country Essentials · 11 foods
Venezuela Essentials
A considered first route through Venezuela: the foods that carry its everyday habits, celebrations, ingredients, and memory.
Explore all Venezuela foods →THE
ESSENTIALS
The complete shortlist
11 foods to know.
Each selection includes the reason it belongs here—so this is a guide, not just a pile of names.
Venezuela
Venezuelan Arepa
Arepa
Split open rather than sliced through, and stuffed — the difference from every neighbouring arepa.
Venezuela
Pabellón Criollo
Rice, black beans, shredded beef and fried plantain, kept in four separate piles on the plate.
Colombia
Hallaca
Annatto-stained maize dough in plantain leaves, made in hundreds on one day each December.
Venezuela
Cachapa
Grated fresh sweetcorn griddled into a thick sweet pancake and folded over hand-stretched cheese.
Venezuela
Tequeños
Dough wound round a stick of salty cheese and fried, counted by the dozen at every party.
Caracas, Venezuela
Asado Negro
Beef browned in burnt papelón until nearly black, then braised for hours in its own dark sauce.
Venezuela
Queso de Mano
Fresh cheese stretched by hand into elastic sheets and folded into a cachapa while still warm.
Venezuela
Papelón con Limón
Raw cane sugar and lime over ice, the everyday drink at every lunch counter in the country.
Venezuela
Quesillo
Whipped whole eggs give it holes a flan does not have, under a caramel that runs off the plate.
Venezuela
Chuao Cacao
Cacao de Chuao
Criollo beans from a coastal village reachable only by boat, still dried on the church square.
Maracaibo, Venezuela
Patacón Zuliano
Crisp green-plantain rounds layered with cheese, meat and sauces in Zulia.