Food Security

It was food again that engendered the possibility of another food security project. My neighbors invited me to dinner for some Llapingachos, and I of course accepted, saying no can be very offensive. I brought along my oatmeal cookies to have the critics´ test. While chatting over dinner my neighbors mentioned that they wanted to build a garden and needed my help. So they told me they bought seeds for the garden but we are going to have to create it in my backyard. Well ok, for me that sounds great! I will go out of my way to help anyone one who wants to plant vegetables…even if they will be planted in my own backyard. This was great news, another possibility for an income enhancing women’s project. If they have success with the garden, they would like to sell some of the vegetables in the city, though I will definitely be encouraging their personal consumption of the ohh so nutritious vegetables.

Llapingachos: Stuffed yucca patties with hard boiled egg, and cheese

Yucca: Also known as cassava, a starchy tropical root vegetable. It contains a large amount of dietary fiber. It has a thick bark like skin which is peeled and then the yucca can be boiled or fried.

It was food again that engendered the possibility of another food security project. My neighbors invited me to dinner for some Llapingachos, and I of course accepted, saying no can be very offensive. I brought along my oatmeal cookies to have the critics test. While chatting over dinner my neighbors mentioned that they wanted to build a garden and needed my help. So they told me they bought seeds for the garden but we are going to have to create it in my backyard. Well ok, for me that sounds great! I will go out of my way to help anyone one who wants to plant vegetables…even if they will be planted in my own backyard. This was great news, another possibility for an income enhancing women’s project. If they have success with the garden, they would like to sell some of the vegetables in the city, though I will definitely be encouraging their personal consumption of the ohh so nutritious vegetables.

Llapingachos: Stuffed yucca patties with hard boiled egg, and cheese

Yucca: Also known as cassava, a starchy tropical root vegetable. It contains a large amount of dietary fiber. It has a thick bark like skin which is peeled and then the yucca can be boiled or fried.

Calabazo

An admirably artistic neighborhood friend also went to teach the students and their parents today. She is one of the gems here in Esmeraldas (known as the green province), a gatekeeper of the history and culture of her African Ecuadorian roots. She is a naturalist who creates works of art from what nature supplies her. One of the main types of art she works with is calabazo. Calabazo is plentiful here and was traditionally used to make bowls and utensils. Maria fears the loss of this traditional craft and wants to share her skill with the younger generation. Today the students and their mothers labored over calabazos making pear shaped ornaments and flower designed calabazos. It was touching to see the children so eager to learn their ancestral craft and share time with their mothers laboring and learning as a team. I hope that the lessons continue over the next months and the girls and their mothers can pass on this invaluable craft to their daughters and granddaughters of the next generation.

I must admi,t my entrepreneurial mind kept thinking how we could turn this small group of about 12 mothers and children into a group of artisans profiting from a culturally rooted activity, uniting the women of the community. I hope to encourage the progression of this group of women. I have been thinking and thinking of ideas to make their arts marketable. So far I have been thinking of talking to some of the artisan
stores in Quito which sell the artwork of small groups. Maybe these could be used as a bird house and marketed to the abundance of birders who visit the country. Any ideas on the aesthetics of the artwork or ideas for selling are much appreciated!

Sugar and Oats

This morning I decided to whip up some oatmeal cookies. Usually this would be a simple task, but with my campo oven I could only bake 4 small cookies at a time, greatly lengthening the process. I wanted to bring some tasty treats to give the kids after my first nutrition workshop. Since oatmeal cookies incorporate a whole grain, this was the perfect dulce.

To begin the educational aspect of nutrition, I started with my beloved students in a town up the road. We are currently working together in our Esmeraldas Leyendo Program. They are a great well behaved group, mostly young girls, who are always eager to learn…what more could a teacher ask for? Yes here I am known as profesora, though this is not really my main function, I enjoy teaching and believe the greatest possibility for community engagement and betterment is through young people. Today we worked on the three main food groups using the analogy of our body as a house. A house needs energy, protection and to be constructed just like
our bodies. In our bodies our proteins construct our bodies, the carbohydrates, fats and sugars provide energy and the fruits and vegetables give us protection. The kids then divided pictures of foods into each of the three categories to enforce their understanding. So today we started with the basics but fundamentals.

Kid Approval Oatmeal Cookies: Approved

*** (my 5 year old judge offered his dad some of the cookie, which means he wasn’t enthralled by it) Though the others seemed to like them.

