Bread pudding is a bread-based dessert popular in many countries' cuisines. It is made with stale bread and milk or cream, generally containing eggs, a form of fat such as oil, butter or suet and, depending on whether the pudding is sweet or savory, a variety of other ingredients. Sweet bread puddings may use sugar, syrup, honey, dried fruit, nuts, as well as spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, or vanilla. The bread is soaked in the liquids, mixed with the other ingredients, and baked.
A tamale, in Spanish tamal, is a traditional Mesoamerican dish made of masa, a dough made from nixtamalized corn, which is steamed in a corn husk or banana leaves. The wrapping can either be discarded prior to eating or used as a plate. Tamales can be filled with meats, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, herbs, chilies, or any preparation according to taste, and both the filling and the cooking liquid may be seasoned.
Cornmeal is a meal ground from dried corn (maize). It is a common staple food and is ground to coarse, medium, and fine consistencies, but it is not as fine as wheat flour can be. In Mexico and Louisiana, very finely ground cornmeal is referred to as corn flour. When fine cornmeal is made from maize that has been soaked in an alkaline solution, e.g., limewater, it is called masa harina, which is used for making arepas, tamales, and tortillas. Boiled cornmeal is called polenta in Italy and is also a traditional dish and bread substitute in Romania.
Costa Rican cuisine is known for being mostly mild, with high reliance on fruits and vegetables. Rice and black beans are a staple of most traditional Costa Rican meals, often served three times a day. Costa Rican fare is nutritionally well rounded, and nearly always cooked from scratch from fresh ingredients. Owing to the location of the country, tropical fruits and vegetables are readily available and included in the local cuisine.
Rice pudding is a dish made from rice mixed with water or milk and commonly other ingredients such as sweeteners, spices, flavourings and sometimes eggs.
Hallaca is a traditional Venezuelan dish. Its origin is indigenous, but raisins, capers, olives, and sometimes bits of bacon were added in the 16th Century and after by settlers from the Iberian peninsula. Hallaca consists of corn dough stuffed with a stew of beef, pork, or chicken and other ingredients such as raisins, capers, and olives, fresh onion rings, red and green bell pepper slices. There are vegetarian hallacas, made with black beans or tofu. Hallacas are folded in plantain leaves, tied with strings, and boiled. The dish is traditionally served during the Christmas season and has several regional variants. It has been described as a national dish of Venezuela. Some speculate it originated from the Orinoquia. Characteristic of the hallaca is the delicate corn dough made with consommé or broth, and lard colored with annatto. Hallacas are also commonly eaten in eastern Cuba, Trinidad where it is called pastelle, and parts of Colombia, Ecuador, Aruba, and Curaçao.
Salvadoran cuisine is a style of cooking derived from the nation of El Salvador. The indigenous foods consist of a mix of Amerindian cuisine from groups such as the Lenca, Pipil, Maya Poqomam, Maya Chʼortiʼ, Alaguilac and Cacaopera peoples and some African influences. Many of the dishes are made with maize (corn). There is also heavy use of pork and seafood. European ingredients were incorporated after the Spanish conquest.
Huminta, huma or humita is a Native South American dish that dates back to pre-Hispanic times. A traditional food from the Andes, it can be found in Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Argentina. It consists of fresh choclo pounded to a paste, wrapped in a fresh corn husk, and slowly steamed or boiled in a pot of water. In Bolivia, it is known as huminta and in Brazil as pamonha. Humitas are similar to Mexican uchepos, or tamales colados, which are also made with fresh corn; but they are only superficially similar to tamales, which are made with nixtamalized corn (masa). Colombia's envueltos or bollos are also similar to humitas. They share a link to the juane, which can be made with corn but is modernly made with rice.
Pamonha is a traditional Brazilian food. It is a boiled paste made from sweet corn whisked in coconut milk, typically served wrapped in corn husks.
Pasteles, also pastelles in the English-speaking Caribbean, are a traditional dish in several Latin American and Caribbean countries. In Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Caribbean coast of Colombia, the dish looks like a tamal. In Hawaii, they are called pateles in a phonetic rendering of the Puerto Rican pronunciation of pasteles, as discussed below.
Dominican cuisine is made up of Spanish, Indigenous Taíno, Middle Eastern, and African influences. The most recent influences in Dominican cuisine are from the British West Indies and China.
Kenkey is a staple swallow food similar to sourdough dumplings from the Ga and Fante-inhabited regions of West Africa, usually served with pepper crudaiola and fried fish, soup or stew.
Most traditional foods in Guatemalan cuisine are based on Maya cuisine, with Spanish influence, and prominently feature corn, chilies and beans as key ingredients. Guatemala is famously home to the Hass avocado.
Belizean cuisine is an amalgamation of all ethnicities in the nation of Belize and their respectively wide variety of foods. Breakfast often consists of sides of bread, flour tortillas, or fry jacks that are often homemade and eaten with various cheeses. All are often accompanied with refried beans, cheeses, and various forms of eggs, etc. Inclusive is also cereal along with milk, coffee, or tea.
Mazamorra or masamorra is the name for numerous traditional dishes from the Iberian Peninsula and Hispanic America.
Guanimes are a prepared food that can be traced back to the pre-Columbian era in Puerto Rico. Guanimas translates to corn bread By the Tainos who were native Indians from Puerto Rico. Traditionally, Guanimes are made with cornmeal, sugar, salt, all purpose flour and butter, wrapped in banana leaves. These may be served with a salt cod stew or during Easter, "holy broth".
Chepos, also regionally known as uchepos, is a dish in Mexican cuisine, a tamal made with tender maize (corn), which sometimes is added to milk. It has a sweet taste and its consistency is soft. The chepo can be served on its own, or with green tomatillo salsa or tomato cooked and accompanied by fresh cheese or sour cream.
Kānga waru is a type of pudding from New Zealand. The dessert is made from cornmeal made into a dough that is wrapped and steamed. The dessert originates from the Māori people and is closely associated with Māori cuisine.
