A FOOD TRADITION
Wayuu Cuisine
Wayuu cuisine belongs to the Indigenous Wayuu people of the Guajira Peninsula, a cultural region divided between Venezuela and Colombia. Foodways adapt to an arid environment and rely on goats, maize, beans, cassava, fishing, shellfish, and gathered or drought-tolerant plants. Goat meat may be stewed, roasted, or dried, while maize is ground into doughs and drinks; coastal communities add fish and mollusks. Recognizable examples include friche, a seasoned goat-offal preparation; goat stews served with maize or cassava; and dishes of dried or salted fish from the peninsula’s coast. Wayuu cuisine should be catalogued as a transborder Indigenous tradition, not assigned exclusively to Venezuela.
Dishes linked to this cuisine
1–5 of 5
Arepa
A Venezuelan cornmeal cake made from a corn-flour dough, griddled or fried, and commonly split and filled with cheese, beans, meat, or other savory fillings.
Casabe
A thin Venezuelan flatbread made from grated cassava that is pressed and cooked until dry and crisp.
Chivo en Coco
A Venezuelan goat stew braised in coconut milk with aromatics and herbs until tender.
Friche
A representative Wayuu goat preparation using meat, offal, fat and blood, cooked simply in the animal's own fat with salt.
Shaapülana
A Wayuu bean soup enriched with goat tallow and vegetables.
Catalogue preview Cuisine connections may be unreviewed. Regional comparisons include their food references and do not establish the ingredients of a particular meal.