Mauricio Acuña, the Ecuadorian chef, innovates his menu with llama meat

Salt and macambo on the plate to season raw meat from a mammal that has been absent from the tables of Ecuador. Until now that the cook Mauricio Acuna innovate a menu with llama meat.

Wool from this distant relative of camels is used to make clothingbut its meat had hardly been used in gastronomy.

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Acuña, with a school in the restaurants of the Spaniards Ferran Adrià and Martín Berasategui, is trying to change that.

In its restaurant The Salnes, in the north of Quito, the 50-year-old cook offers raw llama loin to appreciate its distinctive flavor. Also a piece of the neck that cooked in the pan has a flavor similar to that of pork.

In keeping with the local taste, the loin is accompanied by lemon, salt, macambo -a raw cocoa seed-, old cow cheese and wild arugula.

The neck, wrapped in a “spider web” of fat from the intestines, is sautéed and served with potatoes, another Andean tuber called melloco, amaranth, bits of cocoa, and a llama bone sauce.

The only pack animal in pre-Columbian America, its population increased with the northward expansion of the Inca empire, explains Carlos Montalvo, archaeologist at the Casa del Alabado Museum of Pre-Columbian Art in Quito.

Archaeological records reveal that the inhabitants of the Sierra then ate mainly cuy (or guinea pig) and deer, and there are no traces of massive herds of llamas. And since it was not “present in the culinary tradition”, recalls Montalvo, it was displaced by the sheep, cows and pigs brought by the European conquerors.

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El Salnés is part of a recent crop of restaurants in Quito who experiment with local ingredients and modern techniques.

Acuña is not the first chef in Ecuador to experiment with meat from this camelid. A decade ago, the luxurious Hotel Casa Gangotena, in the historic center of Quito, served leg steaks.

With the help of the UN’s Small Donations program, the cook arrived after many years to a community that produces llama meat in the province of Chimborazo (south) and from there he managed to take it to popular markets in Quito.

An hour south of the capital, Susana Yánez exhibits half a skinned llama body at her small stall. She has just woken up and even without much hustle and bustle, the Las Cuadras market is a showcase of cuts of meat, but also intestines, tongues and other animal viscera.

Yánez has been in charge of the business for more than 30 years and Although he sees a rebound in orders from restaurants and hotels, he admits that llama meat “does not sell much”even at a similar price ($3.5 a pound on the bone) to that of pork and lamb.

In Quito’s Central Market, Ana Taco, also a vendor, agrees: they buy it “especially the restaurants where foreign people come.”

In the Andean mountains of Peru and Bolivia, the consumption of llama is more frequent.

But Ecuadorian diners have a predilection for pork, little cuy (guinea pig) or shellfish from the coast.

Instead, llamas, with their elongated necks and banana-shaped ears, are seen as pets in the countryside, tourist attractions or sacred animals. And for dinner? Not that much.

Acuña believes that this is due to “cultural erosion” and foreign practices. “It is a time to take a more ancient agriculture with methods fully rooted in our culture.”

“Eco-friendly”

Gabriel Barriga, from the Intiñan Llama Association, estimates its population at around 20,000 individuals in the provinces of Imbabura, Pichincha, Tungurahua, Chimborazo, Bolívar and Azuay.

In the Andean highlands it is considered an “ecocompatible” animal.: Their padded feet do not damage the moorland soils like cows, and their teeth cut and do not uproot grass like sheep, says Barriga.

Quichua indigenous families are in charge of the small herds. They also eat them, especially dried with salt, “charqui” style, which can be preserved for years.

For more than 30 years, Intiñan financed the purchase of llamas in Chimborazo, in a project that included veterinary visits and even cooking classes based on the animal. But partly due to the pandemic, the project closed at the end of 2020.

Now the bet of chefs like Acuña is to popularize it and take it directly to homes.

“Not a restaurant anymore -he says- but it is in a supermarket; Sooner or later it will be.” (YO)