FOOD IN CUENCA - LIVE TO EAT or EAT TO LIVE!

Food is a big deal!  Most people "live to eat" instead of "eat to live."  The obesity statistics in the USA is a reflection of most people "living to eat."  The thought of being in a country somewhere else where one cannot find their favorite fast food joint or processed packaged or bottled food would be one main reason someone might not move from their country - because food rules in their life.  Some people could never imagine not having a store that has their produce already washed, polished (with poisoning shiny wax) and looking perfect in a styrofoam dish with plastic wrap around it or a big plastic container.  Their meat must be bloody red, and it must be tender, therefore, from a hormone-injected corn-fed animal, certainly not a grass-fed organic one.  Besides, that would be too expensive!  And many people like NOT cooking.  It's too much work and takes too much time!  You have to plan a meal, go out and buy the ingredients, come home and prepare the ingredients, then put it all together and cook or bake it.  That takes time!  Most people truly don't have time.  They're working and running around trying to fit in a million things in their day, especially if they have families, and so it's a lot easier to eat out at a restaurant (family-style of course) or grab something at that drive-up window.  Hey, let's not forget Costco!  They have great, inexpensive, delicious "just pop it in the oven" pre-packaged (with the beautiful finished food photo on the package) meals for that in-a-hurry, no-time-to-cook family.  Sadly, I could go on and on - and not being able to read most of the names in the list of 25 or more ingredients that go into those foods is enough to warn someone not to even go near that food product.  Hey, but I digress. 

One question and subject that really stood out for me when researching living in Ecuador was FOOD!  Food is a big deal!  The main bulk of the questions were not, "Can you get fresh organic fruits and vegetables there?"  but more like, "How difficult is it to find Jiffy Peanut Butter or such-and-such favorite spices, or beer, or wine, or blah, blah, blah, and on and on and on?"  I don't have enough room to list the different name-brands that so many people who were planning the big plunge were concerned about when it came to food.  Hey, I get it!  There are things I miss that weren't particularly good for me (or Bo), but being here has changed our lives once again.  We were already on the path of healthier eating back home.  And when we arrived here, we took a bit of a dive downward, eating lots of PIG (Chancho) - which we love!  Also, exploring different restaurants is the first thing we do when we arrive in a new area on vacation, so we were eating out alot!  Well, for us, and again this is our life and how we do it, eating healthy and wholesome is important.  Yes, we enjoy unhealthy foods, and sometimes a little too much.  Yet, here in Cuenca, we have purposed to find places locally where we can buy our wholesome produce and meats, cook wholesome meals, and stay away from processed packaged foods.  In our seven weeks here, we've been to the Super-Maxi about four times.  Please know I'm not condemning anyone who shops there.  Super-Maxi is like going to Albertson's or Safeway.  Back home, we loved shopping mostly at Trader Joe's and Market of Choice.  We didn't have the amazing Mercados that we have here.  Yes, we had a Saturday Market, and we could go to the local farms. But, we didn't!  We lived the busy full life of working 40 hours plus (that includes all the work around our country acre), and it was easier to be healthy by going to the local stores and grabbing the wholesome ingredients we needed to fix our meals at home.  All this to say what? 

Well, I LOVE this part of our life here - the FOOD!  I LOVE having a husband who enjoys cooking.  We both are (brag brag brag) amazing cooks.  We can make some killer meals between the two of us.  Yet, here, daily we buy fresh produce and sometimes meat (it's not the main ingredient) - and make amazing wholesome meals at home.  We can buy fresh daily, so there is little waste.  Another reason why we love living in the heart of El Centro!  The food we buy is not packaged (only brown rice and packaged beans if we can't find them locally).  The produce needs to be washed and cut and made ready for the meals.  The eggs are sold individually - not in egg cartons - so we carry them home in a plastic "bolsa" (bag), hoping we don't trip on the pipes and holes and uneven sidewalks and streets before we get them safely home.  There are vendors selling bottles of whole unpasteurized, straight from the goat or cow REAL bottles of milk.  An entire aisle at the market (10 De Augusto) upstairs is dedicated to herbal plants and medicinal concoctions for the body's healing and health.  It's a timeless journey going down that aisle, and the smells are addictive and the beautiful huge bundles of herbs are too unusual to identify.  There is no way to describe the difference in shopping in a city that is bringing in produce in such abundance daily, and it is a joy knowing that we have such a daily selection of FRESH and FARMED and UNPACKAGED Foods.

Someone wrote that if you come here all you'll find is white rice, bland foods, and you'd better bring your favorite STUFF or you'll be without.  Yes, this is probably true for anyone who is unable to use there imagination and who doesn't want to learn Ecuador's different fruits and vegetables, how to fix them and who is afraid to try new foods.  it will be difficult for someone who is not willing to get out of their box and truly experience and live in this culture and country.  It will not be the US or any other place one is coming from.  It WILL be Ecuador!  You will have to begin to enter the "tienditas" and search and ask (Oh yeah, better know some Spanish or be good at sign language), and I guarantee you, your choices, cooking, eating, and even weight and health will change - all for the good.
Or, you can choose to bring your USA lifestyle here, never experience the food opportunities before you, and continue to carry in or ship in those things you can't live without.

We, however (again, it's how we chose and continue to choose to do it) have purposed to continue to explore and discover and do without whatever we can't find.  And, we're finding we're eating healthier and learning to cook with less spices and condiments, yet in a new and delicious wholesome way.  Yes, we're loving the FOOD in Ecuador.

 FABULOUSLY FRESH HOMEMADE TOMATO SAUCE 

From the day we arrived to Cuenca and shopped at the mercado, we no longer buy canned tomatoes.  Why would we when we can buy fresh tomatoes, twenty or more for $1 (really!!) and make our own fresh tomato sauce/paste......

......so we drop these brilliant red beauties in rolling boiling water for a few minutes until the skins crack and then place them in bowls to cool........

......we then peel them, add them to our VitaMix (that we carried all the way from Oregon - Yea!), with fresh garlic cloves, oregano, olive oil, and red onion......

.....and voila!!  A delicious, no-cook (pot is used because we only had a couple of bowls) thick wholesome tomato product for soups, sauces, etc.  For $2 we made the equivilant of twelve 8-ounce cans of tomato sauce!!   

You can also make this without peeling the tomatoes, but you have to mix it up longer to dissolve the skins, and the sauce isn't as thick.

Bo's Bodacious Beef Bone Broth Soup

This Beef Bone Broth was made for less then 50 cents a serving.  Beef Bone Broth is one of the healthiest "caldo" you can make!  Read this article (one of the many you can find on-line - I am not promoting this website except for this fabulous informative article) to find out the health benefits of this amazing broth.

http://bodyecology.com/articles/bone-broth#.UP8hXOhjFZ0

Let us know if you want Bo's delicious healthy soup recipe.