Five centuries after the arrival of the first Italians in the vessels of Colon, pasta compete with Arepa, Caraota and Rice

According to the local association of pastas’ producers, Venezuela is the second largest consumer of the product in the world (annually 12,7 kilograms per capita), behind Italians who historically have the record of 25 kilograms per person. This habit has a rival in a traditional taste for corn, with which Venezuelans use to make arepa, fried or roasted torta (thin cake) which is eaten steamy stuffed with some other ingredient. They also make “cachapa”, a torta thinner and sweeter, made of tender grounded corn, roasted over the “budare” (a very hot plate of metal) and other delicacies like “hallaquita” (sort of tamale) and “hallaca”, a pie stuffed with many things, the queen of Creole kitchen. Chroniclers say that Venezuelans cannot live without arepa. The name of this bread is used by extension to define the habit of eating wheat and its derivations and it was brought by the conqueror who contributed to the creation of sort of “ gastronomical syncretism ” : the Creole kitchen. But the story is not that simple. To surprise those who thought since high school that the sailors of “La Pinta”, “La Niña” and “La Santa María” were Spaniards, the payroll includes many Italian names so it can almost be said that the discovery was an Italian-Spanish deed. But in Venezuela no one knows for sure who made the first pasta dish; it is not known, either, when did it get to Italy although Boccaccio talks about it in one of his “Decameron” stories (14th century) stating a meal made of delicious dish and a “mountain of Cheese Parmigiano” (Parmesan). It is known that pastas have a Chinese origin, but those were made of rice. Probably Marco Polo spread the idea of making them in the Italic peninsula. It is hard to determine if the consumption of pastas was introduced by Spaniards or Italians, what is important is the fact that by definition is related to the sons of Garibaldi’s land. It is known that it came to be part of the Venezuelan diet probably since the last century; in the 20’s, pastas were regularly eaten for its taste and especially for its low price. There was a massive Italian immigration into Venezuela in the 50’s, men and women arrived into this land searching for a better destiny, impelled by the devastation suffered by their country during the Second World War and the hard economical crisis common to the entire old continent. So, “pizzerías” began to spread and Venezuelan people added that delicacy into their diet, as well as delicious variety of dishes made with pastas accompanied by their respective salsas. At the same time, the industry of pastas developed with the best Italian technology that today has an important export surplus with market in different countries of America.