There's a debate that has run through South American families for generations, and it will never be resolved, and everyone involved is fully committed to their position. Colombia makes the arepa. Venezuela makes the arepa. Neither will concede. Both are right. The corn is the point.
What Is an Arepa?
An arepa is a flatbread made from ground corn (specifically pre-cooked, dehydrated white or yellow cornmeal), water, and salt. The dough is shaped by hand into a thick round patty and cooked on a griddle, baked, or fried until it forms a slightly crisp exterior with a soft, warm interior. Depending on the region and tradition, arepas can be split and stuffed, topped, served plain alongside a meal, or eaten on the go as street food. They are ancient, simple, and infinitely variable.
The Pre-Columbian Origins of the Arepa
Arepas predate Spanish colonization by thousands of years. Indigenous peoples across what is now Venezuela and Colombia — the Timoto-Cuica, the Jirajara, the Chibcha — ground corn and cooked it on clay griddles as a dietary staple. When Spanish colonizers arrived in the 16th century, they encountered the arepa already fully formed as a technology and a food. According to the Venezuela Analysis cultural archive, the Spaniards who arrived in the 1500s wrote about indigenous corn cakes being sold in markets and carried on journeys as portable sustenance — essentially the same arepa that fills breakfast tables in Bogotá and Caracas today.
Colombian Arepa vs. Venezuelan Arepa: What's Different
This is the question that launches kitchen debates at every family gathering. Colombian arepas tend to be thinner and are more commonly used as a side dish alongside eggs, hogao (a tomato-onion sauce), and black coffee. Venezuelan arepas are thicker, puffed, and almost always split and filled — with reina pepiada (chicken and avocado), pabellón criollo (black beans, rice, shredded beef), or just butter and white cheese. Neither is wrong. Both traditions are long and legitimate and deeply tied to national identity.
Arepa in the Latin Diaspora
As Colombian and Venezuelan communities have grown across the United States — in Miami, New York, Houston, New Jersey — the arepa has traveled with them. Venezuelan areperías have opened in cities from Los Angeles to Boston, and Colombian bakeries have brought their thinner version to the same neighborhoods. For diaspora families, the arepa is the food of home that travels best — simple ingredients, fast preparation, the right smell coming from a kitchen that could be anywhere in the world.
Keep reading:
Colombiana Identity: What It Means to Be Colombian in America
Agua Fresca: The Drink That Runs Through Every Latin Kitchen
Tamales at Christmas: The Tradition That Runs Deep