3 Things I Loved Eating These Holidays

Monday and Tuesday of Carnival are holidays in Ecuador, and we took Wednesday as well to visit our family in Ibarra. I love it’s a smaller city where you don’t have to drive long distances to get what you want but instead you can walk, take a short bus ride or drive to the market or grocery store and find free range eggs, unpasteurized milk, and fresh fruits and vegetables.

So here my list of the top 3 things I loved eating at my aunt’s house. There’re 4 in fact:

1. Real Milk! Have you tried, tested and compared the flavor of fresh, real milk from grass fed caws. I don’t drink processed milk because my stomach doesn’t tolerate, but if you talk of real milk there I am!

-Home made cheese. As a result of having real milk available I made real cheese. It was so easy and fun to try my aunt’s way. She lived in a farm for more than 20 years, where she made or helped making cheese for several years. It was easier and faster to make cheese with the milk I got there than with the milk I used to get in Quito, since in Ibarra the milk we get is really-really fresh.

2. Free range eggs. Delicious! I can usually find free range eggs in Quito, but those my aunt gets in Ibarra have a slightly different and more delicious flavor. They have a slightly blue/green shell and very yellow yolk.

3. A new fruit I’ve never tried. They call them cherries (cerezas) but the only similarity is their shape and size. My aunt has it on her backyard (see both pictures). It has a peach-like skin, an acerola-like flavor and really small and soft seeds inside. It was fun to try it and felt my sore throat alleviated instantly. Do you happen to know this fruit?

All of this for less than I’d pay in Quito.

1 liter of fresh real milk = US$0.60
1 delicious free range egg = US$0.25
A bunch of “cherries” = free!

I’m wondering how easy it is for people around the world to get real food in their communities and how affordable real food is. What about your community?

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