 | |
| Type | Soup |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | Ecuador |
| Main ingredients | Figleaf gourd, pumpkin, beans and grains, salt cod, milk |
Fanesca is a soup traditionally prepared only on Easter Sunday and eaten is by households and communities in Ecuador. This dish is an Ecuadorian tradition that is prepared to give thanks to God for the food provided and blessings.
The indigenous people who occupied the territory of Ecuador celebrated the Muchuc Nina (New Fire Day) in the season that corresponds to March, where they grilled tender grains with Andean pumpkins taking advantage of the beginning of the young harvest. The Mushuc Nina was celebrated to commemorate the equinox solstice, when the sun takes a perpendicular position on the equinoctial line, erasing all shadows. [1] The indigenous people prepared for this festival by fasting and abstaining from sexual activity. The indigenous people's culinary preparation with tender grains and Andean pumpkins on New Fire Day became known as Uchucuta, a Quichua phrase that means tender grains cooked with chili and herbs, probably accompanied by wild guinea pig meat. [2] During the colony's evangelizing period, [3] the Spaniards mixed Catholic symbols and beliefs with indigenous components in order to accomplish cultural miscegenation. In the case of Holy Week, the Spaniards combined the commemoration of Jesus Christ's death, passion, and resurrection with the indigenous Muchuc Nina ritual, creating a preparation based on tender grains, which with the influence of the conquerors includes this stew some grains, dairy products, and salted and dried fish to avoid decomposition. The Spaniards add beans, lentils, and peas into the gastronomic portion, which strengthens trade between the mountains and the shore, allowing products such as bananas, peanuts, and fish to be found in mountain areas, aspects that are part of the Fanesca.
By the 19th century, Quito was already celebrating Holy Week with the dish technically known as Fanesca, which would become an essential component of the event. The oldest reference to a Fanesca recipe could be from 1882, described by Juan Pablo Sanz in his book "The Cook's Manual" [4]
Currently, Fanesca is most popular in the northern highlands of Ecuador. Its popularity decreases to the south and the Coastal region. The Manabí province is where Fanesca is lees important [5] [6] .
The components of fanesca and its method of preparation vary regionally, or even from one family to another. It is typically prepared and served only in the week before Easter (Holy Week). Making the soup is labor-intensive. [7]
It is a rich soup, with the primary ingredients being figleaf gourd (sambo), pumpkin (zapallo), and twelve different kinds of beans and grains including chochos (lupines), fava beans (habas), lentils, peas, corn, and others, together with salt cod (bacalao) cooked in milk, due to the Catholic religious prohibition against red meat during Holy Week. It is also generally garnished with hard-boiled eggs, fried plantains, herbs, parsley, and sometimes empanadas de viento (Ecuadorian fried cheese empanadas).
The twelve beans represent the twelve apostles of Jesus, and the bacalao is symbolic of Jesus himself.
Fanesca is usually consumed at midday, which is generally the principal meal of the day within Ecuadorian culture. The making and eating of fanesca are considered a social or family activity.
Spanish cuisine consists of the traditions and practices of Spanish cooking. It features considerable regional diversity, with important differences between the traditions of each of Spain's regional cuisines.
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Locro is a hearty thick squash stew, associated with Native Andean civilizations, and popular along the Andes mountain range. It is one of the national dishes of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Paraguay, Northwest Argentina and Southwestern Colombia.
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The seco is a stew typical of Ecuadorian and Peruvian cuisine. It can be made with any type of meat. According to an Ecuadorian popular etymology, the name of seco comes from the Península de Santa Elena in Ecuador, where at the beginning of the 20th century a camp English did oil work in Ancón, when referring to the second course of food, in English "second", the Ecuadorians repeated deforming the word until they reached the current "seco", which has been widely disseminated, despite being a myth, since records of this dish have been found since 1820, almost a century before the English presence in the Santa Elena Peninsula. At that time, deer and Creole goats abounded. According to the Dictionary of Peruvianisms of the Peruvian Wings University, seco is a «stew of beef, kid or another animal, macerated in vinegar, which is served accompanied by rice and a sauce of ají, huacatay and cilantro". Thus, its main characteristic is to marinate and cook the chosen meat with some type of sauce acid, such as chicha, beer, naranjilla or vinegar.
Paraguayan cuisine is the set of dishes and culinary techniques of Paraguay. It has a marked influence of the Guaraní people combined with the Spanish cuisine and other marked influences coming from the immigration received by bordering countries such as Italian cuisine and German cuisine. The city of Asunción is the epicenter of the distinctive gastronomy that extends in current Paraguay and its areas of influence, which is the reason why is considered the mother of the gastronomy of the Río de la Plata. It is worth clarifying that in the Paraguayan society, the exchange of knowledge between mestizos, creoles and cario-guaraní people occurred before the Jesuit missions.
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