April 8: Empanada Day
Italian panzarotti and calzone and their Sicilian cousin ’mpanatigghi, Jamaican patties, the Cornish pasty, Mallorcan panades to which you can add Indian samosas and gujias: just about every country in the world has its own form of a compact, handheld street food that is a spiced and seasoned savoury stuffing contained by a baked or fried pastry envelope.
In Argentina, and other Latin countries, they are called empanadas, a word which literally means “in bread,” given the verb empanar denoting something like “to bake in bread or pastry.”
That said, I’m not sure what marketing company makes such proclamations or why, but it turns out that April 8 is Empanada Day – the fact that I love empanadas is good enough reason for me.
A world of sweet and savoury pastry pockets
The origin of the empanada is uncertain, but in the world of food it is likely that similar versions of the simple foodstuff popped up across the globe at perhaps much the same time at one moment or another: the Moors stake a claim as do the Persians, as do the Mexicans.
Just one more example of the morsel’s ubiquity: if you break down the word, it’s easy to see the connection to the French word “pain” in the pana of empanada.
In fact, in France there’s a puff-pastry pocket, half moon-shaped, that is filled with beef stew, a creamy roux-based white sauce and perhaps bits of ham and cheese: the chausson (which also may have a sweet filling of apple). The rissole is another French pastry pocket filled with sweet or savoury ingredients in many regions of the country.
So, it seems, the world of food – and especially so-called street food – is a large family of cousins and distant relatives.
A proper empanada, however, is one that is constructed with a judicious balance of beef, chicken, or vegetable stuffing that is not overwhelmed by the dough – or by an unnecessarily heavy, dense dough.
For more, visit Andre Paquette Editions.
