Adrian M. Sanchez
A blog of Adrian's adventures! (Formerly a Peace Corps Blog) "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." – Mark Twain
Traditional Paraguayan foods for Holy Week and the most typical PY dishes
Happy Holy Week, almost Easter! Having great traditional Paraguayan food all week in Caazapá!
Feliz Semena Santa! Todo la chipa y sopa es muuuy rico!!
The round shaped food is chipa! It is like a crisp biscuit with a sweet/salty cheesy taste, harder outside and softer inside.
As a tradition, EVERYONE is making this at home this week with a brick type outside oven and they’ll eat it mainly for Good Friday as they can’t have meat. Also, if a family doesn’t invite you to have their own home baked chipa, it’s considered bad luck! So I’ve had plenty already.
Next, the other more square shaped food is sopa!
No it’s not soup, (for those who know Spanish), but it’s very similar to sweet Southern US style cornbread but has a bit more salty taste to it although it’s sweet too. There are several different types of sopa, but usually they are very moist with some cheese and onions in it. Some types of chipa and sopa have meet inside too.
Both are very traditonal foods for Holy Week but are eaten all year round in PY. Along with the traditional meat (cattle or pork) outside barbecue/asado roast (cooked in the style outside brick oven as chipa – see picture below), empanda, mbegue, typical stews, terere, and mate, chipa and sopa are one of the most well known typical Paraguayan foods, if not the most. Try them all out one day, they are delicious!!
Friends and family, I’m learning how to cook slowly finally. Big surprise I know even for me, about time though lol – I have to as there aren’t much fast food restaurants foods at site, there is no US brand chains like Mcdonalds, etc in my city. So when I come back I’ll cook y’all some PY dishes! Happy Holy Week!
Adrian M. Sanchez 