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Fanesca for Holy Week
Ecuador's Holy Week soup of twelve grains and salt cod, finished with crumbled fresh cheese.
Cheeses for Fanesca for Holy Week
Fanesca is made only in the days before Easter in Ecuador, most often on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, when many families avoid meat. It is a thick soup of squash, beans, peas, corn, lupins and other grains, often said to number twelve for the twelve apostles, cooked in milk with salt cod. It is served with garnishes: hard-boiled egg, fried plantain, small empanadas, parsley and crumbled queso fresco, the soft fresh cheese of the Andes. Making fanesca takes a day or more, and families share pots with neighbours. Restaurants serve it only during Lent.
Also part of it, and being written: Queso fresco (Crumbled over the soup and cooked into its milky base.).
Written by the EveryCheese desk with AI assistance. Background: "Fanesca" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.