scrumptious salvadorean food

I got to thinking that it´s only fair that i dedicate a blog to salvadorean food which we love so much, since the last one was about southern food. first of all, i had a good question from kelly about what exactly is a pupusa?? i forget that not everyone has experience the miracle of the pupusa. Pupusas are our national dish here in El Salvador, which you can eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, or all of the above, even in the same day! There are pupuserias (where they make pupusas) on every street corner, and we are lucky enough to have about 7 on our block. Anyways, pupusas look like tortillas, but they have a yummy filling...our favorites are the classics, bean and cheese. You can also get plain cheese, cheese, beans, and shredded pork, and sometimes other not so common variations, such as squash, chicken, etc. They are made either out of rice flour, or like cornmeal. Our favorites are made of rice flour. You eat them with homemade tomato salsa and slaw (well, the slaw is recommended once you build up good defenses in your stomach!) Mmmmmmm...elvis and i eat them about 3 times a week, and they are about 30 cents each. That means that we can eat dinner for about $2 for the both of us, drinks included! It´s really cheaper here to eat out instead of cooking at home most of the time. You would think that people would get tired of them, but NO!! we always get excited. and pupusas from different places totally taste different, depending on the cheese, etc. After writing this blog, we've decided that's what we'll have for dinner tonight =) If you run across a pupuseria in the states, definitely go check it out, even though i've heard they are more "mexicanized" there. in college, i used to eat pupusas in durham, and they were $2.50 each!! i used to think that was a deal, now i know that they are selling them at 10 times their real price!!! Oh, another key thing you should know before trying pupusas...they are eaten with your hands, never with a fork. so don't wait for them to bring you one! you pinch off a piece (watch out, they're hot!) and use it to scoop up the slaw and sauce.

I also thought you might like to see what a typical Salvadorean dinner looks like...well actually this is what most people eat for breakfast AND dinner. We usually eat a little more americanized because everybody here eats their main meal at lunch (chicken, rice, salad, etc), but we prefer to eat our big meal at dinner when we´re together. However, last night we did eat salvadorean style, homemade beans, plaintains, avacado, fresh cheese, tortilla. There are variations of this meal to switch it up...people usually eat eggs with this, and you can mix rice with the beans, trade bread for the tortilla, add a sausage link, and really the one thing we were missing last night was crema...a sweeter version of sour cream which you can put on top of everything!!! Again, no one gets tired of eating beans here. Bean soup, refried beans, etc etc etc. i can't think of an equivalent food in the states that everyone eats every single day. I think that before elvis met me, he ate beans every single day of his life! Also, like with pupusas, the tortilla or bread is used to scoop up the beans instead of a fork. We are now accepting reservations for december when we go to the states for anyone who wants a traditional salvadorean meal ;-) You won't even have to wash forks afterwards!