Ecuador, Food Help

What’s vegan in Ecuador? (Fruits Edition)

Small fruit market with hanging pineapples, plantains and bananas. A few customers are shopping off to the left side, and you can see papayas, clementines, and watermelon stacked up on tables to buy.

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   Now I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Ecuador’s produce kicks butt! A major part of my visit was spent chomping down on fruit, both the fruits that I’ve had before at home because they’re so much better there, as well as new fruits, because there are so many different ones to try. 

   And so, for those of you like me in the colder regions who don’t have access to tropical fruits, and those of you who are considering a visit, here are some of the fruits you can try if you get a chance to go to Ecuador!

Ovos

   I think these fruits surpised me most out of what I tried. I never thought anything like this could exist. Wrapping my head around them the best I could, I settled on thinking of them as mango grapes. (You can see them below in the bowl with some small mangoes.) They’re a little bit bigger than grapes, but the skin and flesh are very much the same in texture. That being said, their appearance is that of a miniature mango. And when you bite into them, they have a little pit, proportional to a mango. The ones I tried were on the tart side, and I was told that they are often served with lemon and salt, just like mango often is in Ecuador when it’s unripe. 

Two boys sit on a glass tabletop, covered with a white, lacy tablecloth. In the bowl on the left there are ripe and spotty oritos (miniature bananas). On the right lies another bowl with two small mangos, a fork and some ovos (which are small and colored various shades of red and green)

Oritos

   About halfway through my trip I wrote in my journal what I lovingly called my “banana notes” because bananas, while referring to just one thing in the US, are really varied in Ecuador. The smallest and sweetest of which are Oritos, or what you may have heard called “baby bananas”. This is what I imagine all bananas would taste like if kids’ imaginations ruled the world. They’re like a banana, but surprisingly sweet. Very pleasant, and believe me, you’ll want more than one.

Banana Colorada

Hand holding up one small banana for the camera in front of a wooden floor backdrop. The banana has a larger than average girth and a peel that has red to orange ombre color.

   The other new kind of banana that I tried is called a banana colorada, which just translates into a “colored banana”. Colorada is also the word they use to refer to red onion, for instance. This red banana was also sweeter than the regular bananas I was used to (though not as sweet as the oritos), and was sort of orange when I bit into it. Super fun, and really delicious.

Papaya

Hand holding up a green-yellow papaya with the back side of the passenger seat of a car in the background.

   I have had papaya in the past, back in the US, but let me tell you if you’ve only had papaya in the USA, you need to try it again if you visit Ecuador. First of all, it’s cheaper. (I’m not exaggerating when I say that what we pay for a papaya in the midwestern US is ten times what we got one for in Ecuador.) But second, it’s just better. It was fresher and sweeter than any papaya I’ve ever tried in my life. You will not regret it. In fact, I didn’t even think I liked papaya. Turns out I do, just not the stuff that we get where I live. 

Guanabana

Atop a glass tabletop sits a ceramic plate with a flower design. On the plate is a wedge of guanabana, skin down, exposing a triangular prism of white, translucent flesh, with dark brown seeds peeking through.

   Now we get into the fruits that I really had no concept for, and the first one was the guanabana. With a green skin, it looks kind of like a dragon’s egg, if such a thing were to exist. When you cut into it, it’s white and the fruit itself is rather firm. (It kind of reminds me of a jackfruit in that way, although not quite as firm.) And its seeds are long, shiny and a dark brown to black in color. They also get scratched up by your teeth when you spit them out. (And please, spit them out because they’re toxic.) I’ve heard the taste described as banana with a citrus kick at the end, and I really agree with that. It’s absolutely delicious and I wish I could get more of it. As it starts to get overripe, it tastes more like a pineapple, but hey, I’m not complaining about that either. 

Cacao

A white, square plate is sitting on a wooden countertop. Half of a cacao fruit is on the plate with the brown seeds, some still covered in white flesh, others already consumed and discarded onto the foreground of the plate. The outer shell of the cacao fruit is yellow in the grooves and gets darker pink and red in the parts that curve outwards.

   So even if you’ve never been able to eat a cacao fruit before, you’re familiar with them because they make chocolate. To make chocolate, you take the seeds and dry them in the sun. That being said, you can eat the flesh of the fruit, and I did. It’s white and very soft. And to my surprise, very fruity, and slightly tangy. I really liked it…though, not as much as I like chocolate. 

Granadilla 

On top of a warm brown wooden table lies a small, round and sweet passionfruit variety called granadilla. It is an egg shaped fruit with a woody stem, and within the orange-colored outer shell you will find black seeds encased in a sweet andante, clear-colored pulp.

   This fruit gets the prize for most fun to eat. The name comes from the word grenade, because it looks like one. To open it, you crack it on the table and then break it open from there. Inside, you find the black seeds enveloped in a clear pulp. And in this fruit, you do eat the seeds. (I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. But it’s a lot more difficult to eat if you try to avoid them.) Chew them up for a little crunch amongst the sweet and slightly tart pulp. I really like granadilla and hope that I get to eat them again someday. 

Tomate de árbol 

On a table sit a pitcher of salmon-colored, opaque juice and three tall glasses to the right of it. The table runner is striped red, blue, white, pink and orange with intricate thread patterns.

