Maito, and ayampaco

As tradition built it

Maito, and ayampaco, its seasoned descendant

Macas, Morona Santiago . 20 to 25 minutes

Ingredients

The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.

Maito

• 3 per fish bijao leaves, heated over the fire to soften
• 1, whole fish, cleaned (the Shuar maito uses no salt or seasoning)
• as available toquilla straw, for tying

Ayampaco macabeo

• 900g to 1.35kg free-range chicken, in small pieces
• 5 stalks white onion, chopped
• 1 tsp garlic
• 3 tsp manteca de color (achiote lard)
• to taste salt
• palm heart, in very small dice
• 3 per parcel bijao or shiguango leaves
• as needed cord, for tying

To serve

• to serve yuca and hot guayusa

Method

Maito

1. Heat three bijao leaves per fish over the fire to soften them.
2. Clean the fish. For the Shuar maito it takes no salt or seasoning.
3. Wrap it in the leaves and tie with toquilla straw.
4. Cook it on or beside the coals for 20 to 25 minutes.

Ayampaco macabeo

5. Mix the chicken and onion with the garlic, manteca de color and salt, then the palm heart.
6. Lay three leaves, two one way with the underside down and one the other way face up, so the parcel seals and the juices cannot run out.
7. Put the filling on, fold the middle over, and tie the tips with cord.
8. Set it on the embers. It is done when nothing more drips from it and the outer leaf has changed colour and looks dry.
9. Serve with yuca and hot guayusa.

Notes

A rigorous diet-diary study of Kichwa women near Tena, logging 441 real main dishes over one to two weeks per household, found maito in only 28 of them, well behind soup, rice-and-protein and plain boiled fish or plantain, with the study's own authors concluding maito's “typical dish” status likely reflects tourist demand more than everyday frequency.

The distinction between maito (Shuar, unseasoned) and ayampaco (seasoned, multi-protein, palm-heart-anchored, from contact with mestizo settlers around Macas) is documented in Ecuadorian national press through the testimony of Marcelo Noguera, president of the Casa de la Cultura of Morona Santiago, and Mama Zara Jaramillo Carvajal, a Macas cook of over thirty years' standing who names at least thirteen ayampaco varieties in her own repertoire.

The ayampaco is Andrés Ortega's account of Macas cooking for El Observador, which says shiguango leaves give the meat a special flavour and that the Macas ayampaco is a different preparation from the maito. The Asociación de Chefs del Ecuador's fish ayampaco spreads a yuca mash on buttered bijao, lays the fillet on it with ají, garlic and pimiento, and steams it 30 minutes.

What a modern chef changes

Vacuum-cured fish, sous vide then a char

Rung 01

Method

1. Cure the fish briefly under vacuum in a light salt-and-citrus solution before wrapping, the ayampaco lineage's own seasoning instinct taken one step further with precision rather than departed from.
2. Cook the parcel sous vide to a controlled doneness inside its leaf, then finish with a short, hot char on the Big Green Egg for real smoke and colour.
3. Build one ayampaco-style version with palmito shaved fine on a mandoline and a dust of dehydrated, ground ají from the spice grinder folded through the filling, honouring the dish's own documented evolution from plain to seasoned rather than inventing a foreign one.