An Ecuadorian treat

[ANNE V. GILBERT]

Mike and all:

Here's a couple of additions for your collection of Ecuadorian foods/menu
items. As you know, I speak several dialects of Mexican and Central
American Spanish -- but I'm not up on South American variations on the same
theme.

I was in Quito in 1976 for a meeting of CLACSO -- The Latin American Social
Science Council.  One day I was invited to join a group of Ecuadorian
students for lunch.  In a quick huddle, they decided to go out for some
sanduchas.

Sanduchas?  I'd never heard of such a dish, and anticipated some item of
exotic cuisine.

It was something of a letdown to discover what kinds of sanduchas were
available:
sanducha de tocino con tomate, the menu's explanation of something called a
"BLT"; sanducha club; sanducha de jamon y queso -- dozens of varieties. I
don't remember what the place was called, but it clearly was a sandwich
shop.

When our sessions for that day were over, the students hauled some of us to
an  impromptu party at the apartment a couple of them shared.  On the way,
they decided to stop at a "native" place they called Quentúqui -- where we
picked up a couple of buckets of the Colonel's best fried chicken. KFC, the
genuine article.


It took me a minute or two, but I fugured out by the end of your post that
"sanducha" is the way "sandwich" might be pronounced in Spanish.
Anne G.