Forget the stories of Venezuela being named some version of “Little Venice”, a popular, though pretty much disproved theory of the origin of its name. Local lingo called the area around Lake Maracaibo “Veneciuela”, meaning “big water”, and all actual evidence, including preserved correspondence from explorers at the time corroborates that. Yesterday was the 4th “Feria de Gastronomia Sabores Venezolanos”, or hey, a big ole Venezuelan food fest, held at the Galpón Milagros in Palermo. I met up with my friend Raquel and we sampled our way through an inordinate amount of food (albeit, not everything pictured below):

When we arrived it wasn’t particularly crowded, but it had only been open for about half an hour. By the time we left an hour later, it was getting packed. The “reserved” crowd, i.e., the number of people who clicked that they were attending on the facebook page for the event, approached 4000, though I highly doubt anywhere close to that many people came. Still, 25 or so stands were kept busy pumping out food!

Pastelitos, or what we’d call empanadas here… homemade whole wheat dough, and a favorite, smoked cheese and mixed mushroom.

Cheese bread

Roast pork sandwiches

Arepas with a choice of numerous fillings

Pabellón – a classic dish of black beans, tender stewed and shredded meat, crispy plantains and cheese, in this case all done up in a wrap

More pastelitos

Patacones – sandwiches using flattened and fried plantains as the bread – stuffed with a duo of chicken and beef fillings, side by side

Cakes and tarts

Golfeados – sticky buns made with dark brown sugar, aniseed, cinnamon and fresh cheese

I missed ferias 1 through 3. I don’t plan to miss 5! That was some good eating.