Cooking in Ecuador - What Can Not be Found?

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©2016 TJ & Tamera Overman, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ReUse by permission only.

Living in Ecuador is a dream come true.  If you have read our earlier posts you will know we did extensive research prior to moving here.  One of our focuses was food.  We love good food.  We love to cook.  Neither of us could wait to try our first real ceviche.  We were excited about the fresh fish and vegetable markets and we have not been disappointed in any way.  We also paid very close attention to the things we would not be able to get here.  We thought we had a handle on it but there have been a few surprises.  In some cases it is just the little differences.

I choose Jif.

Peanut butter AKA mani, was a big one.  I eat it like there is no tomorrow.  It was something I thought I'd have to do without.  As it turns out you can get it here but-.  Yes, one big but.  It is not the same as Jif or Peter Pan.  It is not nearly as sweet.

Don't get me wrong, it is very good but a lifetime of the sweet stuff every kid in the U.S.A. eats has jaded me.  It is good, just not as good. It is very expensive.

The same is true of ketchup.

No Heinz or Hunts here.  Salsa de Tomate.  Also not as sweet.  As a matter of fact I think it is better.  It can be used with french fries sure but it can also be used to make red sauce.  It can be used with a lot of things.  Of course, when I make fries for my wife (she has to have fries!) I also "Americanize" the ketchup with a little vinegar and a hint of sugar.  Unlike peanut butter, ketchup is very affordable.

Excellent for many things.

Buffalo sauce (yes for chicken wings) can't be found.  I make my own anyway so did not worry about it at all. The reason I mention it is because native Ecuadorians mention it.  A lot.  Those who have been to the United States almost always bring it up and when they do you can see that first taste on their faces.  If I were to open a chicken wing restaurant it would be a guaranteed success.

Tacos.  Another thing you can't buy here.  I have not found a restaurant that sells tacos like I have had in the States or Mexico.  There are no hard shells either.  No corn chips outside of Doritos.  The tacos here consist of a soft cornmeal cake with beans, tomato, rice, lettuce, and onion on top.  This is topped with lime mayonnaise and salsa de tomate.  They are very delicious but sometimes you just have to have that crunch man.  You will not find tomato salsa or sour cream here either.  Soft flour tortillas can be found though.


Living in Crucita means fresh seafood on a regular basis.  Horrible, I know.  I remember the first time I ordered fried seafood here.  It was a mixta which means what it sounds like.  A mix of seafood (you pick it) for the platter.  Mahi and shrimp dusted in cornmeal.  Simply delicious.  The cocktail sauce wait, what?  No cocktail sauce?  No lemon?  No malt vinegar?  No, none. Instead there is ketchup, mayonnaise, and a spicy pepper relish.  The relish will have to do and it does.  It is amazing but it is not cocktail sauce.  No worries.  I can make my own.

Ahhh.  Horseradish.

It is very easy to make if you have horseradish. There is no horseradish anywhere.  No one knows what it is.  I can't even find the raw root to prepare it myself.  Our friends Bonnie and Luc gave us some before they left for Costa Rica. Our friend Rob brought more. If you come for an extended period it is a must bring item.  We were surprised with the no lemon , no horseradish thing.  We live in a fruit and vegetable mecca but you can't find either of these things.  We can do without lemons since we have limes but horseradish?  Say it ain't so!


There are a lot of things you can't buy ready made here.  So what can you do?  You can make them yourself of course.  It is either that or go without.  If you are a mess in the kitchen now is the time to learn!   Remember, as long as you are learning you will make mistakes. Those who love to cook or aspire to learn will quickly find there may be no better place to practice the art.  For all the things we can't get here there are many new things we've never seen, heard of, or tasted that we can get.

The best chips ever except for mine!

Below is a list of some food items that either can't be found (at least in our area of Ecuador), are very hard to find, or are very expensive.  This list will grow I'm sure.

Click on the links to see great recipes for some of these items.  They are not my personal recipes but they are close.  I don't measure anything unless I am baking.  As such I have no recipes to write down.  I may have to change that for future posts.

If you would like to share your cooking tips and recipes please do.  If you have something to add you can either comment directly or e-mail us.  We would love to hear from you.

If you come to visit us then pretty please with sugar on top, bring a treat!

