Hallaca
Encyclopedia
In Venezuela
n cuisine, an hallaca (alt. spelling, "hayaca") typically involves a mixture of beef
, pork
, chicken
, caper
s, raisin
s, and olive
s wrapped in maize
(cornmeal dough), bound with string within plantain leaves, and boiled or steamed afterwards. It is typically served during the Christmas
holiday. In Trinidad and Tobago
, hallaca is known as 'pastelle' but often confused with 'empanadas'.
leaves for subsequent preparation and cooking, which could take anywhere from 2 to 3 hours.
An alternate theory notes the similarity between the hallaca (also known as hayaca) and the Spanish
empanada gallega (Galician pastry), emphasizing that the fillings are almost identical. Hallacas would then be empanadas gallegas using specially prepared corn flour
rather than wheat flour, and plantain leaf rather than expensive iron cooking molds not readily available in the new world in colonial times.
However, the most likely progenitor of the maize body and plantain envelope of hallaca is the Mesoamerican tamal. This version appears likely because tamal-derived dishes, under various names, spread throughout Spain's American colonies as far south as Argentina in the decades following the conquest
. To this day, some people in western Venezuela (primarily in Zulia
, Falcón
and Lara
states) use the terms tamar and tamare to refer to what is basically a bollo—the closest version of the tamal in Venezuela—with a simple meat filling.
Another somewhat fanciful source reports a story citing the name as coming from slaves and indians asking in pidgin
Spanish for leftover food, saying alla (there) aca (here), meaning that the food should be placed upon the flat corn cakes they used as plates.
Venezuelan lexicographer Ángel Rosenblat found the word hayaca in a Maracaibo
document from 1538, but believes it referred to a bundle of raw corn rather than to the modern assemblage. According to Adolfo Ernst, the word hallaca evolved from the indigenous Guarani language
, stemming from the verb ayua or ayuar, meaning "to mix or blend". From there, the construction ayuaca (mixed things) devolved to ayaca and ultimately to hayaca or hallaca using Spanish silent "h" when written). The earliest use of the word in the modern sense is in a 1781 document of Italian missionary linguist Filippo Salvatore Gilii
.
Hallaca is a staple part of Venezuelan Christmas
celebrations and its preparation is practically limited to that time of the year. The dish is also an icon of Venezuelan multicultural heritage, as its preparation includes European ingredients (such as raisins, nuts and olives), indigenous ingredients (corn meal colored with annatto
seeds and onions), and African ingredients (smoked plantain
leaves used for wrapping).
Trinidad
, which is just 7 miles from Venezuela's east coast, has adopted the hallaca along with other Latin American dishes, calling it pastelle. The preparation is essentially the same with some variation in the filling. One of the major herbs in Trinidadian cooking is culantro (called chadon beni locally) and this is a predominant flavour in most seasoned meat. There are also vegetarian fillings made from soya
, lentils
and various other things to cater to Hindus and other vegetarians. The typical Trinidadian pastelle is generally a lot smaller than its Venezuelan kin.
(roughly 30 cm), which is then sprinkled with various fillings. While no two families make hallacas in quite the same way, the most common fillings include a mix of stewed (or rare) meats (pork, poultry, beef, lard, crisp or pork rind), raisins and pitted green olives. Pepper filled olives are becoming more popular nowadays. People in the Llanos (savannah) add boiled eggs and pieces of red pepper. Others might add chickpeas, nuts and almonds.
The filled dough is then skillfully wrapped in an oblong fashion and tied with string in a typical square mesh before its cooking in boiling water. Afterwards, it is picked from the pail with a fork, unwrapped and served on its own plantain leaves with chicken salad, pan de jamón (ham filled bread) or plain bread. In the Andean region, the filling is cooked with the rest of the hallaca, while in the rest of the country it is usually cooked beforehand.
The ideal hallaca has a silky golden-reddish glow. In taste, it aims to balance the saltiness of the meats and olives with the sweetness of the raisins and of the dough itself.
