Blog Post Nine: Mitad del Mundo and Mama Clorinda's

Mitad del Mundo.

A real shrunken head that is over 100 years old.
Hands down the most surprising information I learned while at Mitad del Mundo was about the process that the indigenous people used to shrink the heads of dead powerful tribe members and enemies. They start by posthumously removing the head from the body and the skull from the head so all that remains is skin, hair, cartilage, tendons, and other soft tissues, essentially leaving a mask. A rock is placed in the skin to help keep the shape and then it is boiled in water with ingredients that are still unknown to this day. The boiling is what begins to shrink the skin. After it has shrunk, they remove the rock and place a smaller rock inside to continue the shrinking while maintaining shape. Afterwards it is dried with hot rocks and sand while being molded into the correct shape. The mouth of the deceased is also sewn shut during this process, with different reasons for the type of person who died. If the deceased is a powerful tribe member they sew the mouth shut so that all of their knowledge and secrets remain within them and so nobody else can obtain them. If it is an enemy they sew the mouth shut to trap the evil spirit within the shrunken head. This act is no longer practiced thankfully, it was made illegal around 1960.


Cow tongue.
The food at Mama Clorinda’s was amazing! My favorite dish was my entrée, the grilled sea bass. I’ve never had sea bass before until yesterday and the fish was grilled to perfection and so flavorful. The food that took me out of my comfort zone somewhat was the cow tongue. The flavor and texture was above average, but just knowing it was a cow tongue lowered my opinion of it. I also really enjoyed the ceviche, quimbolito, and the plantain dessert. Overall I liked all of the food at least somewhat, but most of it was phenomenal!




Sea Bass. 

Ceviche.

Plantain dessert. 

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