Chipa (, ) is a type of small, baked, cheese-flavored rolls, a popular snack and breakfast food in Paraguay. The recipe has existed since the 18th century and its origins lie with the Guaraní people of Asunción. It is inexpensive and often sold from streetside stands and on buses by vendors carrying a large basket with the warm chipa wrapped in a cloth. The original name is from Guarani chipa. A small chipa may be called a chipita. In Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, the term cuñapé (Guarani) is often used. In some parts of Argentina, it is called chipá (with an accent mark), or chipacito when it is small. Vocabulary Chipa is often baked in smaller doughnuts or buns that may be called chipita or chipacitos. These are sold in small bags by street sellers of big cities and small towns. In the preparation of chipa yeast is not used, so in spite of the high temperatures of the region it can be preserved for many days. It is a festive food and can be found in every popular religious celebration. Other common variants in Paraguay include the chipa caburé or chipá mbocá (cooked around a stick, in consequence it doesn't have the spongy inner center) and the chipa so'o, filled with ground meat. There are other varieties of chipa with different ingredients; chipa manduvi (made with a mix of corn flour and peanut), chipa avatí and chipa rora (made of the skin of the seed of corn after being strained, like a whole-wheat bread). History Some revisionist historians point out that, during the colonial era, the German traveler Ulrich Schmidl was already talking about the recipe for that kind of starchy bread made by the Cario-Guarani people (a native tribe who used to live in Asunción). Schmidl was in charge of noting in the logbook of the Spanish ship in which the expedition led by Juan de Ayolas arrived, which would arrive in Asunción later, thus giving rise to the first encounter between Spaniards and the Cario-Guarani people. Before being known as chipa, there was a menu that was already part of the varieties of bread that the Cario-Guarani natives had in the early days of the conquest. Back then, the food before the chipa was known as “mbujape”, which translated from Guarani means “bread”. To cook the mbujapé, corn flour or cassava starch was combined with