Encebollado: Summer's Aphrodisiac

It’s ninety degrees in Montañita, Ecuador. The waves are high and strong as tourists try to ride it while locals play an ardent game of Ecuavolley. Like volleyball except it’s played with a soccer ball and with three players in each team.

Left, right, set, served, spiked! One point for the team while the opponent is left belly down, flat, having failed to reach for the ball. A tourist too has flopped trying to catch a wave. Good times in the coastal region.

Back in the highlands of Ecuador around the middle of the year it is also summer but not as hot as in the coast. In fact it is harvesting season and more importantly it is Inti Raymi, or festival of the sun. But this is another story for another time. After a successful harvesting season there is lots of dancing, gathering of workers, friends, families as a thank you to the father sun for the fruit of our labor. With all these festivities at the end of the day comes thirst, and with great thirst comes great food but not yet. They say all good things come to those who wait.

Take the memories of deliciousness to hyper drive to the present: New York City, specifically, to the melting pot that is Flushing, Queens. It is almost summer solstice. The temperature is scorching. The humidity raises it a little further up. With longer daylight activities are a plenty.

The drudgery of work and then to enter an enclosed space filled with numerous breathing, panting animals on the running wheel doesn’t feel enticing. So on to the park, among the trees, in a more open space to sweat and feel each drop streaming down your face, soaking your t-shirt, or if you’ve decided to take your top off, soaking your lower extremities, leaving your hard rock body to glisten in the sun. Eyes irritating unable to fully open without sweat blocking your vision. Careful, maybe it’s the orgasmic workout in the heat but it could leave you drained and close to losing consciousness.

From Montañita to the cold Andean mountains and now bringing the tradition to the metropolis. After all such activities brings suffocating thirst in the form of alcohol; be it an ice cold beer, mixed liquor, a chilly sangria, a cocktail, or chicha, a traditional fermented drink. The conclusion is all the same,to get absolutely wasted! Hammered! Drunk!

If the drinking was uncontrolled the following day one can expect a hangover to varying degrees; from feeling refreshed from a couple of drinks to the opposite extreme: a complete hangover with the common throbbing headache, thirst, fatigue, nausea, etc. Thankfully there’s a delicious, natural medicine for that. That remedy is called Encebollado!

The ingredients are onions (its chief ingredient and as the Spanish name itself indicates), albacora, or white tuna, but you can also supplant it with shrimp or any other seafood but it’s mainly albacora. Then there’s the rest of the ingredients which is essential to savor its full taste: yuca, cilantro, tomato, and other condiments. To top it for a crunchy taste you can either add popcorn, toasted maiz, and a choice of some chilli sauce.

Now, I’m gonna be honest and say I have not cooked it but my relatives have, which includes my significant other. Everyone says it’s a simple cook. I don’t often get drunk so the times I’ve purchased or have been offered it’s been out of need but it can be eaten anytime at any occasion; breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner; at a wedding, baptism, baby shower, funeral, etc.

You can also eat it at any temperature like the great ceviche, as long as it is fresh and keeping in mind the guidelines on your food handler manual. Safety first.

I, personally, and perhaps many others too, enjoy eating it freshly cold. To first put a couple of spoonfuls in your mouth and feel the titillating feeling of tomato, onion, and fish juice as it coolly passes your intestines is as refreshing as having a cigarette after sex, or seeing that direct deposit in your bank account after it’s been in the negative for overdraft, insufficient funds, and service fee!

While the encebollado is a coastal food, more specifically from the Guayaquil region, where the weather is always warm, this delicious fish soup is also much appreciated in the colder region as well.

Aside from its hangover curative effect, it is a very nutritious belly-warming staple to ward off the winter chills. And yes, it is also a known aphrodisiac.

Right now, however, in New York we are tilting more towards the sun and the heatwave can, unfortunately, be devastating to certain regions in the United States. We can at least take comfort and indulge in the healthy and revitalizing encebollado.

If you visit New York City and would like to have a taste of it there are plenty of Ecuadorian restaurants offering encebollado. Take note that it’s not always the fanciest of restaurants that cooks the most authentic cultural meals. There are some options in Roosevelt Avenue and Corona in Queens.

All this writing has had my mouth watering and I’m suffering from a bit of mild dehydration so … BUEN PROVECHO!