Marraqueta
The Marraqueta bread can be divided into four pieces with the hands.
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| Alternative names | Pan de batalla (staple bread) in Bolivia, Pan francés (French bread) and pan batido (“whipped bread”) in Chile |
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| Type | Wheat Bread |
| Created by | European immigrants in South America |
| Main ingredients | Flour, salt, water, leavening agent |
| 267 calories for 100 grms. kcal | |
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The marraqueta (also called pan de batalla ("staple bread") in Bolivia, pan francés (“French bread”) in the south of Chile and pan batido (“whipped bread”) in the Valparaíso Region), is a crispy bread made with flour, salt, water and yeast.
This wheat bread has a crunchy texture, and is very popular in Chile, Brazil, the Andean region of Bolivia and Peru but can also be found in Argentina and Uruguay.
The Bolivian marraqueta is a 60-75 g bread, sold per unit and consumed mostly in the metropolitan area of La Paz and El Alto. It is prepared in common ovens between midnight and dawn to be sold fresh and crunchy by vendors in the morning.
The Chilean marraqueta is, strictly speaking, a se-tenant pair of small rolls, baked with another pair attached, comprising four rolls in total; some confusion can be caused when ordering one marraqueta, as this may be interpreted as either two or four rolls.
The recipe of this crunchy bread arrived in La Paz in 1908 in the hands of the greek immigrant Michel Jorge Callispieris, from Chios island. Bread in both locations share indeed the same characteristics: crunchiness and slightly salty flavor.
The marraqueta of La Paz was declarared cultural patrimony in 2006.
Many historians agree that the marraqueta originated in Valparaíso, Chile in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when major Chilean ports such as Valparaíso and Talcahuano received thousands of European immigrants. The story goes the bread was invented by two French baker brothers in Valparaíso whose last name was Marraquette, and the bread went on to become very popular among Chileans in a very short time. This story would explain both the marraqueta and pan francés names. In Valparaíso itself, somewhat confusingly, marraqueta means the four small rolls while half of this is called pan batido, the use of which is a shibboleth of the Port of Valparaíso (but is ignored by national supermarket chains). There is no clear agreement on what is considered one unit of marraqueta and while some bakers claim is the four pieces of bread, some others claim that a unit is only half (so they say that the four pieces are two marraquetas).
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Wikipedia