Favorite Banos Snack

In the parque in front of the Basilica in Baños you will see a lot of folks eating out of little plastic bags.

Over on the side of the parque there are three stalls selling mote con cuero. They are doing a big business. I had to see what all the fuss was about, so I got one. Mote is the corn that shows up in a lot of Ecuadorian dishes. Sometimes it is like our hominy. In this case it was just white corn kernels. To give it a little crunch, there were also roasted popcorn kernels. There was also a little diced tomato and onion. To top it off there was the cuero -- diced pig skin, cooked a little on a grill. That´s what you see in this picture. The corn is hiding underneath the cuero. Squeeze on a little lime and you are ready to snack like a real Ecuadorian.

I didn´t much like the skin. It was too chewy. Had it been fried crisp I would have liked it better. But the corn and veggies were good.