A few days ago my daughter asked me a question from which an anecdote emerged: ¿Mommy, when you were pregnant with me did you have any particular craving? ¿Ha, ha, ha... how could I forget?
In my hometown, Maracaibo, there was a place that traditionally made very good arepas, it was a reference point as far as arepas are concerned. I used to go there as a family with my parents and brothers and sisters; my favourite was Queen Pepiada. That arepa has a whole history and is associated with our first Miss World 1955, Susana Duijm.
The story goes that in Caracas there was a very famous arepera. The arepera was owned by a family named Alvarez and one day, a man arrived at the arepera and got that they had recreated a throne and in this was sitting a girl, with a queen's dress and a crown, in honor of our beauty queen. It turns out that this man was her father, who promised to take his daughter and did exactly that. When Susana Duijm arrived she was offered to try one of the specialties, an arepa filled with a combination of chicken, avocado and mayonnaise. She loved it and asked the owner, what was the name of that arepa (because all Venezuelan arepas have a name), and he, captivated by her beauty told her that that arepa would be a tribute to her, and how Susana wore a polka-dot dress (pepas, in Venezuela), they named it ¨Reina Pepiada¨
Very nice story, but that's just the preamble to mine. Taking up my daughter's question, my memory immediately went back to 2001. I was working in an office relatively close to the arepera I mentioned earlier, in Maracaibo. I would like to have a formal excuse to explain to you why at mid-morning at least 2 or 3 days a week, I felt the urge to eat a pepiada queen, but obviously I don't have one. Let's say I had about 20 minutes to go, eat it and come back; it was almost timed. At first, I would arrive and order it, and tell the kids who were there to please be quick because I hardly had time, I would accompany it with a melon juice. It wasn't even two weeks before they understood that it was a ritual for me to go and eat my super arepa, so they were already serving it to me, even with the juice, from the moment they saw me get out of the car.
The funniest thing is that I wasn't allowed to go out at that time, I took advantage of the fact that I had to do some errands or I made up an excuse to go out. I did that for about a month until one day I told my boss: you know what, I go out in the middle of the morning to eat a queen arepa pepiada with a melon juice, because if I don't do it, I feel that I can't concentrate and my head only thinks about that arepa; if you want, you can discount my time. Of course he laughed, because my belly was not exactly that of a model, it was an imposing belly that gave no opportunity to doubt that it was a serious matter. I didn’t have to invent any more excuses to go out, ¡and sometimes he even went with me!
All that anecdote came to my mind on the occasion that this September 12, we Venezuelans celebrate the World Day of the Arepa. Believe me that this initiative came about as a result of the Venezuelan diaspora around the world with our main dish, the arepa, the one that defines and unites us, regardless of where we are and that takes us back to the flavours of home. It is celebrated on the second Saturday of September since 2012 by an initiative of the organization Venezuelans in the World, to promote our traditional dish and to honor thousands of Venezuelans who have made it known today.
Todas las fotos son de mi propiedad y fueron tomadas con mi celular.
All photos are my property and were taken with my mobile phone.
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