Call it what you like: A multi-cultural snack. Haserei. (That's Yiddish for irresistible junk food.) Fusion-food-on-foot.
But I guarantee you'll call it delicious.
I discovered MozzArepas at the sprawling Third Avenue market Sunday morning on New York City’s Upper East Side. It didn’t matter that it was a blisteringly hot 90-plus in the shade, or that I had just polished off a platter of scrambled eggs with cream cheese and chives at Sarabeth’s.
There was clearly no way I was going to by-pass the pale gold hockey pucks sizzling on a griddle with white cheese oozing out of them.
That’s the MozzArepas in a nutshell. Two delectable cornbread-like patties holding tight to a big wad of mozzarella cheese.
When I first glanced at the booth’s canvas sign, flapping in the breeze, I thought the name stood for MOZZArella and REPAS (French for meal). In fact, it’s the merging of MOZZarella cheese and AREPAS, the cornbread discs that supposedly originated in the Andes mountains of South America and spread to many other Latin American countries.
Two big, hunky, T-shirted guys were manning the booth, moving the 30 or so patties around on the grill with all the focus of nerdy chess players. They slipped one disc into a little cardboard sleeve for me and took my four bucks.
I was hooked from the first bite. Sweet, buttery cornmeal. Hot, satiny mozzarella cheese. Crusty, slightly burnt outcroppings along the edge. And a moist center that started to crumble when I bit in, just like good cornbread is supposed to do. And, did I mention grease? A tad of that, too.
Though arepas have clearly been around for a long time, the MozzArepas in the little cardboard sleeve is a still-growing businesss with a Web site that’s under construction but links you to the creators’ MySpace page. For now, look for the booths at New York City's many street festivals. But I'm guessing that it's only a matter of time before something this yummy makes its way to other parts of the country.
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