Food: you can’t live without it, and everyone has their favorites. Food preferences are so personal and often tied to more than just what tastes good: the special dishes your family shares on holidays that one restaurant you go to where the French fries are perfect, or the one thing you know how to cook better than anything. We all love food! Ecuadorians are like that too.
Whenever you sit down to eat with an Ecuadorian, they will say, Buen provecho! It's like saying bon apetite, or enjoy your meal. It is such a big part of the culture here. If someone is walking in or out of a restaraunt and you have your food, they will automatically say buen provecho as they walk by.
I have experienced some interesting and delicious meals here and thought I would share a few things with you. So, let’s get started!
I have tried so many things--it is a challenge to decide how to explain it all to you, so I’ll organize by meal: breakfast, lunch and dinner.
We’ll start with Ecuadorian breakfast, and the venerable plantain. It is like a much larger banana, but very starchy. You cannot eat them raw. They must be cooked. They can be fried, roasted, or mashed. A popular snack is chifles, or plantain chips. These can be plain chips with salt or fancier ones with spices.
