Local Dishes

1. Chipa

   Chipa (cassava-starch and cheese bread)

   Usage

   The most widely eaten bread in Paraguay, made of aramirõ (cassava starch), Paraguayan cheese, eggs and fat and baked in a tatakua (clay dome oven). Vendors sell it from baskets at long-distance bus stops

2. Chipa guasu

   Chipa guasu (baked fresh-corn and cheese cake)

   Usage

   "Guasu" means big. A moist cake of ground avatiky (fresh corn), baked in an oven or tatakua. It is almost always served alongside so'o mbichy (grilled meat)

3. Chipa so'o

   Chipa so'o (chipa stuffed with minced meat)

   Usage

   "So'o" means meat: a cornmeal dough baked around a beef filling. Typical ingredients are avati ku'i (cornmeal), eggs, Paraguayan cheese, pork fat, milk and salt. Eaten in Paraguay and across the Argentine and Brazilian border regions

4. Sópa Paraguái

   Sopa paraguaya (baked cornmeal and cheese cake)

   Usage

   Paraguay's national dish. The name says "soup" but it is a solid baked cake. Cornmeal, cheese, curd, pork fat, salt and water, baked in a tatakua

   Grammar Note

   The Guarani names "mbujape avati" (corn bread) and "kypyjy" also exist, but menus and shop signs overwhelmingly use the Spanish "sopa paraguaya"

5. Mbeju

   Mbeju (cassava-starch and cheese griddle cake)

   Usage

   A disc of aramirõ (cassava starch) with cheese and fat, cooked on both sides in a pan. A version is made with typyraty (coarse cassava meal). The classic breakfast pairing is with kojói (mate cocido)

6. Vorivori

   Vorivori (soup with cornmeal-and-cheese dumplings)

   Usage

   A thick soup with little cornmeal-and-cheese balls. The chicken version, vorivori ryguasu, is the most common and a winter staple. "Vori" is one dumpling, and Guarani reduplication pluralises it — hence "lots of dumplings"

   Grammar Note

   The spaced form "vori vori" circulates too, but the joined spelling "vorivori" is the standard one

7. Mbaipy

   Mbaipy (corn polenta with cheese)

   Usage

   A porridge of avatiky (fresh corn) or avati ku'i (cornmeal) simmered in milk, finished with onion fried in pork fat and cheese stirred through. Keep stirring the whole time it is on the fire

8. So'o josopy

   So'o josopy / soyo (pounded-beef soup)

   Usage

   "Josopy" means pounded in a mortar: a soupy dish of pounded beef with rice, onion, tomato and garlic. At the San Juan festival it is written "So'o josopy", with the common Spanish name "soyo"

   Grammar Note

   Note: Spanish "albóndiga" (meatball) does not match this Paraguayan dish, which is a soup. For the ball itself use so'o apu'a

9. So'o apu'a

   So'o apu'a (meatballs for soup)

   Usage

   "Apu'a" means round: minced meat mixed with avati ku'i (cornmeal), garlic, fat, salt and seasoning, rolled into balls and dropped into the soup

10. So'o mbichy

    So'o mbichy (grilled meat, asado)

    Usage

    "Mbichy" means cooked over an open flame. It covers beef, pork, venison, chicken, goat or mutton grilled over fire, either on a stake (asado a la estaca) or on a grill. The weekend gathering dish

11. Ryguasu chyryry

    Ryguasu chyryry (fried chicken)

    Usage

    "Ryguasu" is chicken and "chyryry" is the sizzle of frying. Chicken coated in breadcrumbs and fried in hot oil

12. Chicharõ

    Chicharõ (fried pork)

    Usage

    The best-known Paraguayan form is chicharõ trenzado: strips of pork belly (matambre) plaited before frying. The name comes from the plaiting. A San Juan festival staple

    Grammar Note

    A loan from Spanish "chicharrón"; Guarani orthography writes the final nasal vowel as õ

13. Mbusia

    Mbusia (blood sausage)

    Usage

    Pig's blood with fat, onion and seasoning, bulked out with rice or breadcrumbs and stuffed into a casing. It is a kind of so'o josopy. It is always on the asado grill

14. Kiveve

    Kiveve (sweet squash mash)

    Usage

    A thick, sugar-sweet mash made from andai (Cucurbita maxima). It is among Paraguay's oldest traditional dishes

15. Kamby arro

    Kamby arro (rice pudding)

    Usage

    "Kamby" is milk and "arro" is rice: rice cooked in milk as a sweet. The Guarani name is formed exactly like the Spanish "arroz con leche" — the two ingredients joined

16. Káldo ava

    Káldo ava (offal broth)

    Usage

    A broth made from beef offal (chúra). At the San Juan festival caldo ava is set to boil at midnight — it is eaten at all-night festivals and on cold mornings

    Grammar Note

    "Káldo" is the Spanish "caldo" borrowed; "ava" means indigenous / of the people, so literally "the people's broth"

17. Kesu Paraguái

    Kesu Paraguái (fresh Paraguayan cheese)

    Usage

    The base of nearly every Paraguayan dish — chipa, mbeju, sopa paraguaya. It is made from curd (cuajada), unsalted, and from whole unskimmed milk, which makes it soft and stretchy

18. Moteméi

    Moteméi (boiled hulled maize)

    Usage

    Maize boiled in water and hulled. It is eaten as a stew, sweetened as a dessert, and drunk as a beverage. A market breakfast staple

    Grammar Note

    From Spanish "mote" (itself from Quechua "mut'i") plus "maíz"

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