For thousands of years, indigenous people used a cooking technique called curanto to prepare their food, a method originating from the Mapuche words Cura "stone" and antu "sun"; this technique is believed to have come from Polynesia and has been known by various names such as: umu from Easter Island and the Inca version pachamanaca, from Quechua "olla de la tierra" (pot of the earth) from Peru, Ecuador, and northern Argentina.
The elements that make up curanto are: stones, fire, and food. A hole is excavated in the ground, where stones are placed over the fire, and as the fire burns, the glowing stones fall to the bottom of the pit. Then, foods such as seafood, meats, potatoes, and legumes are arranged for cooking. It is common to prepare a mixture of cilantro, tomato, lime juice, garlic, oil, and salt to accompany the dishes.
This ancestral technique remains alive in small communities of the Ecuadorian Andes, maintaining the bond between the land and its produce.
We are talking about pachamanca, which despite the centuries has survived among the indigenous people of the Ecuadorian highlands; they discovered that by transforming the earth into a cooking “pot” and using heated volcanic stones, they could cook their food with a one-of-a-kind flavor that only pachamanca can impart, because these stones are igneous rocks formed when lava cools.
Before cooking the food, Ecuadorian indigenous people perform a ritual to dispel negativity and ask for permission from the land to cook.
