IMAGE: ALAMY
HERITAGE
TOP FIVE INDIGENOUS PRODUCTS
A food development lab, Canopy Bridge helps Amazonian communities produce and market food products to shops and restaurants, including ICHE. Co-founder Marta Echevarria picks five signature ones
1 C U I S IN E FOOD FOR THOUGHT
In the Manabí province on the country’s Pacif ic coast, ICHE, a food school and restaurant, is passing down ancient cul inary traditions to a new generation of Ecuadorian chefs and curious diners
Valentina Alvarez is a woman in constant motion. “Here — try it. Taste it; it’s sweet.” She presses a sticky, powdery clump into my hand, and I do as requested. It tastes fruity, salty and earthy all at the same time. I’m chewing on plantain dipped in salprieta, a condiment of ground annatto seeds with chillies, peanuts and corn — three of the four culinary pillars of Manabí, a province on Ecuador’s Pacific coast. Valentina is now busy squashing the
fourth one, cassava, into balls of dough. A firm, stubby root vegetable, it comes in endless permutations in Ecuador; here at ICHE, a restaurant, culinary school and food development lab just north of the town of San Vicente, it will become pan de yuca, marble-sized bread rolls. She bakes them in a manabita oven, a hemispherical clay pit topped by a removable grill, and throws in dried yellow corn, where it jumps and sputters. When the oven grill’s removed, it can be used like a tandoor; with it, it’s a stove. Valentina claims it has more than 14 other uses, including smoking, slow-cooking, dehydrating and fermenting — as well as drying clothes. The use of this ancestral type of oven from
Manabí province is just one of many culinary traditions that ICHE aims to both preserve and build on, teaching the students of its on-site culinary school age-old techniques while redefining what’s possible with homegrown food. All ingredients come from within a 20-mile radius of the property — many from its own herb garden.
On first impression, it might seem that
Manabí cuisine needs no preserving. Ecuador’s original Manabí civilisation was destroyed by conquistadors in the 16th century — the name is now a geographic rather than ethnic label — but its culinary traditions seem alive and well. From Quito to the Amazon, Ecuadorians speak of Manabí food with hushed reverence. Walk around Playita Mia fish market in Manta — a port city that’s the province’s main hub — and you’ll see hundreds of diners tucking into traditional dishes such as estofado de murico, a stew of peanuts and native murico fish, and encebollado, a type of tuna soup. But it’s a new generation of Ecuadorians
that Orazio Bellettini, a Manabí native who founded ICHE in 2021, is hoping to reach. “Young people have lost interested in using this,” he says, pointing to the manabita oven. “It looks like something from the past.” Orazio was executive director of Quito-
based Grupo FARO, a think tank conducting research on how to build a more inclusive society, when, in 2016, an earthquake hit Manabí, levelling 35,000 homes. “The economy was destroyed, people were left without hope,” he says. “I felt the duty of coming back and doing something.” Orazio and his wife, Adriana Arellano, ploughed all their savings into a Manabí cuisine one- stop shop. “Food can be a powerful tool: to reactivate the economy, to increase people’s self-esteem, to unleash hopes and creativity.”
Macambo Closely related to cacao,
macambo seeds can replace nuts in any recipe. Canopy Bridge uses them in a range of salted and chocolate-coated snacks.
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Neapia Marta describes this smoky
black chilli paste, made by the Indigenous Siekopai people, as the ‘miso of the jungle’. It’s long- lasting, too — Marta claims to have kept a jar for five years.
Chicha de chonta This is a contemporary take on
chicha, an Indigenous fermented drink often compared to beer, made using chonta (peach palm) fruits. It tastes like a summer IPA: tart and light with a fruity nose.
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Cassava ‘yogurt’ with araza compote
This cassava-based yogurt alternative is a great option for people who are lactose intolerant, with a high level of probiotics.
Morete ice cream Supporting species such as
the tapir and peccary, the morete plant is excellent for regenerating forests. Its sweet fruit can be used to make a dairy-free ice cream: its fattiness means no milk is needed.
Tours of Canopy Bridge, in the town of Archidona, cost £8-40 and must be arranged in advance.
canopybridge.com
Clockwise from top left: Los Frailes, a beach in Manabí; a passion colada cocktail served at ICHE restaurant; Marta Echevarria, co- founder of Canopy Bridge
Previous pages from left: Portrait of a local at Hacienda Zuleta, Imbabura; a flower at Mashpi Lodge, Pichincha
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