The chickpea-flour flatbread often served with sliced pizza in Uruguay is fainá.
Fainá arrived through Italian immigration and is closely related to Genoese farinata, a thin baked preparation made from chickpea flour, water, oil and seasoning. In Uruguay it became a standard pizzeria food, especially alongside the country’s distinctive rectangular or thick-crust pizzas.
A slice of pizza topped or paired with fainá is commonly called pizza a caballo, or “horseback pizza.” In older Montevideo pizzerias, customers could also order a moscato: sweet muscat wine served with stacked pieces of pizza and fainá.
Fainá is easy to confuse with socca, the chickpea pancake associated with Nice, France, because the preparations are related. Arepas are also made from a ground flour, but they use maize and belong to a different culinary tradition. Uruguay’s version is generally thin, round and baked until firm at the edges.