In Ecuador,
if you don’t have soup with lunch you are to be pitied. Lunch without soup is like a cheesesteak
without provolone (that shows where my cheese allegiance lies) or pasta with no
sauce or a hamburger with no bun or . . . you get the picture.
All restaurants
offer the daily almuerzo (lunch). This starts
with the soup, and then comes the main meal (el segundo) with some assortment
of meat (not promised to be tender), rice, beans, and a fresh fruit drink. The portion isn’t always the largest. But the price is always spot on. A typical almuerzo can be found for under
$3.00 a person.
The soup is
often times the highlight of the meal.
Some
examples of the soups are as follows: Sancocho (meat, corn, yucca, broth), Millocos
(potatoes, peanut butter, broth), Bolas de Verde (balls made from green bananas
with cheese inside, vegetables, broth), Sopa de Acelga (chard, potatoes, cheese
crumbs on top, broth), Crema de Aguacate (Avocado cream), Crema de Cauliflor
(Cauliflower cream), Crema de Harina de Haba (dried fava beans crushed into
flour, potatoes, milk), Sopa de Fideos (bow tie noodles, vegetables, cheese
crumbs spread on top, broth). Forget the
croutons, soups here are served with popcorn.
But there
was one soup that I had to say “no” and risk the scorn of all onlookers for not
eating the prized soup prior to the segundo.
It was Caldo de Patas soup (cow foot, mote, oregano, broth).
The large
toes and ankles stared at me as if they had eyes. And I swore I could smell a musty gym feet
scent exuding from the soup bowl, which everyone else continued to insist
didn’t exist. I took a few sips with my
face clenched and my eyes closed. But I
couldn’t do it. I put down the spoon
with an embarrassed smile and pushed the bowl away from me, signifying that I
wasn’t going to eat it.
Before I
could get my hand off of the bowl, another eager hand was already grabbing it to
gobble the cow foot. Caldo de Patas is
looked at as a delicacy. And it is
common to suck the tough meet off of the thick toes and ankles, and spit the
large bones back into the bowl with a satisfying sense of accomplishment.
Yummy? Not for me.
(some extra family pictures below - not dealing with cow foot)