Arepa

An arepa is a flatbread made from ground maize dough, eaten across northern South America and often stuffed with a filling. It is a pre-Columbian dish, with evidence placing it roughly three thousand years back in Colombia and twenty-eight hundred years in Venezuela, making it one of the few indigenous food traditions to remain popular after colonization. The dough, made from corn flour, water and salt and sometimes enriched with oil, butter, eggs or milk, is kneaded and shaped into patties that can be fried, grilled or baked, with some varieties using nixtamalized corn known as arepa pelada. Colombia designated the arepa a national cultural symbol in 2006 and counts roughly seventy-five regional preparation styles, while a 2015 survey found nearly seventy percent of Venezuelans ate arepas regularly; the name derives from erepa, the word for cornbread in the Cumanagoto language.