Sopa paraguaya

History

Some revisionist historians point to the German traveler Ulrich Schmidl, who during the colonial era recorded a starchy bread made by the Cario-Guarani people. Schmidl was part of the expedition led by Juan de Ayolas that arrived in Asunción, marking the first encounter between Spaniards and the Cario-Guarani. The natives already had a bread called mbujape, made from corn flour or cassava starch combined with animal fat, wrapped in banana leaves, and cooked in tanimbú. Paraguayan gastronomy is a fusion of Spanish and Cario-Guaraní cuisines, developed under the influence of Franciscan priests, Spanish conquers, and mestizos in Asunción and surrounding towns such as Tobatí, Atyrá, Altos, Areguá, Ypané, Guarambaré, Itá, and Yaguarón. These towns show a culture formed outside Jesuit mercantile influence; after the Jesuits were expelled in 1767, natives returned to the Atlantic jungle and did not teach in Asunción, as evidenced by the extinction of Jesuit ceramics while Franciscan ceramics survive in Itá, Areguá, and Tobatí.