Local Venezuelan family helps add culture to the Farmers Market

Local Venezuelan family helps add culture to the Farmers Market

By Haley Sanders

There is a lot of variety found among the many booths at the Lovell Farmers Market. One of the booths that makes this community’s farmers market stand out from others is the authentic Venezuelan empanadas. 

This booth is run by Mysen McArthur and his father-in-law Santos Romero, with Mysen’s wife, Claudia McArthur, and her mother, Fedilia Romero, behind the scenes cooking the empanadas. 

Mysen and Claudia met through their fathers, who served their church missions together. When they were messaging over Facebook one day, they discussed how they both had kids that were single and then encouraged Mysen and Claudia to start talking.

“Then he sent me a Facebook request, and that’s how we met,” Claudia shared.

Claudia moved to the United States and married Mysen, and with some political changes in America, Claudia’s parents were able to move up and join them later.

“We just wanted to share something different with the community here,” Claudia said when asked why they decided to sell their empanadas at the famers market.

“The main drive was just to share culture,” Mysen said. “One way to share culture is through food, so we did.”

Not only are empanadas a popular food in Venezuela, they are also a big part of the Venezuelan culture.

The idea of empanadas came from slaves in Venezuela who would harvest the corn. They mixed the corn with food the other people wouldn’t eat.

“They had to find a way to feed their family, so that’s what they did,” Claudia said.

“And somehow they’ve been able to find a way to make it really good,” Mysen added.

Today, there are many kinds of empanadas. On the coast, empanadas with seafood can be found. Variations of empanadas with different fillings have names like The Sassy or The Hairy. There are even dessert empanadas.

So far for the farmers market, though, the McArthurs and Romeros have kept it simple with chicken and cheese empanadas.

Preparation for the farmers market typically begins on Wednesday with making sure they have all the ingredients. Thursday is when the filling is made, and the empanadas are fried on Friday to sell fresh to customers.

Fresh produce such as garlic, onions and peppers is used to flavor the empanadas. The family doesn’t use powder spices other than salt and pepper to season the empanada. They also make a dipping sauce to accompany the empanada.

The number of empanadas that are made for the booth ranges between 150 and 200 every week.

“But we’re hoping to push for 250,” Mysen said.

The McArthurs and Romeros have been selling empanadas at the farmers market for three years now and plan to continue in the future. In fact, they hope to possibly expand from just selling at the farmers market.

“This is kind of a pilot program,” Mysen said. “We want to see if it might be worth getting a food truck.”

The McArthurs and Romeros enjoyed adding to the farmers market environment by providing culture and authenticity to the community through their empanadas. The family appreciates all the support they’ve had for the past few years.

“It’s awesome when we get customers that keep coming back,” Mysen said. “We just love that.”