Venezuelan Cuisine

Venezuela's national food is the arepa — a thick corn cake griddled or grilled until it forms a crisp, mahogany shell around a warm, fluffy interior, then split and filled with whatever the cook desires. Arepas are eaten three times a day by millions of Venezuelans; they are simultaneously a staple and a canvas. Venezuelan cooking is shaped by indigenous Carib and Arawak traditions, Spanish colonial inheritance, and African culinary contributions — a cuisine of enormous warmth and variety, at its most brilliant when celebrating the humble corn.