Papaya

Today I prepared papaya seeds as a laxative, I feel the need to give myself a good parasite cleansing here and there. The seeds had a horseradish taste, but they did the trick. Then I treated myself with a delectable papaya, in Ecuador they taste worlds better, much sweeter and juicer. The papayas also grow very large, some grow about the size of a baby, so I guess you must be creative in finding ways to take advantage of such abundance.

Papaya

Facts: A native to the American tropics, first cultivated in Mexico. The fruit can be eaten green or ripened. Also the leaves can be steamed and eaten as a green vegetable while the seeds are a pepper substitute. Folklore claims that the papaya fruit and seeds can be used as a contraceptive especially if eaten in its unripe form. The seeds can also be used as a laxative to remove parasites, though dangerous in large doses. The fruit also contains papain, an enzyme which helps digest proteins. The fruit contains many nutrients and antioxidants including vitamin C, flavonoids, vitamin B, folate and pantothenic acid. It is also full of minerals including potassium and magnesium. These nutrients aid in cardiovascular health and protect against colon cancer.

Waste

The by product of our lives and all we consume. I have been amazed to find that it takes me a whole week to fill up a plastic grocery bag of trash (a miniscule amount to my accumulation back in the states). Most of my waste tends to be organic food wastes which gets chucked out the back door for the neighbor’s chickens or dogs to eat. At home I was determined to throw all of my waste into the huge compost pile outback, but here I figure I can aid the food chain in a different way with my debris. One downside here is the lack of recycling. It pains me to know that a perfectly recyclable product will be thrown away…which begs the question. Where will it be thrown? Here in my town the trash is collected erratically by donkey cart. A man comes along with a donkey and rings a little bell and you throw what you have in the trash cart. The trash apparently ends up somewhere in the side of a hill. Though the waste removal practices are not the best, people tend to be much more efficient at the first two Rs, reduce and reuse. I once imagined totting my plastic bottles all the way to Quito where I could find somewhere to recycle, until I realized that my neighbor actually wanted them. The government is implementing new environmental taxes on plastic bottles and bags, leaving consumers to reevaluate the sustainability of their purchase decisions.

College

Ramen noodles are claimed to be a dsetitute college kids staple, which still hold true as a “poor student” in this school of life. The other day while shopping I came across some ramen noodle knock offs “Loveme fideo”. Even better, they were only 9 cents a piece. Considering it costs me $2.50 to splurge for the most affordable spaghetti noodles , I couldn’t pass up an offer for 9 cents. The whole Italian cooking thing hasn’t caught on here. Its always rice and more rice, and when there are noodles they will unequivocally be accompanied with rice. I can’t imagine that these Asian style noodles are the paradigm of health food, but plain white rice needs a substitute now and then. So I made my healthy spin on ramen noodles, reminiscent of those exam cramming days in Centerville Hall.

Food Chain

As I sit here writing this blog a gecko just dropped from the ceiling, a rat ran across the ceiling beam and a huge thump slid down the roof while a dog tirelessly barked at my back door. I then heard some screeching meows and a crying whine. I would suspect the cat had been staked out on the roof waiting for the rat and took and unfortunate fall right into the dogs prowl. I’ve been trapped into a triangle of prey. The not so welcome rat, that has been a common evening visitor, was apparently found out by a neighborhood cat. Which in turn got the dog a little excited. A Tom and Jerry chase by far more amusing than any cartoon.

I will have to admit, I am cheering for the cat. Especially because tonight the rat took a short pause to stop and plop a terd on my books, as if mockingly saying, “Nanny nanny boo boo, you can’t catch me.”

Failure

Growing up, failure was never a very welcomed word. I quickly learned here in Ecuador it was something I would have to get used to, along with the mosquitoes, rice and bats it would be a incessant obstacle. Not long ago during our Peace Corps Mid Service Conference we received a letter we had written to ourselves during the first week of training. I had mentioned I was elated and proud of myself because I was able to successfully exchange a notebook in my inadequate fragmented Spanish. Even then it was apparent that this journey would be wrought with failure, in turn the triumphs would be all the more glorious.