Chao!


Cocktail Sauce (Substitute lime juice for lemon juice.  Have someone bring you horseradish!)
Corn Chips (Doritos can be found but not regular chips)
Sour Cream (Prepare fresh sour cream 24 hours in advance)
Blue Cheese Dressing

Pita Bread/Chips
Bagels

Buffalo Wing Sauce (Not my recipe but close.  Sorry, mine is a secret!)

Horseradish
Malt Vinegar
Peanut Butter (U.S.A. Style)
Salted Peanuts (They grow here but we can't find them!)
Worcestershire Sauce (Hard to find)
Hard Taco Shells (Use corn chip recipe but brush on oil and bake!)
Philadelphia Cream Cheese (there is cream cheese here but-)
Cheddar Cheese (Pricey.  Slices are easier to find but the flavor is not the same!)
Premium Liquors (Can be had for a price. No Seagrams products though)
Half and Half (Buy cream and milk to make your own!)
Candy Bars (Nestle and Mars are here for a price.  I wants me Snickers!)
Grits
Orange and Black Pekoe Lipton Tea
Baking Soda (Can be found in small quantities in local tiendas.  You might have to ask.)
Lemons

©2016 TJ & Tamera Overman, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ReUse by permission only.

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Tamera's Take: Cast Away, Cats and Blue Bottle Diablos

I would first like to say !Bienvenidos! (welcome) to our new readers in Ecuador, Ukraine, Germany, Romania and the United Kingdom.

Tamera's Take is about being here.
Are you ready?  I am.

In the beginning, we considered going the shipping container route to bring most of our belongings.  Then we considered airline cargo (basically a lot of checked luggage) to bring some of our belongings.  In the end there were just too many complications with trying to bring all that stuff.

Some things we gave away to family

If you read my husband Jason's most recent post, Familia y Los Amigos - They Love You.  Always and Forever, then you know that we sold or gave away almost everything we owned in order to move to Ecuador.

We arrived in Ecuador with four checked bags weighing a total of 200 pounds, and four carry-on bags consisting of a laptop bag, a small suitcase on wheels, and two carry on pet carriers containing two cats each.

Yes we traveled with pets.  Four pets to be exact - in case you did not do the math.

We rented a fully furnished house about 75 yards (68 metres) from the beach.   Except for a toaster and a frying pan, the house has everything needed.



I think you get the picture.  No.  Not that picture.  The other one.

Yes we brought our CATS!!

There will be a future post on container shipping, air cargo, what we brought and what we wish we had brought.

I will mention one item I wish we had brought. Benedryl.

Sea Glass

Something I notice, now that I live so close to the beach (playa), is the array of things that I find on the shore.

Some things discarded by the many fisherman as they sort out their catch, some things that come directly from the ocean, and some things that wash up with the tides from another place.


My home state of Florida has nearly 1200 miles of coastline, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Straits.

Drift wood? Drift tree!

This is not a geography lesson.

Treasure hunters with their metal detectors, beach combers picking up shells, sea glass, drift wood, conservationist protecting sea turtle nests and native plants of the dunes; these sights are second nature to me.  Just like spending summers at my grandmother's beach cottage in St. Augustine, going to Anastasia Park with friends as a teenager and as an adult taking my own daughter to the these beaches.

But I never lived at the beach.  Never lived anywhere with the shore and the ocean just steps away from my front door.


A lot of things get discarded in a natural process or otherwise.

Fishermen discard some things

Some things make that transition from shore to ocean and back to the shore again.  Maybe not the same shore, but a shore.  Somewhere.

I learned from an early age to keep an eye out for one of those things that wash up on shore in the natural process - jellyfish.  Why?  Because if jellyfish are on the shore, you can bet they are in the water close to the shore.

If you have never experienced a jellyfish sting, I am glad.



I was not so lucky.  It is inevitable when you spend so much time at the beach.  No matter how well you checked out the shore before you got into the water.  As a kid though, you are sometimes willing to take that risk.

Little Sting Ray

I have not been stung by a jellyfish since I was a child.  I suppose I learned my lesson.  I still scan the shore before I jump into the ocean.

