Travels via food (1): El Salvador via pupusas

Since international travel is off the cards for Australians, I decided I will reminisce about places I have been to and remember the foods that I ate in those places.

Somehow, my mind wants to start with Pupusas.

Growing up in Australia, there was very little contact with Central American culture. Maybe I learned about the Aztecs and Mayans in primary school, but they were so far removed from our reality that I thought they were ancient extinct tribes. I had no idea that Indigenous people in Central America are actually direct descendants of these people. Though Spanish colonisation brought about widespread change in language and culture, the local traditional culture is still strong.

I had never heard of pupusas until I went to el Salvador. All the neighbouring countries have some similar variety on this theme – a cornmeal dough, wrapped around a filling, flattened and cooked on a griddle until it is crispy and warm inside. In Mexico these are quesadillas and in Honduras these are baleadas.

I crossed the border by public local bus into El Salvador with a couple of German guys I met in Honduras. We changed buses a few times, each time laughing at the lurid colours that these retired US school buses were painted. We stayed for the night in La Palma on the border and then I went on my own way to Juayua, while the boys continued on to San Salvador. It was perhaps no more than 100km I travelled over these two days, but the local bus had its own rhythm. It would stop randomly on the side of the road while people and chickens hopped on and off. Sometimes the bus driver would get out and buy things from the roadside stall “for his sister”. There was always a continuous throng of people coming to sell their wares, local snacks and pass out bible pamphlets.

Colourful street murals in La Palma

Juayua is a tiny town in the north western mountains of el Salvador, a tourist destination along the Ruta de las Flores. “Tourist” was quite a strong word, as there were not many international tourists in el Salvador. Certainly it lacked the popularity of the adjacent countries due to its reputation of violence and some countries recommending its citizens avoid it.

I stayed in Juayua in a guesthouse run by a Salvadorean man who had lived in Europe. He had backpacked a lot and knew exactly what travellers needed – a communal space, a sense of sharing, a kitchen to make simple meals. He had two kids with a Dutch woman but they got divorced and he headed back home to Juayua. He set up this splendid guesthouse with a beautiful garden and lots of secret reading spots. I felt immediately soothed by the environment and wanted to stay forever.

That first night, I had my first taste of the pupusa. I can’t remember who told me about this ramshackle place now, it was just a non descript corner shop with no sign. My Spanish was good enough by this stage to discern what the fillings were and ask for a vegetarian option.

The dough for pupusas is quite thick but retains airy lightness. Usually pan fried or cooked on a griddle with a smearing of oil, the shell of the pupusa becomes crisp. Inside the fillings usually have a mix of beans, cheese and pork, but it was easy enough to find a non-meat version. The filling had simple savoury flavourings with not particularly strong spice profile.

Pupusas were always eaten with curtido, a pickled cabbage slaw which often contained pops of mouth numbing chillies, and a salsa roja (red sauce) made from tomatoes mixed with onions and coriander.

I ate these piping hot pupusas fresh off the griddle and fell in love with El Salvador. Later, when I lived in Toronto, I was excited to find them again in a Salvadorean restaurant, but they were never the same.

Maybe because there was always an element of danger in El Salvador that made them more delicious. After eating my first pupusas, I headed back to the guesthouse for an early night. One of my personal rules for travel is to minimise the time I spend out in the dark streets on my own. I lied in bed reading a book that night, listening to the firecrackers going off in the distance – It must be a festival of some sort? I thought as I fell asleep.

The next day I asked Maria, the lovely housekeeper who spoke no English, what the firecrackers were about. In between my choppy Spanish and charades, I tried to mimic the noises of la fiesta. She laughed and told me that it was no fiesta, rather it was la mafia! She mimed a gun shooting herself in the temple and pretended to die, giggling that the simple tourist thought shooting the banditos had been a celebration.

The day after that I became quite ill with a virus. 2016 was quite the time to be travelling in Central America when there was a zika outbreak. I felt the characteristic fever, chills and the start of a terrible ache in my muscles. The slightest movement induced severe head fogging and fatigue. I knew I was going to be laid low for a few days, so I thought I would make a trip to the supermarket to get some supplies before I could no longer walk.

