What is an Arepa?
Posted by Cracker on November 12th, 2009Here in the South, we have biscuits. In Venezuela, they have arepas.
Basically, arepas are a breakfast food made out of corn. They are native to northern South America, and not just Venezuela, but they seem to be inextricably tied up with the Venezuelan national character so much so that if you called one an Arepa Eater he or she would probably take it as a compliment. (I’m lying. Don’t you ever do that.)
They look like this (at least the Venezuelan ones do):
photo credit: julio_cesar
And this:
photo credit: digiyesica
And unless you’re an abuela with lots of time on her hands, you make them out of this stuff (masa harina):
To an Americana, tasting them for the first time was a bit of a shock. I’m the kind of uneducated gringa who always orders flour instead of corn tortillas if they gave me a choice at the taqueria, so biting into fluffy corn cake was a bit of a shock. At first, I didn’t like them one bit, but pretended that I did to please Señor (who I was merely dating at the time.) But after trying them a few more times, I was hooked. I highly recommend the carne mechada arepa with queso de mano (i.e. “handmade cheese”), but – just like a biscuit – you can put just about anything you want inside an arepa, or eat it plain.
Popular arepa fillings include cheese, ham, pork, chicken, perico (Caribbean scrambled eggs), and black beans, but you can put shark and octopus and olives or whatever, too.
Because I can’t bring you all to my mother-in-law’s house, I will instead recommend that you Atlantans visit Natarica Grill on (where else?) Buford Highway in Norcross. If you live elsewhere, you can Google arepera or arepas +your city and hopefully find one or two places that sell these awesome treats.
Tags: Arepa, Latino Culture, Southern Culture, Venezuela
