Hallaca consists of corn dough stuffed with a stew of beef, pork, or chicken and other ingredients such as raisins, capers, and olives, fresh onion rings, red and green bell pepper slices.

Hallacas are also commonly eaten in eastern Cuba,[3][4] Trinidad where it is called pastelle,[5] and parts of Colombia, Ecuador, Aruba, and Curaçao.

The Hallaca is a traditional Venezuelan food known by various names and spread throughout the Spanish Empire in the Americas as far south as Argentina in the decades following the conquest.

[7] According to Adolfo Ernst, the word hallaca evolved from the indigenous arawak, stemming from the verb ayua or ayuar, meaning "to mix or blend".

From there, the construction ayuaca (mixed things) devolved to ayaca and ultimately to hayaca or hallaca (using Spanish silent "h" when written).

Some versions of the filling include leeks, Worcestershire sauce, mustard pickles, panela, or dark brown sugar.

Unlike the Venezuelan variety, hayacas from Puerto Rico are made not with maize but with cassava, stock, milk, pork fat cooked with annatto, and banana leaf, and baked in traditional open-wood-fire.

The guiso filling is topped with a combination of onion, pepper, parsley, potatoes, raisins, almonds, chickpeas, capers, green olives, hard boiled eggs and bacon.

[8] Although in the other countries of the region it is eaten any day of the year with the same name but different preparations, Hallaca is a staple of Colombian and Venezuelan Christmas celebrations.

[13] In 2014, despite food shortages affecting the country, the Venezuelan government created a hallaca with a length of around 400 feet, a Guinness World Record.

Over time, a debate has emerged surrounding the hallaca, often comparing or confusing it with the tamale, another traditional dish from various Latin American cultures.

Venezuelan intellectual Arturo Uslar Pietri pointed out that the history of several centuries of Venezuela can be found reflected in the hallaca.