Make sure to use organic potatoes; here colorful, strangely shaped native varieties are available which don’t require nasty chemicals, but they can be difficult to find.

Many “locros” are eaten in the Andes, but a superior one which is also wonderfully quick and simple is made from potatoes in Ecuador. Tourists will remember a colorful almost orange soup, thick and creamy (and amazingly with no cream), topped with a thick slice of avocado and, if lucky, served with red chile tamarillo salsa.

I am happy to share my recipe for the favorite of all potato soups.

“Locro de papa” Creamy Ecuadorian Potato Soup

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon annatto oil (gives the characteristic golden hue, but could be left out)
2/3 cup chopped scallion
2 lbs. Yukon gold or other mealy potato, peeled (approx. 6 medium potatoes)
1½ cups milk
6 cups hot water
salt and pepper
1 cup “queso blanco”, crumbled or grated (substitute cow’s milk feta)
(optional – 2 sprigs cilantro)

In a heavy 4-5 qt. saucepan, heat vegetable and annatto oils. Add scallions and sauté over low heat until transparent.

Slice half of the potatoes thinly. Cut the others in 1½ inch chunks. Add all the potatoes to the sauce pan and stir constantly, over médium-high heat for 5-10 minutes until potatoes are somewhat browned and transparent. Let them stick somewhat, that gives flavor.

Add the milk, when boiling add the water, salt and pepper. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes or until the sliced potatoes have partly disintegrated and thickened the “locro”. (This process can be helped along by mashing some of the potato against the sides of the saucepan with a wooden spoon.)

Just before serving, heat with the cheese and cilantro.
Make sure to top the soup bowl with a thick avocado slice and serve with your favorite salsa.

Makes 4 main dish servings.

The same thing happens in tamales, but they are much more labor intensive and always have carbohydrate dough, often with a corn base. In the jungle the purest and simplest way of using leaves was a superb treat, freshly caught fish cooked in a special leaf. That was all!

These days even in urban areas of the jungle, leaf-wrapped packets called “maytus” are served, usually steamed. They make a festive meal and along with them come boiled plantains and yuca (manioc, cassava) and onions sliced paper thin and pickled in the juice of tiny limes — you know, the ones that you squirt into Corona.

Before the times of mass produced plates, all food was served on leaves – a great sustainable idea, from the jungle and back to the jungle and all within the family’s compound. No dishes to wash or need for soap, no transportation involved either! The peoples of the jungle knew how to live and minimize carbon footprints.

Yuca (also called cassava or manioc) is peeled and then boiled.  Once cooked soft, women chew it, spit it out and let it ferment.  With only the addition of water, it becomes a drink.  When hunting no longer provides game or fish, this yuca “chicha” becomes the mainstay of the population.  I must admit it is not my favorite and yet it is amazing how healthy the population looks, as they subsist mainly on this fermented drink.  At least It has no sugar or salt added, and is certainly not a processed product coming from the industrialized food chain.

What most impresses me about this soup is the novel use of the smooth, luscious peanut sauce. Although I like cooking a red chile into the peanut sauce, in Ecuador a thin, hot sauce would be present on the table and those who’d like would add a drop or a spoonful.

This soup makes a great meal for a cold evening.

1 lb. beef chuck with bones
salt
1 whole onion
1 leek, well-washed
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 teaspoon oregano
5 sprigs cilantro
6 russet potatoes, peeled and left whole
3 cups of individual cabbage leaves, cut into 1 1/2 inch squares

Peanut sauce:
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 medium onion, minced (or scallions)
1/2 teaspoon achiote paste or powder or substitute 1/2 teaspoon paprika (this is only used to tint the sauce a reddish-gold)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
2 cups milk
1/2 cup smooth, natural peanut butter (no sugar added)
1 jalapeño or serrano chile, whole with a slit, optional

In a heavy, large saucepan, brown the chuck in no fat. Add 12 cups cold water, heat and remove scum from time to time. Add salt, onion, leek, garlic, oregano and 3 sprigs of cilantro and simmer over very low heat for approximately 1 hour or until the meat is very tender.

Strain the broth, pressing down on the vegetable, and leaving the meat in it. Remove the bones from the broth, and cut the meat in bite-sized pieces, if necessary. Remove as much fat as possible from the broth.

Add the whole potatoes to the broth and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the cabbage squares and the remaining sprigs of cilantro, chopped and simmer for an additional 10 minutes or until the vegetables are soft.

To make the peanut sauce: Heat the oil in a heavy 1-qt. saucepan. Add the minced onion and sauté over low heat until soft. Add the salt, cumin and pepper. Add the milk and when it begins to bubble, whisk in the peanut butter.
Simmer (with the chile, if you choose) for 10-15 minutes until somewhat thick, (the consistency of a smoothie) stirring from time to time to prevent sticking.

Place a whole potato in each bowl and smoother with the soup and its goodies. Pour the peanut sauce over the potato and enjoy.

Yield: 6 servings.

The Pollan book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, has me spellbound, so shocking in its reality of the US food chain. Makes me want to study, in a similar manner, the food systems in the countries of the Andes. Since the lands in the Sierra are not suited to industrial farming (the gorgeous Andes jut up and out, not permitting much mechanization of our volcanic soils), corn and soybeans cannot be the staples of these small countries with jagged terrains. High fructose corn syrup and all of the other horrible “goodies” so necessary to processed food are not produced here, even though a variety of corn (maíz) with kernels as large as the diameter of a dime may have originated here. In the 35 years I’ve lived and eaten and food talked here, I have seen the importance of corn in the diet dwindle. It is still very basic in most traditional dishes, but wheat in the form of white rolls (“pancitos”) and noodles (“fideos”) has definitely captured the paladar of urbanites.

Bueno, all that lead-in to let you know what is flipping around my head these days. Since subsidized corn from the US is bound to be much cheaper than any corn grown locally in the Andes, I wonder what percentage of beef here could be corn-fed….. I suspect most of it is free range, as is cattle in Argentina.

So, all of those studies about the pernicious results of eating red meat, I suspect they were based on corn-fed beef, with all of that delicious and dangerous marbling. This could explain why our ancestors could eat large quantities of red meat and not exhibit the public health symptoms we see these days. Beef is not beef; cornfed is one bad thing, grass fed is another story (“harina de otro costal”) .

I am in the midst of setting up interviews with two large meat producers and hope to get back to you with what I learn about the production techniques here, in this “underdeveloped” country.

And to tantilize your tastebuds I include a favorite soup of mine, made with beef. No, this is not another variation of Sancocho (the Andean versions of “cocidos” in Spain), so prevalent in countries of the Andes and their lowlands. I am sharing the preparation of a soup not known out of the Andes of Ecuador and presently primarily still enjoyed in the countryside. Timbusca’s luscious smooth broth (“caldo”) comes from ground, roasted peanuts and of course there is at least one huge potato in the center of the wide bowl. It’s a wonderfully light and stick to your ribs soup, all at the same time. Two bowls and you’ve had more than dinner!