Ecuador

Ecuadorian food shifts from coast to Andes, bright ceviches and plantain on the coast, hearty potato and hominy soups in the highlands. Llapingachos, encebollado, and aji sauces define its regional variety.

Ecuadorian ceviche is not a failed attempt at the Peruvian kind: the shrimp are cooked first and the dish is served swimming in its own tomato-and-citrus juice, often with popcorn or plantain chips tipped in. Encebollado, albacore tuna with yuca and pickled red onion, is the closest thing to a national dish and is eaten for breakfast.

The Andes eat what the coast does not. Locro de papa is a potato soup finished with cheese and avocado; mote, hulled hominy corn, turns up beside almost everything in the southern highlands; and the aji sauce on the table is thinner and sharper than a Mexican salsa, usually built on tree tomato or the small yellow rocoto family.

A brothy tuna-and-cassava soup topped with a tangle of pickled red onion, Ecuador's midday cure-all.