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If anybody ever tells you they don’t need a Panama hat, you know one thing about them for sure. They haven’t read Tom Miller’s “The Panama Hat Trail” (Washington: Adventure Press of the National Geographic Society; 2001, 270 pages).

This isn’t a new book. It was first published in hardcover in 1986 by William Morrow and Co. It’s new to me, though, and I like it a lot. I found my copy, a paperback in pretty good condition, at a used bookstore. Why some misguided person gave it up I will never understand. But I’m glad they did.

This is travel writing at its best. The author is not going for the sake of going, flitting from here to there: I saw this and then I saw that; I ordered this for lunch and boy, was I surprised. It tasted like chicken. You must try it the next time you’re in Istanbul. Instead, Miller took off on a mission. The result is an entertaining social history of the hat trade, with a lot of asides, in a little known but exotic country.

Panama hats don’t come from Panama. The real ones are made in Ecuador and have been for hundreds and hundreds of years. The ancestor of this straw hat was made there before the Spanish conquistadors bulled they’re way through South America wearing those funny looking metal helmets. Unlike Panamas, helmets have no panache at all.

So, why are these hats called Panamas?

The Isthmus of Panama was the major trading area for South American goods in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Miners going to and from the California gold rush wore them. When President Teddy Roosevelt visited the new Panama Canal, he returned to Washington wearing one. The hats were named for where they were bought, not for their origin. The name stuck.

Ecuadorians accept this situation, having learned they can’t do anything about it, although they’ve tried. The government once instructed all its consuls abroad to put stickers on their correspondence to read: Panama Hats Are Made In Ecuador.

Miller, citing a source, says, “The consul to San Francisco complained that people remarked: ‘I see they are now making Panama hats in Ecuador.’ ”

But Ecuadorians don’t call them Panamas. They’re sombreros de paja toquilla – toquilla straw hats.

Toquilla straw comes from the fronds of a small palm. The ideal habitat for Carludovica palmata is the coastal lowlands of Ecuador, “where the fertile grounds are moist but not saturated, where the wind carries the cooling air of the Humboldt Current in from the coast, and where taller plants shade it from the sun’s direct rays.” You can’t help but like this book.

After the immature fronds are cut, they are peeled, boiled and dried. The straw is then separated by width, coarse to thin.

The straw hats of Ecuador are hand-woven. The weaving is not done in a factory, but in homes, largely by women. The thinness of the straw and the tightness of the weave determine the price of the hat.

How long it takes a weaver to make a hat depends on the quality. A souvenir hat of coarse straw might take a few hours. A weaver can make, oh, a half dozen reasonably good hats in a week. But the best, say, a fino fino montecristo, takes more than a month. The retail price for them in the United States could easily be $2,000 or more. But you can get a Panama for under $100, too.

Brisa weave is the most popular exported to the United States. The crown is 4 inches high and the brim 2 3/8 inches wide. It’s folded in shipment and has a crease in front of the crown.

Panamas are lightweight and they breathe. A good one can last generations but they’re not indestructible. You need to take care of them. Al Capone wore one. In the Spanish-American War, the United States ordered 50,000 of them for the troops going to the Carribbean.

Miller travels with an open mind and is easily sidetracked. This makes the book lively and fun. He offers a safety-check list before boarding a bus in the Andes, a history of the country’s feud with Peru, a look inside a Texaco oil drilling compound in the jungle, and how to eat roast guinea pig, an Ecuadorian favorite.

Hey, who stole my hat?