Differences between Ecuador and Germany: Fruit and Veg

I think I'm going to do a multi-part series about differences between Quito and Munich because there are just SO many. It would be a huge post if I did them all in one. So, the first up is fruit and vegetables.

Quito trumps Munich in the fruits category because I can get fresh pineapple, oranges and strawberries year round. But surprisingly, Munich was better in the variety of vegetables I could get and the abundance of farmers markets. Here there are markets, but most of what's sold is not organic although the farms are probably within 150 miles of Quito. In Munich, I had my favorite farmer's market on Friday mornings where I would get my eggs and vegetables. I was more inspired in Munich to try out different dishes because I could get the vegetables there.

The variety of fruits here are amazing though. There is sort of an overall season - fruits that can be found all year, like pineapple, bananas, melons, papaya, apples, pears, pitahayas, passion fruit, coconut, etc. And then there are individual seasons - like Andean lychees was about 3 weeks ago; cherries and plums were in the winter; and we saw strange-looking bean pod fruits around end of January. Most of the fruit is fairly cheap - things that come in bags already packaged are $1, tomatoes are like $0.30, avocados are $0.40, and I can get a pineapple for $1. There are even people who hawk fruit to cars on the street. Coming up - I think we'll do the differences in transportation between the two countries (um, worlds apart!).

Yummy pitahayas!

Lots of Green Things

Fruit is very cheap here so we've been taking advantage of that to grab a different fruit everytime we're at the market. After weeks, we're still not out of new fruit options. Here are a few fruits and veggies we've bought recently:

Babaco - the big green thing in the back - it's very mild and apparently turns into a yellow color when ripe. We didn't know that and ate it when it was green. Still was delicious.

Louisa mint (in cup to left)- love this for tea! I'm hoping to get a plant of this to put in the kitchen.

Parsley - sadly, I didn't use this enough for food and a good part has wilted since this picture.

Hard-shelled avocado - we didn't have much luck with this because we couldn't figure out when it was ripe. Otherwise, Greg is getting more than his fair share of avocados here - there are so many!

Not pictured: three different kinds of bananas/plantains we have on top of our microwave.

1) itty-bitty bananas - they came as "un mano" (a hand), which is about 10-15 mini-bananas. We made those into delicious banana muffins last night.

2) green plantains - you're not supposed to eat these without cooking them so I'm going to make them into plantain-cheese patties sometime this week.

3) normal yellow bananas - Greg's favorite for lunch. Considering they're 66 cents for a kilo (or 2.2 lbs.), I think we'll always have them around.