Grilled Corn Cakes with Salsa

Cross polenta with pita bread and you get one of Colombia’s national snacks—a street food, side dish, and culinary treasure: arepas. (Think Mexico’s tortillas on steroids.) During my stay in Colombia, I sampled at least eight different varieties of arepa, some as crisp as soda crackers, others as softly creamy inside as cornmeal mush. The toppings varied, too—salsa, hot sauce, butter, and cheese, for example. There’s even a sweet version doused with butter and cinnamon sugar.