Arepas have been a staple in Venezuela for many centuries, and their popularity in the USA appears to be increasing on restaurant and food-truck menus. Might the tasty cornmeal cakes, though, be a passing fad in America?
Venezuelan restauranteur Irena Stein emphatically says “no,” though she understandably has a bias. Stein is the author of a new book Arepa: Classic and Contemporary Recipes for Venezuela’s Daily Bread.
A grilled seafood arepa with green picada is one of many favorites of Irena Stein, who has written a ... [+]
“The book was intended to introduce the first comprehensive arepa cookbook to the world,” Stein says. “Arepas’ popularity is spreading across the globe, due to the enormous Venezuelan migration that has occurred during the last 10-15 years — and this migration cooks! Thus far, there have only been short recipes published. It was time to give the arepa the honor that it deserves.”
Stein, a Fulbright Scholarship recipient, moved to the USA in 1980 and earned a master’s degree in cultural anthropology from Stanford University.
“Cooking eventually became my way to make people connect with others — to exchange ideas, feelings, create community,” she says.
In 2004, Stein opened Café Azafrán at the Space Telescope Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She next opened Alkimia, a café on campus, and her arepas were very popular.
Irena Stein proudly displays her new book about arepas.
“Both were spaces of important gatherings and informal academic conversations around good food,” Stein says. “Full-flavor food was made daily — and almost zero waste.”
In 2015, Alma Cocina Latina was launched in Baltimore’s waterfront Canton neighborhood, and, though it was imagined as an arepas bar, it became a fine-dining restaurant.
“The success of the two previous cafés at Hopkins — success that I primarily measure by the dimension of love that we got from our guests — led me to want to open an arepas bar in the city,” Stein says. “Their popularity was overwhelming. But it turned out that I was meant to open a full-service restaurant instead. You never know what life has in store for you!”
The restaurant, which offers miniature arepas filled with pork and goat cheese on the dinner menu, clearly states its mission on its website.
“Alma is not just a restaurant with exquisite, imaginative and highly creative food,” the website states. “It is a space that transports you into Venezuelan culture via every detail: the culinary experience, the cocktails, the welcoming team, the abundance of plants and the purposeful décor. It is a place created for the well-being of the guest from the moment she/he/they enter till they leave our home.”
There’s nary a Venezuelan home unfamiliar with an arepa, and Stein hopes that may someday be true in American homes.
“Arepas are going to seduce millions of people, once they are no longer afraid to make them,” she says. “Their deliciousness when properly made — crispy outside, soft inside and immediately served hot — makes them the ideal vessel for any food from anywhere in the world, simple or complex. They are perfect for those leftovers you want to use in a creative way and ideal for avoiding food waste!”
Stein’s vision of an arepas bar in Baltimore’s Canton neighborhood will also finally be reality. In the fall, she plans to open Candela, an arepas bar adjacent to Alma Cocina Latina.
