Salcedo Ice Cream

Helado de Salcedo is a frozen lolly built in layers, each of a different fruit pulp with milk or condensed milk between them, frozen in stages so the bands stay separate: naranjilla, mora, taxo, guanabana and a milk layer in the classic version, giving four or five stripes of colour in one lolly on a stick. It was developed in the town in the mid-twentieth century and Salcedo has made it ever since, with shops through the town and vendors boarding buses on the Panamericana, and it has become the fixed stop for anyone driving between Quito and Ambato. Naranjilla, the sharp orange lulo, is the flavour that carries it. Some shops now stack up to seven layers.

What to look for

• Four or five separate fruit layers - frozen in stages to keep the bands.
• Naranjilla and mora - the Andean fruits at the centre of it.
• Bus vendors on the highway - the trade that made the town's name.
• Shops through the town - the competing makers on the main street.

When to go

Year round. One hour as a highway stop. Buy from a shop rather than a bus vendor if you want the full layering; onboard stock is often simpler.

Practical notes

It is a lolly and takes ten minutes; the town has nothing else. Hygiene varies with the vendor. Layer counts are marketing as much as recipe.

Nearby

Latacunga is north; Ambato lies south.