Tradition, product and technique: fundaments for adding value to the Ecuadorian gastronomic culture today

Abstract

The present text has been developed as part of the Research Project "Model of the gastronomic creative process for culinary proposals based on traditional Ecuadorian preparations", which is carried out at the South American Institute of Technologies in the city of Cuenca. This project aims to carry out a gastronomic approach, both cultural and anthropological to typical and current cuisines to understand some of its fundamental axes. Therefore, this text concentrates on analyzing the tradition, the product and the culinary technique of the Ecuadorian cuisine to indicate possible bases that allow contributing certain values as prestige, sense of belonging, among others. To this end, bibliographic reviews, interviews to the actors of traditional cuisine from the Zone 6 in Ecuador (it includes the provinces of Azuay, Cañar and Morona Santiago), and surveys applied to self-selected focus groups have been carried out. Finally, examples are presented that reinforce the topics covered in this article, such as the application results of culinary interventions in traditional elaborations. With all this, it is intended to contribute to the integration of traditional gastronomy in the culture we live today by implementing current, professional, and relevant techniques.