Venezuelan

Venezuela has three geographies on one table: Caribbean coast, Andean highlands, and Amazon basin. The unifying dish is arepa — a thick corn-flour disc, pan-seared and oven-finished, split open, stuffed with whatever the household has (shredded beef, black beans, white cheese, avocado, eggs). Eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The national plate is pabellón criollo: shredded beef in sofrito, black beans, white rice, fried sweet plantain — four foods in four quadrants on a single platter mirroring the flag colors. Hallacas are the Christmas tamale, plantain-leaf-wrapped, hand-made by extended family each December. Tequeños — fried cheese-stuffed pastry sticks — are the party food. Cachapas are sweet-corn pancakes. The cuisine is generous, masarepa-anchored, and tropical at its core.