Food

While in Ciudad Guayana, I have had the opportunity to try many new foods. Almost everyday for breakfast, Pablo and I walk to a neighbor’s who sells empanadas out of her house. They are not the wheat flour and cheese empanadas that I am used to. Instead they have an outside shell made of corn flour and they are stuffed with shredded beef, chicken, fish, beans, plantains or cheese. Then they are deep fried. Here in Venezuela empanadas are served only at breakfast and in the evening they serve pastelitos which are the same thing as the empanadas but wheat flour is used to make the pastry like shell. Both empanadas and pastelitos are served with a mayonase based dipping sauce. Very fattening but very delicious.
Another extremely common food is arepas. Arepas are a deep fried corn bread. Sometimes they are made with yellow corn flower and are sweet. These are served with butter or cheese. Other times the arepas are made out of white corn flour and are cut open and stuffed with a variety of ingredients to make a sort of sandwich. Arepas are an extremely important staple in the Venezuelan diet because they are very cheap and easy to make, but unfortunately they have very little nutritional value so many children here are under nourished.
One thing that I have tried and liked very much are the cachapas. They are a sort of huge, thick pancake also made out of corn flour, with melted butter and cheese on top. Cachapas are usually served with some sort of meat like steak or sausage.