As I mentioned in the last post, I recently returned from a wonderful trip to Ecuador.  The highlight of the trip was the wedding, but a great incidental perk was getting to try all of the delicious foods.  Especially, the fruits.  There were fruits I had never heard of, and I wanted to try them all.

Upon arrival, we went to the groom’s family’s house and they served us a home-cooked meal and these, granadillas.

You take the outer peel off and are left with these seeds surrounded in grey.  They reminded me of a pomegranate, but had a much softer, sweeter, and more floral taste.  You sort of slurp them (or use a spoon if you’re trying to be proper) out of the fruit and swallow seeds and all.  Really tasty!

Similar in method of eating were these guys:

Unfortunately, I can’t remember its name…Lindsay, can you help?  They had more of a grapefruit-y taste and were a fun morning treat. UPDATE:  These are taxo.  Thanks, Linds!

I don’t have photos of the guayaba fruit.  But we had those in the form of helados (ice cream).

And then there were the plantains.

Plantains everywhere!  Fried, in chip form, mashed green used as a batter for fried foods…I really liked them all.  This one is about ready to be consumed fresh by my dad.  Hey, Dad!  One of my focuses for the next few months is to be very conscious of where my food comes from, and to try and select local foods.  Given this, I knew I wouldn’t be eating many bananas back in the States, so I tried to eat plantains and other bananas to my heart’s content.

We had fresh fruit juice every morning.  Most often, it was tree tomato juice.  The family had a tree tomato tree outside which made fresh fruit juice easy to come by.  That was one of the neatest things about Ecuador…things grew everywhere.  Banana trees, vegetation, flowers like hibiscus and poinsettias, and limon trees.  Like the one that produced this lime:

We enjoyed this mandarin lime at a roadside restaurant.  The tree was growing just behind the restaurant and I squeezed it over tilapia that was cooked over an open fire.  But more on that at a later post.

Other notable fruits included little plums (that you can see in the bowl above), gooseberries, papaya, and the best mangoes I’ve ever had.  It was a really neat experience to be in a place that offered such an abundance of unique and delicious fruits.  The natural produce was delightful, but by no means the only noteworthy food.  I’ll be writing and posting pictures of many of the other delicious foods we enjoyed in Ecuador.