Jared, Matt, Tina, and April at the G Spot, random name for a hotdog and burger place
Shock may be too strong of a word, (I think amusement is more appropriate), but I have found one cultural difference which stands out to me – if only in its frequency. Indeed, I generally think of hot dogs as one of the few typical North American foods, but they are also not necessarily a regular food – maybe I will eat them at a ball park or a BBQ. But I certainly do not encounter them in every other restaurant I see (restaurants – that’s a glamorous word for them - specializing in comida rapida are very common here). And I certainly never eat them on my pizza (the more common word for hot dogs in Ecuador, salchicha literally means sausage, and thus is full of the potential for disappointment when you are imagining a delicious spicy Italian sausage on your forthcoming pizza pie).
But just about every certainty I had about hot dogs has left my worldview since coming to Ecuador. You do in fact encounter them with a frequency that is at first baffling, multiple options on each block. And, if you opt to, or simply get fooled into it by the dangers of direct translation, you do eat hot dogs on your pizza. And you do also eat them on toothpicks, and in a dish with rice and cucumbers (dinner the first night in Quito). And you can also sample the different variations of hot dogs – my first was my second night in Cuenca, when the family and I stopped to order a Salchicha Colombiana from a street vendor. Apparently these were one of the main cravings of my host sister when she was pregnant with her now 9-month old son, and I could see why. Smothered in ketchup, excuse me, salsa de tomate, mayonnaise (which runs like water here in Ecuador) and mustard (first time I have seen this beloved condiment of mine in this country since the red-headed stepchild of condiments, mayo, seems to have all the power), this glorious hot dog is also topped with onions and, in what makes it so special, potato chips. What relation this has to Colombia, I have no idea, except that perhaps after one eats enough of them, Ecuadorians will look down on the fat rolls as much as they do on Colombians.
While I am positive there are more variations of hot dogs for me to discover (maybe on for each neighboring country?), I know of only one more that I think I will be forced to try simply because of its ridiculousness. “My Favorite Hot Dog”, a tienda of hot dogs across from a corner where I can catch a bus to my school, apparently is the place to go whenever you want a hot dog with, I kid you not, shredded hot dog on top. Que Rico! Despite the existence (and delicacy status) of cuy (guinea pig) in Ecuador (which I have not tried, but clearly have to) and the regular sightings of whole pigs on spigots, and the cow tongue I had for lunch and dinner last week (delicious, but unsettling in its familiarity, in the fact that I was eating a tongue with my tongue), for the moment, salchichas are my favorite Ecua meat.
