La Arepa is a common and peculiar food of Venezuela and Colombia. Like other countries of the Americas, the use of corn has been of vital importance for its gastronomy and identity.
The arepa is a cake of dough or corn flour of circular and semi-flattened shape that is usually cooked roasted or fried. It is a food that serves to eat as a main course or as a companion, alone or stuffed, commonly as part of breakfast, lunch or dinner. It is a traditional dish of Venezuelan cuisine
ORIGIN
The word possibly comes from the cumanagoto. Some students of the language indicate that the word arepa comes from the indigenous word “erepa”, that the Cumanagotos -tribu of the Caribs that inhabited the northeast region of Venezuela- used to name corn, basic ingredient in the preparation of this food. According to another version, the word arepa could come from “aripo”, a kind of slightly curved plate, made of clay, which was used by the natives for the cooking of corn flour dough.
Thus, the indigenous Cumanogoto were not the only ones to consume the arepas, since before the arrival of the Spaniards on American soil, lived the Taironas, pre-Columbian civilization of the Chibcha linguistic family that lived in what is now the departments of Magdalena and César belonging to the current Colombia. There was no lack of corn, which was the main crop of that area, and that led to the preparation of arepas, which were good consumers. Also appear the Pantegoras Indians, descendants of the Caribs and the Aburraes Indians, and the first lived in the center of Colombia, to be exact, in the department of Caldas and the second in the Valley of Aburrá, which is in Antioquia. Like the Taironas, the Pantegoras and the Aburraes knew how to prepare them with corn and they were consumers of arepas.