After making a number of hallacas, the remaining portion of ingredients is occasionally mixed together in order to obtain a uniform dough. The dough undergoes the same hallaca wrap and cooking preparation, although typically smaller in size and much fewer in number. The result is the bollo, which may be offered as a lighter option to the hallaca at breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
After cooking, hallacas can be frozen for several weeks with no change in flavor. It is common for families to eat hallacas as late as May or June of the next year.
Ingredients differ from region to region and from family to family. It is not uncommon to find hallacas with chickpeas, tomato, bell pepper, pickled vegetables, and garlic. Potatoes are included in the Andean variation. Also, some of the traditional ingredients may be substituted by local variants such as fish and lobster (East Coast) and plantain dough (Maracaibo).
Hallaca-making reunites family members at holiday time. It is a job joyfully done by whole families together, marking the start of the holiday festivities. However, the most important part of “hallaca-preparation” is that it represents one of the strongest holiday family traditions in Venezuela, comparable perhaps to Thanksgiving in United States, as it is embraced by all cultures, religions, and social strata.
The hallaca making party is matriarchal
, with grandmothers and/or mothers in the lead roles. Traditional music and drinks contribute to the festive atmosphere, and maternal power is unimpeded. Scenes of mothers scolding children for stealing bits of fillings from the table and men complaining of being left to clean leaves and to do last minute shopping are integral parts of Venezuelan holiday tradition.
It is customary between families, neighbors and friends to share several hallacas as a way to evaluate the skills of the other party in their making. It is also customary to offer them to all visitors. Foreigners in Venezuela in December are often struck by how often they are offered hallacas.
Friendly rivalry over whose hallacas are the best is part of the Venezuelan holiday culture, leading to the popular saying la mejor hallaca es la que hace mi mamá - the best hallaca is the one my mother makes - an expression of familism. This expression was immortalized in a holiday song by Venezuelan pop singer Raquel Castaño.
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
n cuisine, an hallaca (alt. spelling, "hayaca") typically involves a mixture of beef
Beef
Beef is the culinary name for meat from bovines, especially domestic cattle. Beef can be harvested from cows, bulls, heifers or steers. It is one of the principal meats used in the cuisine of the Middle East , Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Europe and the United States, and is also important in...
, pork
Pork
Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....
, chicken
Chicken (food)
Chicken is the most common type of poultry in the world, and is prepared as food in a wide variety of ways, varying by region and culture.- History :...
, caper
Caper
Capparis spinosa, the caper bush, is a perennial winter-deciduous species that bears rounded, fleshy leaves and large white to pinkish-white flowers. A caper is also the pickled bud of this plant...
s, raisin
Raisin
Raisins are dried grapes. They are produced in many regions of the world. Raisins may be eaten raw or used in cooking, baking and brewing...
s, and olive
Olive
The olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...
s wrapped in maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
(cornmeal dough), bound with string within plantain leaves, and boiled or steamed afterwards. It is typically served during the Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
holiday. In Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles...
, hallaca is known as 'pastelle' but often confused with 'empanadas'.
Origins
Popular myth has it that in colonial times it was common for plantation owners to donate leftover Christmas food scraps, such as bits of pork and beef, to their slaves, who would then wrap them in cornmeal and plantainPlantain
Plantain is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa. The fruit they produce is generally used for cooking, in contrast to the soft, sweet banana...
leaves for subsequent preparation and cooking, which could take anywhere from 2 to 3 hours.
An alternate theory notes the similarity between the hallaca (also known as hayaca) and the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
empanada gallega (Galician pastry), emphasizing that the fillings are almost identical. Hallacas would then be empanadas gallegas using specially prepared corn flour
Harina P.A.N.
Harina PAN is the first brand of boiled corn flour in Venezuela. The brand itself became a neologism, as even with other large competitors in the market, it is used as a noun to indicate any similar maize flour...
rather than wheat flour, and plantain leaf rather than expensive iron cooking molds not readily available in the new world in colonial times.
