Manuela Sáenz at the table

In the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Andes of Manuela's time, a meal was not thought of as starter/main/dessert but as a succession that ALWAYS begins with a thick base soup (the sopa or locro, the nourishing heart of the day), followed by the segundo (a main course of braised meat accompanied by mote, potatoes, and ají), then a dulce (sweet) and a hot drink. On military campaign, this structure was reduced to the ración: dried meat, toasted grain, and fermented drink. It was this architecture — caldo, segundo, dulce, bebida — that paced her table in Quito as in her exile in Paita.

Domesticated in the Andes for millennia, the potato appears here in dozens of varieties and structures almost every dish; it is paired with ají (fresh Andean chili or sauce) and achiote (annatto) which give even the simplest broth its golden warmth. Drying, smoking, fermenting grain and meat: these high-altitude preservation techniques are the true signature of a mountain and wartime cuisine.