Dish · peruvian
Arepa
A round patty of precooked cornmeal dough, griddled or grilled until the outside browns, then split open and filled or eaten plain alongside a meal.
Where it comes from
Arepas predate European contact, made by Indigenous peoples across northern South America from ground corn long before wheat arrived. The dough later became simpler once precooked cornmeal flour was sold commercially.
What cooks argue about
Cooks argue over the ratio of water to cornmeal, since too little makes a dough that cracks while cooking and too much makes one that never firms up enough to hold a filling.
Versions
Nobody has published a arepa here yet. When somebody cooks one from a video and publishes it, their version appears in this list, with a link back to the original.
What goes in it
Each one opens everything else made with it.