However, the most likely progenitor of the maize body and plantain envelope of hallaca is the Mesoamerican tamal. This version appears likely because tamal-derived dishes, under various names, spread throughout Spain's American colonies as far south as Argentina in the decades following the conquest
Spanish colonization of the Americas
Colonial expansion under the Spanish Empire was initiated by the Spanish conquistadores and developed by the Monarchy of Spain through its administrators and missionaries. The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Christian faith through indigenous conversions...
. To this day, some people in western Venezuela (primarily in Zulia
Zulia
Zulia State is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. The state capital is Maracaibo. In June 30, 2010, it had an estimated population of 3,821,068, giving it the largest population among Venezuela's states. It is located in the northwestern part of the country...
, Falcón
Falcón
Falcón State is one of the 23 states into which Venezuela is divided. The state capital is Coro.-Demographics and geography:Falcón State covers a total surface area of 24,800 km² and, in 2010, had an estimated population of 950,057. The Paraguaná Peninsula is connected to the rest of the...
and Lara
Lara
Lara may refer to:Places:* Lara , Venezuela* Lara, Victoria, township in Australia* Electoral district of Lara, an electoral district in Victoria, Australia* Lara, Antalya, urban district in Turkey* Lara de los Infantes in Spain...
states) use the terms tamar and tamare to refer to what is basically a bollo—the closest version of the tamal in Venezuela—with a simple meat filling.
Another somewhat fanciful source reports a story citing the name as coming from slaves and indians asking in pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
Spanish for leftover food, saying alla (there) aca (here), meaning that the food should be placed upon the flat corn cakes they used as plates.
Venezuelan lexicographer Ángel Rosenblat found the word hayaca in a Maracaibo
Maracaibo
Maracaibo is a city and municipality located in northwestern Venezuela off the western coast of the Lake Maracaibo. It is the second-largest city in the country after the national capital Caracas and the capital of Zulia state...
document from 1538, but believes it referred to a bundle of raw corn rather than to the modern assemblage. According to Adolfo Ernst, the word hallaca evolved from the indigenous Guarani language
Guaraní language
Guaraní, specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guaraní , is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tupí–Guaraní subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay , where it is spoken by the majority of the population, and half of...
, stemming from the verb ayua or ayuar, meaning "to mix or blend". From there, the construction ayuaca (mixed things) devolved to ayaca and ultimately to hayaca or hallaca using Spanish silent "h" when written). The earliest use of the word in the modern sense is in a 1781 document of Italian missionary linguist Filippo Salvatore Gilii
Filippo Salvatore Gilii
Filippo Salvatore Gilii was an Italian Jesuit priest who lived in Nueva Granada on the Orinoco river...
.
Hallaca is a staple part of Venezuelan Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
celebrations and its preparation is practically limited to that time of the year. The dish is also an icon of Venezuelan multicultural heritage, as its preparation includes European ingredients (such as raisins, nuts and olives), indigenous ingredients (corn meal colored with annatto
Annatto
Annatto, sometimes called roucou or achiote, is a derivative of the achiote trees of tropical regions of the Americas, used to produce a yellow to orange food coloring and also as a flavoring...
seeds and onions), and African ingredients (smoked plantain
Plantain
Plantain is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa. The fruit they produce is generally used for cooking, in contrast to the soft, sweet banana...
leaves used for wrapping).
Trinidad
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...
, which is just 7 miles from Venezuela's east coast, has adopted the hallaca along with other Latin American dishes, calling it pastelle. The preparation is essentially the same with some variation in the filling. One of the major herbs in Trinidadian cooking is culantro (called chadon beni locally) and this is a predominant flavour in most seasoned meat. There are also vegetarian fillings made from soya
Textured vegetable protein
Textured or texturized vegetable protein , also known as textured soy protein , soy meat, or soya meat is a meat analogue or meat extender made from defatted soy flour, a by-product of extracting soybean oil...
, lentils
Lentil
The lentil is an edible pulse. It is a bushy annual plant of the legume family, grown for its lens-shaped seeds...
and various other things to cater to Hindus and other vegetarians. The typical Trinidadian pastelle is generally a lot smaller than its Venezuelan kin.
