and eat the fruit out of it's shell with a spoon. It's a clear-ish white-ish fruit on the inside with lots of little black seeds that you don't have to spit out while you're eating. It's also a very powerful natural laxative, so you never eat more than half of the fruit at once. For pictures of a pitajya, follow this link: http://images.google.com.ec/images?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hl=es&source=hp&q=Lisa+Simpson&btnG=Buscar+im%C3%A1genes&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=
-Platano-This is the Spanish word for plantains. Yeah, you can buy plantains anywhere. They're bigger and sweeter than bananas, and any Ecuadorian will tell you that you have to cook them to make them taste good. Leslie and I have both had plantains before, but they're worth mentioning here because Ecuadorians make them into chips called chifles. They cut them up really thin and fry them and eat them like potato or tortilla chips but they're more flavorful (in our opinion) and more awesome. You can get them at the grocery store or from most chulas cuencanas walking in the streets selling food or from most hole-in-the-wall snackfood places. They can be made to be spicy, and sometimes they are left to ripen for an extra day or two before they're fried and this makes them more sweet.
-Sanguracho-This is a plant that is used to make sanguracho tea and juice. They're both a bright shade of red that looks kind of neon-glowy. I thought the tea looked like Kool-Aid or something like that but it tasted like a sweet, herbal, health-foody tea. It was very good and is customarily consumed before breakfast. The juice wasn't so good, but it had the same kind of flavor; you could tel it was made from the same plant as the tea. A picture of the plant is available in the "Meeting the CEDEI Int'l Staff" Post. Or whichever post's title is the most like that.
-Tomates de Arbol-All I can say about tree tomatoes right now is that they are tomatoes that grow on trees. They look like tomatoes but are more turnip-like in shape. The only way I have tried them is in a sauce called "aji," which has a very strong intriguing flavor. If you put aji on anything, whatever you're eating will taste like aji. Nellie puts it in or on almost everything.
-Uvillas-This translates "little grapes." The ones Nellie had for us are actually larger than grapes, more the size of cherry tomatoes. They are yellow and very much like grapes except that they are more sour. Nellie used to eat them as a snack at work, we ate them just like grapes.
Slocomb...it's been a LONG time, I'm all of your blogging is so interesting. If I weren't so tired I would read it all. However, I will and comment at a later date! But so far fun reads!
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