Adventures in Peace: ¡Bolones, bolones, cincuenta centavos!

WARNING: this is a success story. It’s true, they don’t happen often, at least not on the first try, but this is a good one. It’s about the time that Sarah and I helped my host mom start a successful bolón and empanada business, and it started like this:

One night, the night of my town’s niña reina competition, Sarah and I sat eating salchipapas (French fries with hot dog on top… yum!) waiting for the competition to begin (sidenote: it started at 10pm. On a school night. The contestants were 10-12 years old. What is wrong with people???). Ok so we are sitting eating totally delicious and deep-fried cheap street food, thinking how great it would be if someone was selling empanadas. So the next day, we hatched a plan to get my host mom to be that someone. We told her she should sell food at the town fiesta and soccer games that weekend, and we would help. So she agreed to make bolones, made a list, Sarah and I did some shopping, and the fun began! In case you are unfamiliar with the snack, a bolón is a deep fried ball of verde (one of the many types of bananas you can find here) filled with queso or chanco (pork), served with a salad of lettuce and carrots with mayo on top. On Friday, we did a trial run and made about 20 bolones de queso. We walked out of the house, up the street by the cancha, and back home yelling “Bolones, bolones! Cincuenta centavos!” Our bolones sold out in less than 15 min! And at $0.50 each, what a steal! Ok, so we might be onto something here… Saturday we made 30 more bolones de queso and walked down to where soccer games were being played on the big cancha. Again, we sold out. That evening before the fiesta even started, we made about 15 bolones de chancho, which were HUGE and we sold them for a dollar. Also sold out in like 10 minutes. What can I say, people like our bolones! From bolón sales we made about $15 after deducting the price of ingredients, but that’s still kind of a lot of money for this neighborhood.

Our original plan, of course, had been to sell empanadas. (Assuming everyone knows what an empanada is, but just in case.. it’s basically a deep-fried tortilla folded in half, sealed around the edges, usually with cheese inside. Do you notice all the deep-frying going on here??) Mostly because, well, we love empanadas, and we wanted to perfect making them so we could make them whenever we wanted. So we were delighted when, the following week, my host sister Monica shows up in the kitchen and says “Let’s make some empanadas to sell!” (Actually, she said “Hacemos empanadas para vender!”, because she only speaks Spanish.) So we made a bunch of empanadas and sold them in the same manner, this time yelling “Empanadas, empanadas! Treinta centavos! Cuatro por un dolar!” and we sold out even FASTER! Making empanadas is actually more economical than the bolones, so we made more money off of these. The next day, I came home from a paseo with the colegio kids (see blog: Paseo) to see Monica and two friends at the table rolling out and folding up empanadas- this time even more. They had also made morocho, which is a hot drink that is basically like rice pudding but with corn and is equal parts sugar with a touch of cinnamon too. We did our traveling sales gig again, sold out quick, and made a good amount of money.

The key to good sales was that the product was hot and delicious, reasonably priced, and sold right around dinner time- spoil those kids’ appetites, they don’t need to eat more rice! And of course it helps to have a couple of gringas selling them, because who can resist the gringa charm? Especially when I single people out by name.. “Come on Daniel, only 2 empanadas? Buy 4.. I teach your daughter in school, you know..”

So, to sum up:

PROS- we learned how to make Ecuadorian food, bonded with my host family, made some cash for my host mom, provided the people of Galera with greasy deliciousness on multiple occasions, got some free samples of aforementioned greasy deliciousness.

CONS- I ate WAY more empanadas and bolones than a person should probably consume in a one week period… But you can’t sell a product you haven’t taste-tested! It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it. Galera, I am here for you.