Preparation
The traditional hallaca is made by extending a plantain leaf, greasing it with a spoonful of annatto-colored cooking oil and spreading on it a round portion of corn doughHarina P.A.N.
Harina PAN is the first brand of boiled corn flour in Venezuela. The brand itself became a neologism, as even with other large competitors in the market, it is used as a noun to indicate any similar maize flour...
(roughly 30 cm), which is then sprinkled with various fillings. While no two families make hallacas in quite the same way, the most common fillings include a mix of stewed (or rare) meats (pork, poultry, beef, lard, crisp or pork rind), raisins and pitted green olives. Pepper filled olives are becoming more popular nowadays. People in the Llanos (savannah) add boiled eggs and pieces of red pepper. Others might add chickpeas, nuts and almonds.
The filled dough is then skillfully wrapped in an oblong fashion and tied with string in a typical square mesh before its cooking in boiling water. Afterwards, it is picked from the pail with a fork, unwrapped and served on its own plantain leaves with chicken salad, pan de jamón (ham filled bread) or plain bread. In the Andean region, the filling is cooked with the rest of the hallaca, while in the rest of the country it is usually cooked beforehand.
The ideal hallaca has a silky golden-reddish glow. In taste, it aims to balance the saltiness of the meats and olives with the sweetness of the raisins and of the dough itself.
After making a number of hallacas, the remaining portion of ingredients is occasionally mixed together in order to obtain a uniform dough. The dough undergoes the same hallaca wrap and cooking preparation, although typically smaller in size and much fewer in number. The result is the bollo, which may be offered as a lighter option to the hallaca at breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
After cooking, hallacas can be frozen for several weeks with no change in flavor. It is common for families to eat hallacas as late as May or June of the next year.
Ingredients differ from region to region and from family to family. It is not uncommon to find hallacas with chickpeas, tomato, bell pepper, pickled vegetables, and garlic. Potatoes are included in the Andean variation. Also, some of the traditional ingredients may be substituted by local variants such as fish and lobster (East Coast) and plantain dough (Maracaibo).
Culture
Hallaca-making requires many hours of intense work, so hallacas are typically made all in one go, in large enough quantities to last the entire holiday season (from a few dozen to several hundred). Hallaca making is a logistical feat and an economic stretch for many. The most important Venezuelan newspapers usually carry stories in their Economics sections at the beginning of December noting the rise in the cost of making hallacas.Hallaca-making reunites family members at holiday time. It is a job joyfully done by whole families together, marking the start of the holiday festivities. However, the most important part of “hallaca-preparation” is that it represents one of the strongest holiday family traditions in Venezuela, comparable perhaps to Thanksgiving in United States, as it is embraced by all cultures, religions, and social strata.
The hallaca making party is matriarchal
Matriarchy
A matriarchy is a society in which females, especially mothers, have the central roles of political leadership and moral authority. It is also sometimes called a gynocratic or gynocentric society....
, with grandmothers and/or mothers in the lead roles. Traditional music and drinks contribute to the festive atmosphere, and maternal power is unimpeded. Scenes of mothers scolding children for stealing bits of fillings from the table and men complaining of being left to clean leaves and to do last minute shopping are integral parts of Venezuelan holiday tradition.
It is customary between families, neighbors and friends to share several hallacas as a way to evaluate the skills of the other party in their making. It is also customary to offer them to all visitors. Foreigners in Venezuela in December are often struck by how often they are offered hallacas.
Friendly rivalry over whose hallacas are the best is part of the Venezuelan holiday culture, leading to the popular saying la mejor hallaca es la que hace mi mamá - the best hallaca is the one my mother makes - an expression of familism. This expression was immortalized in a holiday song by Venezuelan pop singer Raquel Castaño.
External links
- Recipe Goldmine
- Lapaella Recipe http://www.analitica.com/bitblioteca/rosenblat/hallaca.asp