Go bananas at the ongoing Ecuadorian food festival being held at the ITC Grand Central, Parel till November 17. Taking its name from its location at the equator, Ecuador is known for its corn, cocoa and seafood.
“Most of our food is sweet and salty,” says chef senior Don Gonzalo Davila Trueba, who owns his own restaurant Mare Nostrum (meaning Our Sea in Latin) in Quito, Ecuador’s capital city. Chef Trueba is down in India as part of the Ecuadorian Food Festival at the Hornby’s Pavilion at the hotel.
“It’s easy to catch food in our country. You can just take a walk in the jungle and pluck a banana or some corn from a field and you are set,” adds chef Trueba, whose cooking journey began from the age of four years.
Ecuador is divided into regions, which have their own special food — meat and rice in the mountainous region and seafood, bananas and beans in the coastal region. Cebiche — seafood mixed with lime juice, onions, tomatoes and orange juice and served with corn and banana chips, is an all time favourite.
“It’s an anytime feel-good dish, can be eaten to cure a hangover, or when you are depressed or just to boost your spirit,” says chef Trueba, adding that this healthy dish is eaten at least thrice a week, with an accompanying glass of beer.
Corn, bananas, potatoes, onions and tomatoes are a staple in most Ecuadorian dishes. Meat is eaten a lot — pork, mutton, lamb, beef, rabbits, guinea pigs, turkey and all kinds of seafood. Guinea pigs, particularly ones with six fingers are a delicacy. In the mountainous regions, the meat is sometimes cooked in whisky, beer and other alcohol.
Quinoa — a high protein cereal is sometimes eaten as a wholemeal, due to its high nutritive value. In Ecuador, breakfast usually consists of bread, eggs, coffee or fruit juice. People do not eat anything in between meals. Lunch consists of a cebiche, which is had as an appetiser, a soup, a chicken dish with rice and potatoes and a dessert.
Dinner is soup and a main dish. The most famous soup is a sweet, juicy and black potato soup which chef Trueba is serving at the festival by pureeing the potatoes, adding cumin, salt, onions (red or yellow) and fresh cheese. The soup is served with avocado, lettuce and hard boiled eggs.
Other dishes being rustled by him include Cauca (fresh corn soup), spice shrimps salad, fish cebiche, cheese panadas, picante de camarones, and papas a la quitena among others.
Desserts include tropical fruits like capoli (a type of cherry), peaches, red bananas, avocados, nogadas (nougats made with nuts) and candies made of brown sugar, milk or peanuts. For the festival, chef Trueba has prepared guayaba pié (guava cheesecake), cheese panada and tree milks tarts.
The Ecuadorian food festival features some of chef Trueba’s and Ecuador’s favourite dishes. The popular arroz con pollo (rice with chicken Ecuadorian style), Quitenian style pork with garlic and green onions, bananas and homeny (boiled corn), seco de chivo — lamb cooked with beer, brown sugar and passion fruit, coriander, potatoes and avocados and cebiche de camarones (using shrimps) and cebiche de pescado (using white fish meat).
“I cook every day. Every dish contains a part of me,” says chef Trueba, who considers every meal a blessing for which one should be grateful.
The Ecuadorian food festival is on at Hornby’s Pavilion, ITC Grand Central, Parel till November 17.
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