A few days ago I had as you may say, a “huge party foul.” It was the birthday of one of my many second moms here in town, so I decided to bake (obviously). I did not know a basic yellow cake recipe and decided to use my pineapple cake recipe, just leaving out the pineapple. Everything seemed to go relatively well until I flipped the cake out of the pan and realized it had been sitting lopsided while baking. I managed to bake a lopsided, unrisen, triangle cake. To make matters worse, my frosting was a bit too thin and it slid down the cake into a huge pool of icing surrounding the base. Well, if I was back at home this cake wouldn’t have gotten further than the trash can, but here I had to make due with what I had. I didn’t exactly have the option of running to the nearest bakery to pick one up as a plan B. So I headed to the neighbors, melting cake in tow. Though the cake was not aesthetically pleasing it brought us all together on the neighbors porch for an amusing birthday celebration. I guess it’s true, we must first fail before we succeed. What I first wrote off as an utter culinary disaster turned into an evening of laughter and celebration.

Chocolate

May 29, 2011

Yesterday while working on some of our community bank materials before the meeting we had a recipe exchange! For me this is pretty exciting, though they say that I am cheating by looking in a book. Well, baking is more of a science anyway so I like to have precise measurements. So far all of the baking has been a hit, the oatmeal cookies, banana bread and the pineapple upside down cake and many prior experiments. Everyone has been very intrigued by the egg salad sandwich as well.

So after our community bank meeting I announced that I will be coming early the next week and we are going to have a cooking demonstration. I am eventually hoping to tie in some charlas on nutrition and small businesses, but for now paso a paso….

I am also excited to start a vegetable garden with my neighbors. I saved and dried out some seeds from zucchini, tomatoe and cucumber. My evening experiment will be yogurt. To make yogurt you just need boiled milk and a tablespoon of yogurt without preservatives. I have Tony natural yogurt and I am going to give it a go with that, I am suspecting there are some preservatives though that may impede the process…but I will have to wait until the morning to find out.

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June 8, 2011

So the yogurt experiment failed, I will be on the lookout for a yogurt without preservatives.

I headed out to Quito to make my way to Tena in the Amazon for the 3rd annual chocolate fair. I made a quick last minute decision to go to the fair, which meant I had tons of vegetables that I could not finish before leaving. So the obvious thing to do would be make a vegetable soup. So when I headed to Quito I ended up carrying along 4 Tupperware of veggie soup and burrito ingredients (no wonder us gringos are known for always having too many bags when we travel). I was not expecting to serve my soup to anyone but once I got to Pablo’s we heated it up and had it for dinner. To me it was pretty hilarious/embarrassing to serve my vegetarian slightly spicy meal (people have a low spice tolerance here). Anyway I think it went over well, everyone finished their soup, opposed to the last time I tried to feed people vegetable soup and I saw them sneakily pouring it back into the pot.

Who loves chocolate? ME ME ME

Though I was initially hesitant to travel all the way to Tena and be out of my site for a week, my mother pointed out the fact that she had never been to a chocolate fair. So I headed to the oriente for the 3rd Annual Tena Chocolate Fair I thought, yeah this really is a once in a life time experience, how many people get the chance to attend chocolate fairs in the Amazon?

I tested out a few chocolates but my favorite was a quinoa filled chocolate covered truffle, obscenely amazing. I am in search for a recipe for this delectable treat.

We arrived in Tena late and woke up early Friday for a full day of chocolate. It was great, there were cacao cooperatives from all over the country, the coast and the Amazon. There were also quite a few government agriculture organizations and NGOs. Many organizations were represented by booths selling their chocolate, I kind of went crazy since the cost of the bars ranged from $1-3, what a steal especially for organically fair traded dark chocolate. My friends and family might get spoiled when I go home this month ;) It was wonderful to see examples of producer cooperatives that are actually making their own product and even selling it in foreign markets. One of the most successful organization which has actually achieved the feat of exporting and selling their product is Kallari. They are a group of about 400 families in the amazon growing cacao and producing chocolate bars. After doing a little research I found that Divine Chocolate is another organization in which the producers are major stakeholders in the company. Ghanian farmers own 45% of the company. It is refreshing to see that farmers and community members have been able to create their own value added product to sell to an international market. Most producers lose most of the product’s value to intermediaries and foreign chocolate companies who then process the cacao into specialty chocolate mainly in Europe and the US. My goal is to help my organization capture at least a small part of the final market value of their product. That would be possible by selling the cacao to a chocolate processer here in Ecuador who offers a just price and eliminates the number of middle men in the process, selling directly to an exporter abroad which will again eliminate more middle men and offer a higher price. The ultimate goal would be that the cooperative produce their own final product. There are many products which could be made from cacao, obviously chocolate, specialty chocolate, chocolate covered dry fruits, nibs (which is grinded cacao beans mixed with a little dried coconut or other fruit), cacao liquor, beauty products from the cacao butter, and many more. The difficulty in reaching the ultimate value added product is the investment cost which would be needed. First the organization needs a Sanitation Registry which would be a few thousand dollars, then they would need machinery which separates the cacao powder and butter and enables the chocolate making process, marketing and networking would have to take place to create and sell a new product, and probably organic and fair trade certification would be a must in the international market (which also cost $$).These are just a few of the necessities needed to begin producing a final product.

