Fanesca is a soup

Soup

Soup is a generally warm food that is made by combining ingredients such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water, or another liquid. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, forming a broth.Traditionally,...

 traditional to Ecuador

Ecuador

Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

. Its components and preparation

Preparation

Preparation may refer to:* Preparedness* Prepared food* Prepared supplement* Prepared drug* Prepared dosage form* Preparation , the method by which a tooth is prepared when removing decay and designing a form that will provide adequate retention for a dental restoration* Preparation , treatment of...

 vary from one region of the country to another, if not from one family to another. It is typically prepared and served only in the week before Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

. It is a rich soup, with the primary ingredients being figleaf gourd

Cucurbita ficifolia

Cucurbita ficifolia is a type of squash grown for its edible seeds, fruit, and greens. Although it is closely related to other squashes in its genus, it shows considerable biochemical difference from them and does not hybridize readily with them....

 (sambo), pumpkin (zapallo), and twelve different kinds of beans and grains (chochos (lupines), habas (fava beans), lentils, peas, corn and others) representing the twelve apostles of Jesus, and bacalao (salt cod), cooked in milk, due to the Christian religious prohibition against red meat

Red meat

Red meat in traditional culinary terminology is meat which is red when raw and not white when cooked. In the nutritional sciences, red meat includes all mammal meat. Red meat includes the meat of most adult mammals and some fowl ....

 during Holy Week (the week before Easter). It is also generally garnished with hard boiled eggs

Egg (food)

Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...

, fried plantains, herbs, parsley, and sometimes empanadas.

Fanesca is consumed mid-day (the largest meal of the day is generally consumed mid-day within Ecuadorian culture.) The making and eating of fanesca is generally a social and/or family function.

External links

• Fanesca recipe
• Calvin Trillin
  Calvin Trillin
  Calvin Marshall Trillin is an American journalist, humorist, food writer, poet, memoirist and novelist.-Biography:Trillin attended public schools in Kansas City and went on to Yale University, where he served as chairman of the Yale Daily News and was a member of Scroll and Key before graduating...
  
  , "Speaking of soup", The New Yorker
  The New Yorker
  The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
  
  , 5 September 2005. Trillin travels to Ecuador to experience true fanesca. Re-printed in The Best American Travel Writing 2005.