   Now, tomato de árbol is different in the sense that it’s not a fruit that you tend to just eat, but rather is served in juice. However, it’s not something that you’ll easily find in the US, and most people aren’t familiar with it, so I wanted to include it. Tomate de árbol is pretty tart, and looks like an oblong tomato. They use it, as I said, in juices (where they add sugar to it) or in ají sauce, and both options are quite delicious in their own right. If you go to Ecuador, try both—jugo and ají de tomato de árbol. You won’t be sorry. 

Pepino de dulce

An egg-shaped fruit, slightly larger than an extra large egg sits on a wooden table. It is yellow in color with a few violet stripes running from the top of the fruit to the bottom.

   I think this fruit is the one that excited me most to try. When we went to the store, we got quite a bit of produce and because of that, they gifted us a pepino de dulce. I was so excited, because I had been wanting to try one so badly! And when I did, I have to say, I was impressed! We peeled the skin (although they told me it is technically edible) and sliced the flesh to share. We didn’t eat the center part with the seeds and the membrane. It looked kind of like a pepper in that sense, but the flesh was not like a pepper. It was more like a cucumber mixed with a pear. And I know that sounds strange, but it really was! I enjoyed it so much that I told my companions we simply had to go out and buy another one before we left. It was refreshing and subtly sweet and pretty much heaven to me. I’m very sad I can’t find these back at home. 

Not Fruits, but new produce I tried

Coco

A fresh coconut with a straw coming out of a cut hole in the top sits on my lap in front of me, ready to drink.

So I suppose coconut is technically a nut, not really a fruit. But if you live in a non-tropical place, especially a colder one, I really would recommend getting yourself a fresh coconut. You drink the water and when you’re done, they will scoop the fresh coconut meat out and put it in a bag for you to take on the road. (Or, if you prefer, they can put the coconut water in a bag for you as well.) I always thought coconuts were overhyped, but no. Like this, they’re refreshing and delicious.

Choclo

Hand holding an ear of corn on the cob, lightly charred, with salt and hot sauce added for extra flavor.

   I can just hear you all now, “There’s no way you haven’t eaten corn before going to Ecuador.” No, it’s true. I’ve definitely had corn on the cob and cut corn back in the United States, but I’m adding it on this list because the corn in the US is sweet corn, and that’s not the same as the corn you’ll find in Ecuador. I ate this corn on the cob with some very spicy ají and salt, and it was amazing. Not sweet. Not sweet at all. 

Mellocos

Green ceramic bowl holding half an ear of corn, a chopped salad of tomato and white onion, along with what look like fingerling potatoes.

   I’ll be honest, mellocos confused me. They look like little potatoes, but some of them have pink polka dots. And inside they’re like potatoes, except they have the earthiness of a beet and they’re kind of slimy, for lack of a better term. But I tried them, and I’m glad I did. Definitely eat them with lemon and salt and/or some ají. 

Habas

With a background of pink placemats and a purple towel, a plastic Tupperware contains large brown and green boiled fava beans.

   Also known as fava beans in English, I had never tried habas that hadn’t been dried first. We had them boiled and eaten with salt, and I had a great afternoon peeling the skins, sprinkling on the salt one by one and drinking beer. As simple as it was, it’s a moment I’ll always remember. 

Fruits I couldn’t try

   My trip was relatively short, and there just wasn’t time and opportunity to try all of the fruits that I wanted to try. So here are the fruits that I will be trying on my next visit, should I ever go back. 

Naranjilla

   I did get to try an avena drink flavored with naranjilla, and it was really good. I know that naranjilla is a pretty common fruit there, especially to flavor things, but I was just really unlucky and they didn’t have any in any of the stores we went to.

Guaba

   Not to be confused with guava, this fruit is long and green, with a white flesh that is supposed to have the taste of vanilla, or as some say, vanilla ice cream. In English, it’s called the ice cream bean fruit, for heaven’s sake! Who wouldn’t want to try that? Unfortunately, when we went it just wasn’t in season. So we couldn’t find it. I’m not giving up though, I will try this fruit someday. 

Mora

   I got as close to eating this fruit as you can get—I had a juice/smoothie made from mora. And while the best translation for mora is blackberry, it tastes quite different than the blackberries that I’m used to. So I do want to try mora in its raw, unadulterated form someday. For now, the mora juice I had was a beautiful memory and I’ll play it over in my head over and over. 

Taxo

   So I kind of did try this fruit. I had some ice cream that was flavored with it. And it was really good! For that reason, I really wanted to try this variation of passionfruit. But we didn’t see any. Kind of disappointing, but hopefully I can find it somewhere in the future. 

   And as I said earlier, it’s not just about the fruits you don’t know. If you’re from a colder climate and visiting Ecuador, really take the time and eat the fruits you do already know. Because they’re even better over there. With the exception of watermelon, every fruit that I tried in Ecuador was better than I get back at home. Which on one hand, is sort of disheartening. But on the other, it was great to try and get to know fruits that I thought I already did. So eat your apples, your oranges, your pineapples and peaches. Eat all the fruits, you really can’t go wrong. 

   Thank you for reading my thoughts on Ecuador’s produce! Please stick around, because next week we’re going to put the cherry on top of our Ecuador series. We’re going to talk about how veganism has definitely come to Ecuador, and the story of Mamita Pastora and her restaurant, La Cuchara Orgánica. Please remember to subscribe to the blog for more vegan content, and have a lovely day!