After thinking through all the costs and work associated with producing a product and researching successful national and international cacao cooperatives it seems that the most reasonable method to create an exportable value added product would be for the whole province of Esmeraldas, Ecuador to combine forces and produce a cacao product unique to their region. Right now there is an Esmeraldas Mesa de Cacao which is an organization of most of the cacao cooperatives in Esmeraldas. If they could unite together in the processing and product exportation it may be a more feasible commercialization plan.

Sometimes people tend to be a little prideful about their cacao and want to create a unique product from their organization, but I think if they want to have the possibility to excel in a global market it is necessary that they unite their forces. If producers from the province of Esmeraldas unified in the processing and exportation of their cacao, they would save on initial fixed input costs and take advantage of economies of scale since they would have a higher supply of cacao if many cooperatives were processing cacao at the same plant.

These are just some personal thoughts, they may sound good in theory but try talking to a group of producers about this, it is hard enough to achieve agreement and cooperation within one group. Well I guess one has the right to dream right?

This is a different type of cacao, they say when you dry it and roast it the beans have a nuttier flavor.

June 6th

This weekend we cooked a yummy eggplant lasagna. Eggplant is such a wonderful vegetable but very underutilized here. We offered some leftovers to Pablo’s brother who said, “This is really good…but it has kind of an odd flavor,” to which the reply was, “yes it is an eggplant lasagna.” I think the lasagna went over pretty well.

A new vegetarian restraint opened in Quito. We went to check it out and it was amazing! Lunch for $3 including a juice or soy milk, 4 side dishes a dessert and even arroz integral!

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June 7th

I am beginning a food diary to write down what I eat every day and how I feel after that. I have a suspicion that I have some sort of food allergy (though maybe its just a regular old parasite or tropical bug disease…not trying to scare you mom haha). So I have decided to try to eliminate wheat from my diet for a few days and see how I feel. I am only on day two with no wheat, so good so far, I haven’t been sick. I initially thought it would be really difficult not to eat wheat, but I realized breads are not eaten that frequently here and since most food is cooked fresh there are few hidden ingredients in meals. That is refreshing to hear in the case that I do have an allergy. Carbohydrates here on the coast consist mainly of rice, plantains, yucca and corn. Wheat is rare, and since there is no panaderia here in town, it is not a food staple. We’ll see how long I can stick to the experiment in a culture where declining food offered from someone is an insult.

(Nope, I ended up just having some amoebas, thanks goodness no food allergies)

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June 9, 2011

Today my neighbor invited me over for two meals. Right when I was about to sit down to a hearty lentil vegetable soup she called me over for dinner, well so much for trying to lose a few pounds before I head back home… We had rice and a beef soup for lunch and fried fish and rice with plantains for dinner (gotta love the double carb). During dinner some how one of the teeny bones poked into my gum and it took me a while to finally pull it out, those fish bones are dangerous! So tonight while I was quietly relaxing with my GRE study materials, I heard a plump and skurry across my ceiling. I thought it might just be the geckos fighting as usual, but nope, it was a rat running through the rafters. Last time I was faced with this situation things didn’t end so well. My 11 year old neighbor asked me if I put out the poison for the rats, and I replied, “yea but I don’t think they ate it.” Well, I think somehow my rat trap (fishbone with poison) ended up in the wrong hands. My little 7 year old neighbor came over and yelled, “You killed one of the puppies and a kitten!” Well that travesty has passed and I think my neighbor has finally forgiven me. Now the neighbor´s dog has yet another litter of puppies and a rat has reappeared. Though I have learned from my mistake, I will not sit back and let the rats conquer my abode, though bats are a different story. So tonight I put out an irresistible trap…chicken bones with peanut butter topping, what rat could resist that? I know Maryland mice love peanut butter and I hope that’s a transnational favorite.

Tomorrow will be another day of map making and calabazo creations!

June 14, 2011

Here chocolate is the traditional morning beverage, and it once was the staple. Today instant coffee has taken over the market, but there are still some who prefer their morning chocolate to coffee. It is not what you may be imagining, not a chocolate powder like hot chocolate, but it is the whole ground cacao bean which makes this drink. It is much more similar to coffee and has good deal of caffine too. It is usually made with cinnamon (which grows there also), cloves and anise. The ground cacao is boiled in water until dissolved and then milk and sugar can be added to taste.

