What is an Empanada & Salteña?
An empanada is a stuffed pastry filled with beef, chicken, or pork and mixed in a sweet and sometimes slightly spicy sauce that can also be mixed with eggs, olives, peas, sautéed onions, raisins and other ingredients. There are also vegetarian variations and some “dessert” empanadas which are sweet or others that are just filled with cheese.
The name “empanada” comes from the spanish verb empanar, which means to wrap or coat in bread. It is known to have its origins in Portugal and a region in Spain called Galicia where to this day there is an Empanada Festival. Empanadas first appeared in Portugal at the establishment of trade routes to India and were influenced by the Indian Guija गुजिया (a sweet dumpling) and Samosa səˈmoʊsə (which are usually vegetarian dumplings). The Empanadas were initially made as a pie and cut into several pieces and evolved into the individual portions which made it a portable and hearty meal for the working people.
A Salteña is essentially an empanada from Salta, Argentina. In the early 19th century an Argentinian lady Juana Manuela Gorriti married the President Manuel Isidoro Belzu. They were later exiled to Tarija, Bolivia during the Juan Manuel de Rosas dictatorship. The Gorriti family underwent extreme poverty, and they came up with their version of the “Salteña” or Empanada that helped them make a living. Historian Antonio Paredes Candia states that the nickname of “Salteña” came about because kids where told to “Ve y recoge una empanada de la salteña" ("go and pick up an empanada from the woman from Salta"). Eventually the salteñas left the city of Tarija and became a savory Bolivian tradition.
You can savor these delightful empanadas/salteñas anytime at Casa del Q’ero! Come and enjoy in this historical tradition!