It enters its third year. And with every passing year, the exotic flavours it brings to the table get richer. Bringing the traditional biodiversity and gastronomy of a beautiful South American country, the Ecuador Food Festival opens at Diplomatic Club.
Offering succulent assortment of Ecuadorian dishes, especially the ones from the Amazon of Ecuador, the festival celebrates the grassroots of Ecuador’s food culture. Kabalan Abi Saab, ambassador of Ecuador to Qatar, officially inaugurated the festival here in the presence of dignitaries from Qatar’s government besides members of diplomatic corps with their families.
The third edition of the festival, happening for the third consecutive year at Diplomatic Club, opened with a welcome speech by ambassador Saab. The ambassador said he was delighted in celebrating the Ecuadorian cuisine with so many people.
“The people around the world have many ways to express their culture, and cuisine is one of the best ways to do it. Our culture as a whole is marked by its diversity of language, dress, music, art, literature, poetry, and of course gastronomy,” said the ambassador while addressing the audience.
“Biodiversity, fertile land, endemic species, a singular geographical configuration, a multicultural society and ancestral customs, are some of the factors that come together to make Ecuador a land with unique culinary wealth,” added Saab.
The Ecuadorian table, he said, can become a multicolour, multi-flavoured and multicultural mosaic. It all depends on what kind of culinary voyage you wish to take.
For eight days, the Diplomatic Club and the Embassy of the Republic of Ecuador join hands to bring the annual Ecuadorian Food Festival to Doha. The festival is designed to celebrate the country’s fabulously diverse range of food, irrespective of whether you’re an Ecuadorian food lover or a culinary adventurist.
This year, the festival will take place on the beautiful and serene beach of The Diplomatic Club. It will be a time for the entire family and friends to roll up their sleeves and enjoy a whole host of live cooking demonstrations, buffet stations and mocktails.
There is even a chance to mingle with the staff of The Diplomatic Club to know more about Ecuadorian cuisine. A master chef has been flown in from Ecuador to prepare the traditional culinary delights with authentic spices.
“People around the world have many ways to express their culture and showcasing cuisine is one of the best ways to do it,” said Saab, while thanking the member of diplomatic community and the representatives of Qatar government for attending the festival.
The ambassador said that throughout the history, cookery has been a way for them to find and reaffirm their social and cultural diversity. “Our culture as a whole is marked by its diversity of language, dress, music and of course gastronomy,” added the ambassador.
He invited guests to get closer to Ecuador and to know the richness of its culture, to visit the beautiful country of four worlds and the most compact mega diversity in the world.
Diplomatic Club general manager Aysha al-Marzouqi, in her opening speech, said that the club organises the Ecuadorian Food Festival to introduce the Doha audience to the beautiful country of Ecuador through food, their standout glory.
“Achievement of this food triumph has come through constant trial and error of the chefs at The Diplomatic Club who have trained with Chef Dayana for the past few weeks. The collaboration between the Embassy of the Republic of Ecuador and The Diplomatic club is indeed a fruitful story to enlighten,” said Aysha.
To begin, this culinary trip takes you on tour of shrimp soup, spinach salad with raspberry, gorgonzola cheese and walnuts, quinoa with vegetables, and fish in coconut sauce among others — and these are just the starters.
Ecuador is big on sea food. The country gets both the cold and the hot currents, and therefore produces different types of fish and seafood. It is also in the tropical region, and its mountains produce fresh produce such as quinoa, potato and other vegetables.
The food is fresh and diverse, coming from different regions. And the countries culinary breadth is on full display for a few days at the festival that runs 7pm onwards every day until April 13.
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