That did not matter two days ago.  Jason and I went down to the beach for the specific purpose of swimming in the ocean.
I bugged him about it all day.  I really wanted to go swimming.  Even though Jason was a bit tired - we had both been up since 5:00 am and he had been very busy all day - he recognized that pouting face of mine and with a smile, took me down to the beach to go swimming.

That is what you do for the person you love.  At least that is the kind of thing my husband does for me.  All the time.  He do what he do.



I think I had been in the surf for about one minute when it happened.  Really.  One minute.

Photo by Vlad Minin                              Courtesy of National Geographic

As I swung my left arm behind me to get past the next wave swell coming up, I feel something brush up against me.  My upper left arm.  I stop swimming immediately and float, trying to figure out if a fish or sting ray had nudged me.  Right at that moment, there was pain.  "No a shark."  I say to myself.  Again pain.  This time on my right arm, although, I look to my left because the pain has not stopped there.  I just know what I am going to see.  Instead, I see something else.  It is blue and very small.  Floating just below the surface of the water.  Maybe three inches below the water.  It was about 1 inch in size.  It.

Now the pain has completely surrounded my upper body and my mind goes back to the shark idea.  Completely confused and suddenly frozen, I say to Jason, "something just bit me".  He says to me, "get out of the water".  Not panicked but concerned.  I can see it in his face.

I cannot move.  Not out of fear.  I am just unable to move.  I realize that there is something wrapped completely around me.  Fishing line?  Uh no.  Not fishing line.  Clear and stringy though.

This hurt. A lot.

Excruciating pain.  Jason realizes that I cannot move.  I am not even sure if he is saying anything to me now.  I sort of get mad.  Not at Jason.  But at whatever just bit me and is still trying to bite me.

Meanwhile in the back of my mind, "It was a jellyfish.  But, it was blue.  Jellyfish are not blue.  At least not the ones I know of.  I scanned the shore.  I know I did."


I realize I am being dragged back to shore by Jason.  Then I am being washed up on the shore by a wave. I am in the sand.  Grateful for the rough sand.

"What was it?"  Jason says.

"It was BLUE!"  I say.  Barely able to speak and still grateful for the rough sand.  A blue devil is what I think to myself.  Lucky for me, we are only steps from our front door.  It felt like a mile.  As soon as we get home, Jason starts to apply a series of remedies that most everyone who grows up near the ocean knows.
1. Remove stingers (tentacles).
2. Rinse the affected area with vinegar.

The stingers were pretty much already gone.  Probably into my skin.  So we moved to step two.  Vinegar.  That does nothing to help.  Jason gets on the internet to look up remedies.  We are in Ecuador, not Florida.  Maybe there is something else that we should be doing.  As I am heading upstairs to start step three of the remedies;
3. Shower in hot water.

Jason asks me what they (IT) looked like.  I say, "It was BLUE and very small".  (Except for that long stringy thing that wrapped around me about one hundred times.  Okay.  It was just once but it felt like one hundred.

Step number three helps a little.  I come back downstairs and Jason is looking up "blue jellyfish in Ecuador".  Meanwhile I move to the last step of remedies that we know.
4. Take an over the counter pain reliever.
 

A little better on day two

I swear the pain is actually getting worse. Jason finds a number of pictures and websites (a lot of blogs) that show or discuss this horrible blue jelly creature.  National Geographic website had the most in depth information.

Not a jellyfish.  A Portuguese Man o' War.

Affectionately known in South America (and Australia) as a, "Bluebottle". That is what it was.

A Bluebottle.

BlueBottle Diablo is a better description.

Remember that Benedryl I mentioned earlier?  Apparently vinegar does nothing but make the stinger release more venom.  Anti-allergy medication is what I needed.

You can get Benedryl in Ecuador.

You just can not get it at that moment.  The moment you need it the most.  The moment when you think you have never felt this much pain in all your life.  Of course this is not true.  It just feels that way at the time.

So now we have the remedy checklist.
1. Remove stingers (tentacles)  Check!
2. Hot shower  Check!
3. Anti-allergy medication - like Benedryl  Check!

If I ever get stung again, I am ready.

Ready or not, I hope I never, ever, ever, ever, ever, get ATTACKED by one of those Blue Bottle (diablos) again.

Never.

Wilson!!!

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