Gastronomico

We returned to the corn field in the late afternoon as Anita was worried the pending rain would ruin what was left of the crop. The family uses the summer corn harvest for food for the entire year. We went to help and were soon joined by Anita’s parents and a young relative, a girl aged 10.  They were truly thankful for our help since we were able to finish the entire field.

We carried the sacks of corn on our backs back to the house where everyone gathered to separate the kernels according to their use. The main focus of this work was to get the biggest ones, about the size of a dime, off the cob so they could be processed, by hand, into dough for tortillas. We left the family at this point to get ready for dinner at Shamuico, and unlikely gourmet restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

This meal was an intensely rich 8 course extravaganza. About the chef: he was born in Saraguro but moved to Spain as a child, married a Spanish woman, and was trained in classical European cooking. He returned to Saraguro and opened Shamuico using his classical training with local ingredients and recipies. His talented staff produced some amazing dishes, all beautifully presented.  The menu was hard for me and google translate to decipher, but between my bad Spanish and the waiters better English we had an idea of what we were eating. 

For all the foodies out there this is what we ate:

A lovely slice of bread served in anindividual tiny basket with a smear of herbed butter on a rock.

These are lentil wafers with dots of cilantro cream served on a traditional fan used to stoke cooking fires.

Maya wanted a cocktail. Ok it was a special occasion. This is horchata tea, made with 28 flowers and herbs, lemon, and panela which is a natural sugar. Her version was spiked with alcohol of unknown variety,  and served with this beautiful bouquet representing some of the botanicals in the drink. 

A delicious corn fritter ball studded with pork served on a splat if cilantro cream and placed on a piece of broken pottery.

A plantain fritter also with pork and cilantro creams but served on a rock.

A lovely lentil soup with cheese wafers and fried cheese bits, served in half a coconut shell.

This was my soup but I thought it was my main dish since I had ordered the fish. A super rich cream base with bits of sea creatures. I could identify tenticals and crab but that’s it because I’m not really a seafood person so o wasn’t sure what other guys were in this soup. There was a dollop nearly raw egg yolk which was curious. My soup came when maya got her main dish do I ate some then traded with her as she thought the seafood soup was outstanding.

These were the main dishes. Maya’s was chicken meatballs in a gravy with pasta and vegetables. There was a distinct flavor of cumin which was odd. It didn’t really work but it was prettty good. Mine was a piece of whitefish on a bed of pepitas and peas served with potato balls. I was so full by the time this case I could just eat a few bites.

But there’s always room for dessert when it’s chocolate, and this was really really good!

When we returned to the house the family was still working on making tortillas from the corn we had picked earlier. The kernels were ground and mixed with water, egg, salt, and sugar. The extended family gathers in a smallish hut to make the dough, pat it into thick tortillas, and cook them on a pan over a fire. They keep them stored a d eat them fir a month or more.

We ate some for breakfast and they reminded me of hardtack.

Helping the family get the kernels off.

It’s a lot of work. We also made sugar cane juice with the community owned hand powered machine.

The three hour bus to Cuenca was really nice and we are here for four days.