Venezuela’s First WBC Winner with “Arepa Power”…Inquiries Flood Into Venezuelan Restaurants in Japan Afterward
Cooking attracts attention due to the success at the WBC!
The 6th WBC (World Baseball Classic), in which Samurai Japan challenged the feat of winning the championship again, ended with the Venezuelan team winning the championship for the first time after beating the U.S. team in the final. Although the WBC ended with such a disappointing result, there were many different types of support tweets from the participating countries that were seen during the WBC, and watching the tweets became one of the most enjoyable parts of watching the WBC.
One of the most popular was the hashtag “AREPA POWER” for the Venezuelan national team, which won the tournament.
The Venezuelan national team won the tournament with their excellent performance. Many people may want to try the arepa they ate.
We spoke with Mr. Marquez, who runs “TOKYO AREPA,” a kitchen car specializing in Venezuelan cuisine, about the reaction to Venezuela’s victory in the WBC, the characteristics of Venezuelan cuisine, and where it can be found in Japan.
In Venezuela, baseball is a national sport, with teams like the Japanese Giants and the Hanshin Tigers attracting the attention of much of the country. Because of this, when the team won the championship, there was such a festive atmosphere that Venezuela became a holiday destination.
Venezuela is celebrating its WBC championship with the whole country. In Japan, they had beaten the Japanese national team in the quarterfinals in a head-to-head matchup, and one would think that they would be feeling a little self-conscious, but after the matchup with the Japanese national team, many Japanese people contacted the team.
After it was decided that the Venezuelan team would play Japan in the WBC, we received a number of inquiries about where our kitchen cars were operating and where they could find places to eat Venezuelan food. We are very happy that more and more people are interested in learning about Venezuelan cuisine.
What kind of Venezuelan cuisine is there?
Many people probably don’t know what Venezuelan cuisine is all about. When we asked Mr. Marquez, he told us about some of the most typical dishes.
The most famous Venezuelan dish is arepa,” he said. It is a thin dough made of corn flour that is baked, and meat, vegetables, cheese, and other ingredients are placed between the dough. The name changes depending on the ingredients you put inside, so when you put chicken, avocado, etc., it is called reynapepiada, and when you put shredded, stewed beef and cheese, it is called perua.
Arepa has long been an essential dish for Venezuela, so much so that the slogan “Arepa Power” has been used to cheer the people of Venezuela. Other dishes include empanadas, which are fried meat wrapped in corn flour dough, white rice, stewed black beans, shredded and braised beef, and plantains, which are bananas for cooking The dish called pavejon, which is a combination of all of these on one plate, is also famous.
All of these dishes sound delicious, but I have not seen any restaurants serving Venezuelan cuisine in Japan. When I asked him where I could find it, he gave me a surprising answer.
We recommend that people come to our kitchen car and try our food, but the best way is to buy corn flour and make your own corn flour. We sell non-GMO corn flour by mail order, so I think it would be fun for people to buy it and prepare their own sandwich ingredients and eat it, or throw an arepa party with family and friends, like a hand-rolled sushi party.
Arepa does not need to be fermented like bread, so it is easy to make. I have included a recipe for making the dough, so I would like all Japanese people to try arepa.
Mr. Marquez’s kitchen car, TOKYO AREPA, will be serving arepa at a craft beer store in Tachikawa on the 18th of this month.
Venezuela was a rival in the WBC, but now that the games are over, it might not be a bad idea to eat arepa and become friends.
