Food porn, Venezuela style

In the countryside, you can often find nata, the savory
cream topping to the left. No, it's not even close to mayo.

The pupusas of El Salvador clearly made an impression on me, but Venezuela was ready with a rebound relationship. The arepa is the traditional and quintessential food item of Venezuela and Colombia, dating back to precolonial times, when it was made by the indigenous tribes of the area whose word, erepa, it (basically) still bears.

A friend had expressed concern that shortages of arepa flour might prevent me from finding them, but luckily that was not a problem. However, we did hear tales of scarcity, similar to what you'd hear if China ran out of rice, America ran out of oil, or Brazil ran out of sex.

Ham and cheese arepa for breakfast,
and unfortunately too dark to see the
one in the back, because I can't
remember what it was.

Arepas are pretty much just corn meal patties, with none of nixtamal's alkaline processing (and ergo less nutritious than pupusas), though yucca and wheat varieties are also skulking around the region. Plain arepas are served with most meals, like bread in Italy or tortillas in Mexico, but they are commonly a stand alone breakfast or afternoon snack. If they're the star of the show, they can be fried, stuffed, or stacked with a variety of ingredients.

The basic breakfast incarnations select among cheese, beans, and egg, though shrimp, chicken, pork, beef, coconut, and avocado were usually available too. That list is deceptively short, since “cheese” can take any of a dozen forms, while pork, chicken, and beef also come in multiple preparations, my favorite being pernil, a pulled pork usually made from the shoulder.

My domino sample, with avena. I would
have taken a pic after I started eating,
but it was drippy lava-hot goodness.

Three other favorites are dominó, reina pepiada, and pabellon criollo. The first of those is just a mixture of black beans and cheese that went well with a glass of avena, a thick oat-based drink cinnamon, clove, and sugar, that reminded me of horchata's chewier cousin.

Reina pepiada is a traditional Venezuelan filling of chicken and avocado, in a sauce that may contain mayonnaise, lime, and cilantro. It's frickin delicious.

Then there's pabellón criollo. You can stuff a sample of this dish into an arepa, but I had it as a separate plate, and it was the single best meal I had in Venezuela. Traditionally a farmer's hearty breakfast, I did indeed feel capable of working for hours after eating it...as long as I (miraculously) avoided the food coma.

There are of course variations, but I only have eyes for what I ate.

Nostalgia rarely includes so much drooling.

-Rice, and caraotas fritas. I use the local term since if I just said “fried black beans” you might not picture the savory deliciousness that found its way into most forkloads. So good.

-A fried egg on top of the beans, cuz why not?

-Carne mechada is a shredded beef preparation similar to Cuba's ropa vieja that paired perfectly with the caraotas, and made me eager to find a field to plow. I felt like Venezuelan Popeye. I bet there was coriander in there.

-Tajadas. Again, “fried plantains” just doesn't do it justice. Nor adequately pay homage to the way these ingredients blended, cooperated, and tag-teamed my taste buds into blissful submission.

It was all so good, I nearly forgot about the fresh parchita (passionfruit) juice and basket full of arepas.

There is still a special place in my heart for pupusas, but after a Venezuelan meal, there was no spare space in my stomach.