Arepas are Latin American cornbreads of the most delicious kind. But there are so many variations, so let’s start with one that’s soft on the inside, crisp on the outside and oozing melted cheese When I first came across arepas, at a food market in Williamsburg, New York, almost a decade ago, I was attracted mainly by the fact that these stuffed South American corn breads were, as the stall proclaimed in big letters: “110% gluten-free!” which meant I could share one with a coeliac friend. One bite later, I regretted my generosity: crunchy, buttery and filled with sweetcorn and salty, stringy cheese, I could easily have polished off the whole thing without any help.These, I later learned, were Colombian arepas de choclo, but arepas – flat, unleavened maize patties that pre-date European settlement – are found in many forms and flavours in many other countries, too, most notably Venezuela, but also Bolivia, Ecuador and parts of Central America. As J Kenji López-Alt notes on Serious Ea...