Limon y sal! The secret ingredients to incorporating vegetables into the coastal Ecuadorian diet. I guess that may have been obvious, but tonight the magical power of salt and lemon came into play. It all began when my neighbor invited me over to learn how to make plantain empanadas. I had mentioned how I would love to learn to make them, and today we did. First you must find Domicilo plantains, they are a bit smaller than the others. They are boiled for a while and finally they are mashed into a dough so that they can be formed into empanadas. We rolled out the plantain and then filled them with a meat mixture or cheese. Next you secure the sides of the empanadas and cut off the extra plantain to form a half moon shape. Finally, they are fried in a pan of hot hot oil.

After laboring on our empanadas it was time to eat. I brought over a salad I had made earlier in the evening to top the empanadas. Usually empanadas are topped with an onion, cabbage and lemon salad. My salad of course had a few more vegetables and I was doubting that anyone would enjoy it. The salad contained tomatoes, red cabbage, onion, and radishes. Finally the key ingredients, a lot of lime and salt were added. To my surprise everyone loved it, they ate the whole bowl! I have honestly never seen people from my town eat so many vegetables and enjoy them. This gives me hope that with a little creativity a healthy diet might catch on.

July 11, 2011

Still reintegrating after a wonderful but ephemeral vacation to the states. What better way to assimilate than a new gastronomic experience with the neighbors. After a slightly hermetic day of reading in my house, I was invited over for dinner. Though the last few weeks semi-amoeba free where liberating, I admit if I want people to accept me into their world, I must eat their food (therefore, probably getting more food borne amoebas). I imagine living with the prospect of amoebas is just something I’ll have to deal with for the next 9 months.

Tonight we had grilled chicken feet with plantains and some other organs thrown in. This is a pretty common dish here in Ecuador, though I have somehow escaped its fate thus far. They weren’t too bad, just skin, fat and gristle. I wouldn’t rank them highly, health-wise, but it is a very efficient use of animal protein which us prodigal North Americans don’t tend to condone. Which begs the question, what do we do with all the chicken feet, necks, livers and the like? Who’d have thought that a chicken bone would make for a great teething ring? Well, it seems to get the job done. I guess we can learn a lot from my neighbors in the way of consumption reduction and the environmental benefits of parsimony and reductionism. I’m not saying you should forgo the teething ring for a chicken bone…but I am sure there are other non essential goods we consume without stopping to think twice if they are necessities or indulgences.

Food Nostalgia

This morning I had a nostalgic feeling for home and a sudden craving for an egg sandwich. A simple recipe and everything is available here in town. So after a morning jog I headed to the tienda to buy 10 eggs for a dollar and then got to work. I have been using my 5 year old neighbor as a guinea pig to receive feedback and gauge what recipes will be covertly given to the dog when I’m not looking ( I do admit, I have had that temptation on many occasions) and which will actually be enjoyed. A simple egg sandwich with a little mustard and mayo, it was a success in my book, but I am still waiting on reviews from the judge.

Kid Approval: Eaten

This evening I had a yummy garbanzo bean and vegetable curry, garlic potatoes and for dessert sweet babaco.

Recipe Sweet Babaco:

½ cup of water

½ cup of panela, a natural sugar produced here in Ecuador

Cup of cubed babaco

Then the ingredients are mixed in a pot and slowly boiled about 5-10 minutes

Babaco:

A green fruit turning to yellow when ripened. The babaco grows in high altitude climates and is a cousin of the papaya. The fruit is seedless and the skin can be eaten. It is said to have the flavors of strawberry, papaya, kiwi and pineapple. It is frequently used to make fruit juices.

Food for Thought:

As probably every Peace Corps volunteer knows, you can win anyone over with a simple banana bread. It never ceases to amaze people that overabundant fruit which people feed to their pigs can make such a delectable treat. To try to increase the bang for my buck in the nutritional department I used the recipe which calls for 1 cup flour and 1 cup oatmeal to introduce a different grain into the bread. My neighbors loved it and wanted to try it themselves. We got out all of our ingredients and mixed them up on the porch and then baked our bread in their outside wood stove. Ultimately I think I had better success with my campo oven, the wood gave the bread a smokey flavor which is not the most desirable for a sweet dish.

Kid Approved: Eaten and enjoyed