Tuesday, February 21, 2012

How to Make Muchines



Muchines are a traditional dish in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Every time I go to visit Cesareo and his family, they make this special meal.

Some say that I hold the record for most muchines eaten in one meal at Cesareo's house. Some say that the day that the Brothers Robinson ate more muchines per person than any meal at Cesareo's house. Some say I am stretching the truth, namely Pedro.

Regardless, the muchin is one of my favorite Ecuadorian foods. The ingredients are very simple (yucca, cheese, salt, vegetable oil, unrefined sugar, and some water). The process is a bit arduous (peeling and grating yucca). But the results are simply out of this world.

Not only did I learn to make ayampacos when I went to the jungle over Christmas, but I also learned how to make muchines. The issue has been making time to put this video together. With a four-day weekend in Ecuador this week, I finally got it together.

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

More photos from the road

As I looked through my pictures from a recent trip, I realize that a photo montage post is in order. I took these pictures on a recent trip to the province of Esmeraldas to develop sites for new Peace Corps volunteers. Esmeraldas is located in the northwest corner of the country and is home to much of the Afro-Ecuadorian community.

It is awesome.



Fish and coconut are two of the biggest industries in Esmeraldas. They have managed to combine these two into one fine plate: encocado fish. They even make the white rice look good.



In this family's house, there is only one place to get cell reception. You will notice that they have made a pocket out of tape on the window and placed their phones in it.



This "For Sale" sign has four misspellings and should have one more word than it currently does. Only one of the words is spelled correctly.



The province is famous for its beaches. We were working the whole time and didn't get any time to enjoy the beach, but I did get to snap this pic of the view from Mompiche.



They were selling mangoes by the bucket on the side of the road for one dollar per bucket.



So we bought three buckets, which amounted to at least 60 mangoes.



"What men have on their mind." - Freud. We saw this sign at the restaurant we were eating at. It says something about a culture when they have a picture like this on the wall at a family restaurant.



Check out this guy just laid out on top of some bamboo on the back of this truck.