What is the main ingredient of the Venezuelan street food arepa?

The main ingredient of Venezuelan arepa is cornmeal. Arepas are round, unleavened cakes made from ground maize, usually formed into patties and then grilled, baked, fried, boiled, or steamed.

Modern Venezuelan arepas are commonly prepared with precooked corn flour, often called masarepa or harina precocida. The flour is mixed with water and salt, then kneaded into a dough. Depending on the recipe, cooks may add oil, butter, eggs, or milk before shaping the dough and cooking it.

The dish has pre-Columbian roots in the region now occupied by Venezuela and Colombia. Maize-based arepa traditions are thousands of years old, and the food remains central to Venezuelan cuisine. Venezuelan arepas may be split open and filled with cheese, meat, beans, avocado, eggs, or other ingredients.

Cornmeal is the quiz’s canonical answer, although “corn flour” or “maize meal” may appear in recipes and reference works. Regional exceptions exist: in Venezuela’s Andes, arepas de trigo are made with wheat flour, but that is a named variation rather than the standard arepa.