Cuisine
An Ecuadorian’s day, at least as far as his or her diet is concerned, is centred around lunch, rather than dinner as in Western cultures. Sometimes it is the only main dish in their diet.
There is no one food that is especially Ecuadorian, as cuisine varies from region to region of the country. For example, costeños (people from the coast) prefer fish, beans and plantains (unripened banana like fruits), while serranos from the mountainous regions prefer meat, rices and white hominy mote.
Some examples of Ecuadorian cuisine in general include patacones, unripe plantains fried in oil, mashed up and then refried, llapingachos, a pan seared potato ball, and seco de chivo, a type of stew made from goat. More regionalized examples include ceviches from the Coast, which are different from other ceviches and traditionally is served unprepared, as well as almidon breads, plantains served with crushed peanuts or salprieta, and encebollado, the most popular dish in the Coast, that contains a marinade with large chunks of fish, onions and various regional seasonings.
Beef Jerky comes from the word in the ancient incan language in Quechua. “Charqui”
Clothing
The Panama hat is of Ecuadorian origin, and is known there as “Sombrero de paja toquilla”, or a Jipijapa. It is made principally in Montecristi in the Province of Manabí. Its manufacture (particularly that of the Montecristi superfino) is considered a great craft.
Language
Most Ecuadorians speak Spanish, though many speak Amerindian languages such as Kichwa, the Ecuadorian dialect of Quechua. Other Amerindian languages spoken in Ecuador include Awapit (spoken by the Awá), A’ingae (spoken by the Cofan), Shuar Chicham (spoken by the Shuar), Achuar-Shiwiar (spoken by the Achuar and the Shiwiar), Cha’palaachi (spoken by the Chachi), Tsa’fiki (spoken by the Tsáchila), Paicoca (spoken by the Siona and Secoya) and Wao Tededo (spoken by the Waorani).
Though most features of Ecuadorian Spanish are universal in the Spanish-speaking world, there are several idiosyncrasies.
Costeños tend to speak more quickly and louder than serranos, and most of them do so in a very informal way. A common term costeños use to call each other is mijo, a portmanteau of sorts for “my son” (mi hijo). Several such terms originate from their fast speech, and they have intrincate language humor and jokes, difficult to translate or even understand in other regions. Also, each coaprovince has a different variety of accent with specific different terms.
Serranos usually speak softly, and very respectfully. Traditionally they are seen as more conservative, and use a number of Kichwa-originated terms in their everyday speech, often puzzling to other regions. A widely known example is the word guagua, which means child in Kichwa. Their speech comes from their Incan amerindian roots and can be seen as a variation of other Andean accents.
Whistling, yelling or yawning to get someone’s attention is considered rude, yet informally done.
Art
Indigenous Art of Tigua
The Quichua people of Tigua, located in the central Sierra region, are world renowned for their traditional paintings on sheepskin canvases. Historically the Tigua people have been known for painting highly decorative masks and drums; painting on flat surfaces is somewhat of a modern occurrence. Today Tigua paintings can be found on sale all over Ecuador, particularly in touristic areas.
Tigua artists are celebrated for their use of vibrant colors and simplistic themes. Most paintings depict scenes of pastoral life, religious ceremonies and festivals. The volcano, Cotopaxi is commonly depicted in the landscape in most paintings as it holds cultural significance in the region.
Literature
Early literature in colonial Ecuador, as in the rest of Spanish America, was influenced by the still existing tendencies of the Spanish Golden Age. One of the earliest examples is Jacinto Collahuazo, an indigenous chief of a northern village in today’s Ibarra born in the late 1600s. Despite the early repression and discrimination of the native people by the Spanish, Jacinto learned to read and write in Castilian but his work was written in Quechua.
Collahuazo was imprisoned, and all of his work burned. The existence of his literary work came to light many centuries later, while a crew of masons were restoring the walls of a colonial church in Quito and found a hidden manuscript. The salvaged fragment is an Spanish translation from Quechua of the “Elegy to the Dead of Atahualpa”, a poem written by Collahuazo, which describes the sadness and impotence of the Inca people of having lost their king Atahualpa.
Other early Ecuadorian writers include the Jesuits Juan Bautista Aguirre, born in Daule in 1725, and Father Juan de Velasco, born in Riobamba in 1727. Juan de Velasco wrote about the nations and chiefdoms which existed in the Kingdom of Quito (today Ecuador) before the arrival of the Spanish. His historical accounts are nationalistic, featuring a romantic perspective of pre-colonial history.
Famous authors from the late colonial and early republic period include: Eugenio Espejo a printer and main author of the first newspaper in Ecuadorian colonial times; Jose Joaquin de Olmedo (born in Guayaquil), famous for his ode to Simon Bolivar titled Victoria de Junin; Juan Montalvo, a prominent essayist and novelist; Juan Leon Mera, famous for his work “Cumanda” or “Tragedy among Savages” and the Ecuadorian National Anthem; Juan A. Martinez with A la Costa, Dolores Veintimilla, and others.
