Chola sandwich

The chola sandwich, also called a sándwich de chola or sanduíche de chola, is a Bolivian dish that comes from La Paz. It takes its name from the chola street vendors, or chola paceña, who created it. The main ingredient is pernil, a Latin-style roast pork.

The sandwich is served on a marraqueta, an Andean bread roll, or a sarnita, which is a marraqueta with baked cheese on top. Inside, there are slices of pernil—pork leg that has been marinated and slow-roasted—along with escabeche (a pickled relish of carrots, onions, and peppers), aji or llajua chili sauce, tomato, and a torresmo (pork rind). Mayonnaise or other toppings may also be added.

The chola sandwich evolved from the Peruvian butifarra sandwich, which originated in 1880s Peruvian cuisine and used botifarra sausage. The chola sandwich itself first appeared in the early 1900s, when chola street food vendors, known as caseritas, began selling it at Parque La Florida in southern La Paz. The park was nicknamed "Las Cholas" because of the many chola caseritas there, and the sandwich was an adaptation of the vendors' own lunches. According to Bolivian ethnologist Antonio Paredes Candia, the butifarra first came to Bolivia as a beef sandwich with chorrillana, a relish of tomato, onion, and locoto chilies. The chola sandwich started to take its current form in the 1950s with the addition of llajua and torresmo, and it became the modern version in the 1970s when pernil replaced beef.

The La Paz Municipality has recognized the chola sandwich as one of seven key dishes for La Paz Gastronomy Month, held each July. In 2024, a celebration of that month featured a chola sandwich measuring two meters in diameter.