Living the Life Ecuador Coast

Foods of Ecuador

In Galapagos

On my recent travels, I was asked to take part in a young chef's competition that had chefs from all of the cantons of Ecuador.

The top four chefs from Ecuador were there to judge the presentation, quality, taste, and the origin of the food from that area.

The young chefs are in school and not only

 are they representing their school but their home district as well.

Unbeknown to me, when I arrived, I had been volunteered to help with the judging of the food. This was a task that I was unprepared for, but I rose to the challenge.

The challenge was not the tasting of the food, but indeed the knowledge of the food for a particular area; for this, I had to wing it.

Armed with a pencil and a list of areas that were to be scored on, I went on with the four judges and looked at the food, asked questions about the food and tasted the food. After 19 tables of food, I was glad that they offered bread and water to clear the pallet. We all retired to a table and added up the scores, then we each came up with a winner. By some strange quirk, we all agreed on the same winner, Canton of Guayas. This is where it was to end, but I was so impressed with another entry, that I asked if we could make an honorable mention for the canton of Pichincha. The judges got up and went over to their table and came back and agreed that they could do that, so we had two winners that  night.

Did you know this 

Hedy Lamarr

Invention of Spread Spectrum Technology

Although better known for her Silver Screen exploits, Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler) also became a pioneer in the field of wireless communications following her emigration to the United States. The international beauty icon, along with co-inventor George Anthiel, developed a "Secret Communications System" to help combat the Nazis in World War II. By manipulating radio frequencies at irregular intervals between transmission and reception, the invention formed an unbreakable code to prevent classified messages from being intercepted by enemy personnel.

Lamarr and Anthiel received a patent in 1941, but the enormous significance of their invention was not realized until decades later. It was first implemented on naval ships during the Cuban Missile Crisis and subsequently emerged in numerous military applications. But most importantly, the "spread spectrum" technology that Lamarr helped to invent would galvanize the digital communications boom, forming the technical backbone that makes cellular phones, fax machines and other wireless operations possible.

As is the case with many of the famous women inventors, Lamarr received very little recognition of her innovative talent at the time, but recently she has been showered with praise for her groundbreaking invention. In 1997, she and George Anthiel were honored with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Pioneer Award. And later in the same year, Lamarr became the first female recipient of the BULBIE™ Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award, a prestigious lifetime accomplishment prize for inventors that is dubbed "The Oscar™ of Inventing."

Proving she was much more than just another pretty face, Lamarr shattered stereotypes and earned a place among the 20th century's most important women inventors. She truly was a visionary whose technological acumen was far ahead of its time.