Contemporary Ecuadorian writers include the novelist Jorge Enrique Adoum; the poet Jorge Carrera Andrade; the essayist Benjamín Carrión; the poets Fanny Carrión de Fierro, Luis Alberto Costales; the novelist Enrique Gil Gilbert; the novelist Jorge Icaza (author of the novel Huasipungo, translated to many languages); the short story author Pablo Palacio; the novelist Alicia Yanez Cossio; Alfonso Oramas; Guayaquilean poet Karina Galvez (author of the poem “La Batalla del Pichincha”); and U.S.-based, half Ecuadorian poet Emanuel Xavier.
Music
Music is very important in Ecuador, with differences between Coast and Highlands. Generally, pan pipes, flutes of bamboo, violins, drums and charangos all played often, but with different purposes. For instance, in the Sierra popular tunes played at fiestas include “Rosa Maria” and “El Condor Pasa”, with sanjuanito being an easily recognizable genre. In the Costa, the instruments are played mostly for cumbia, salsa, and pasillos.
Costeños have two kinds of purposes for music, the rhythm-filled one which is played in most places, be it in public like in the bus or in parties, and the slow, moarnful pasillos and rocolas, which are exclusive to old bars. The slow tunes are humoristically known as cortavenísticos (“vein-cutting”) because of their overall sadness.
In addition to the numerous native cultures, Ecuador is home to a Mestizo culture, and a sizable Afro-Ecuadorian culture (approximately a half-million), “In the mid-16th century, at least two slave ships from Panama bound for Peru wrecked on the shores of what is now Esmeraldas province. The African slaves established a maroon society (freed slaves), and maintained autonomy during much of the colonial era”.
Today’s Afro-Ecuadorians are famous for their marimba music and dance festivals. Long before the Spanish conquest, and even much before the Inca civilization, the diverse native cultures of the region had rich musical traditions. Ancient flutes, trumpets, drums, and other musical artifacts have been found in tombs. Music was obviously important in the human and supernatural worlds of ancient Andean people.
With the coming of the Spanish conquerors in the 16th century, accompanied by Catholic missionaries and African slaves, additional musical languages were introduced. Today, three principal racial and cultural strains — Indigenous, Spanish, and African – have evolved into distinctive sentimental and great for listening.
Television and Cinema
The majority of the movies shown in movie theatres in Ecuador come from the United States. The movies are often in English and have Spanish subtitles, but are sometimes translated for family movies.
The Ecuador Film Company was founded in Guayaquil, in 1924. During the early twenties to early thirties, Ecuador enjoyed its Cinema Golden Age Era. However, the production of motion pictures declined with the coming of sound.
Beyond the Gates of Splendor (2002), directed by Jim Hanon, is a documentary about five missionaries killed by the Huaorani Indians in the 1950s. He recycles the story in the 2006 Hollywood production End of the Spear. Most of this film was shot in Panama.
Entre Marx y una Mujer Desnuda (Between Marx and a Nude Woman, 1995), by Ecuadorian Camilo Luzuriaga, provides a window into the life of young Ecuadorian leftists living in a country plagued by the remnants of feudal systems and coup d’etats. It is based on a novel by Jorge Enrique Adoum.
In addition to film, there are numerous books and novels based on Ecuador, including the science fiction novel by Rod Glenn, The King of America, and the science fiction novel Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut.
Sciences and Research
The most notable icons in Ecuadorian sciences are the mathematician and cartographer Pedro Vicente Maldonado, born in Riobamba in 1707, and the printer, independence precursor, and medical pioneer Eugenio Espejo, born in 1747 in Quito.
Among other notable Ecuadorian scientists and engineers are Lieutenant Jose Rodriguez Lavandera, a pioneer who built the first submarine in Latin America in 1837; Reinaldo Espinosa Aguilar (1898–1950), a botanist and biologist of Andean flora; and José Aurelio Abelardo Dueñas (1880–1961), a chemist and inventor of a method of textile serigraphy.
The major areas of scientific research in Ecuador have been in the medical fields, tropical and infectious diseases treatments, agricultural engineering, pharmaceutical research, and bioengineering. Being a small country and consumer of foreign technology, Ecuador has favored the research supported by entrepreneurship in information technology. The antivirus Checkprogram and banking protection system MdLock and the Core Banking Software Cobis are a product of Ecuadorian development.
The scientific production in hard sciences has been limited due to lack of funding but focused around science of materials in Physics and Statistics in Mathematics. In the case of engineering fields, the majority of the scientific production comes from the top three polytechnic institutions: ESPOL (Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral), ESPE (Escuela Superior Politecnica del Ejercito) and EPN (Escuela Politecnica Nacional).
Contemporary Ecuadorian scientists who have been recognized by international institutions are Eugenia del Pino (born 1945), the first Ecuadorian to be elected to the United States National Academy of Science, and Arturo Villavicencio, who was part of the working group of the IPCC which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore for their dissemination of the effects of climate change.
Currently, the politics of research and investigation are managed by the National Secretary of Higher Education, Science and Technology.