Fillings run from meat and cheese to corn, tomato and seafood. The empanada gallega of Galicia, filled with tuna, cod, shellfish or meat over poached onion, is served at festivals and pilgrimages. Across Latin America it is usually a hand-sized turnover, and nearly every region of Argentina has its own: small spicy salteñas in Salta, versions with egg, olives and raisins in La Rioja, lamb in the Patagonian Andes.
An empãada appears in the Cantigas de Santa Maria of about 1282, in the story of a thief taking a chicken leg out of one. Rabbinic books from Spain of the same period mention inpanada. The Catalan Llibre del Coch of 1520 gives recipes for seafood empanadas.
Accounts of the origin differ. Wikipedia states that the origin is not currently known and that empanadas are thought to have originated in Galicia in northwest Spain. Britannica calls the origin uncertain and suggests the empanada may have evolved from Middle Eastern pastries that reached the Iberian Peninsula with the Muslim conquest of Spain.