I stumbled out of the guesthouse and walked down the street. Juayua is a tiny town with perhaps 5 or 6 streets in its central area. The 5 minute walk to the supermarket seemed an eternity, and I had to pause on a street corner to catch my breath. By the time I got there I was exhausted, so I quickly shoved a few things into my bag, paid and left.

Except I could not leave.

Standing in front of the automatic sliding door, it would not open. There were several other equally confused people near me, and we stood waving madly at the sensor. One of the supermarket employees came to us and fire off a rapid string of Spanish words that I could not catch in my viral daze other than Polizia being mentioned several times.

Then I heard the firecrackers again. Firecrackers? But Maria said it was no fiesta…

We stood impatiently inside the glass barrier separating us from the firecrackers. Inside, people kept shopping, loading their baskets with milk and bread as if nothing was happening. Was the outside world really separated from us just from this single glass sliding door?

Then as if it was some mirage, I saw a bunch of police with machine guns running down the street. They shouted at the “bad guys” that we could not see around some other corner. The police were dressed in baggy bulletproof clothes that seemed comically huge up close. Somehow the scene was chaotic and noisy, nothing like the streamlined, almost beautiful attacks that one sees on TV. Shots were fired and a woman screamed outside. Children started crying.

Inside, I felt numb. Maybe it was the viral illness, or the sense of disbelief that I was really here in the middle of a police vs mafia shootout. Who were the good guys anyway? I felt annoyed by the inconvenience and wanted to go back to my bed. An apple rolled out of my bag and I bent over to pick it up. The simple exertion of this task made me so dizzy that I had to lean on the door to prevent myself from passing out.

I closed my eyes and waited as the firecrackers continued to pop off into the distance, a strange staccato rhythm. Soon it was over and the supermarket employee opened the door to let the throng of shoppers out. We emerged into the dazzling sunlight and scattered off in all different directions, as if nothing had happened.

I went back to the hostel and slept for three days. I had high fevers and severe body pain that seemed to ravage even my bones. On the days I could not even get up, Maria brought me water in a little jug to my room. A Hawaiian woman I met in the hostel just before I got zika brought me plain rice and bread. The guesthouse owner was worried about me and asked if I should go to the hospital. I asked him where the hospital was and he said it was in San Salvador, but he could borrow his friend’s car to drive me down the mountains. I was struck by the random kindness of all these strangers I met in Juayua. I asked my ICU friend on Whatsapp for a consult, but how does one summarise one’s illness in a text message? She asked if she should contact my insurance company and I went back to sleep.

Eventually the body healed and I gathered enough energy to sit in the garden again. The owner asked me if I had even been outside the guesthouse to see the sights of Juayua – there were waterfalls and hiking trails, he explained. But I was tired and just wanted to have another pupusa.






El Salvadorean Pupusas (in Newcastle)

(My own, completely mashed up version from several internet recipes)

Curtido
1/4 wombok, finely sliced
1 carrot, peeled into fine strips
1 tbsp sugar + 1 tsp salt mixed with ~ 2 cups of apple cider vinegar and hot water 

Mix and leave in fridge for 6 hours to develop flavours


Salsa roja
1 small red onion, roughly chopped
3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 can Italian whole tomatoes

Blitz in a food processor till a coarse paste forms. Season and add chilli flakes
Cook on low heat till reduced and thick, approx 20 minutes

Pupusas

Filling – mix 1 can refried beans with shredded mozzarella, season to taste

2 cups masa harina (fine white corn flour)
2 cups warm water
Mix the flour and water till a rough dough forms
Rest for 20 minutes then knead till smooth, a couple of minutes
Form into balls (I made 10)
Flatten and fill with a generous tbsp of the fillng, then seal into a ball and flatten again
Fry in a dry frying pan until browned on both sides, approx 3-5min each side



Et voila! It's amazing how food can transport you back to a place. I dedicate this post to Maria the guesthouse housekeeper and Vivian the Hawaiian girl I met in Juayua - hope you are well wherever you are!