El Salvador Shopping - Reviews, Tips, Photos

Like many small countries, El Salvador has relatively few traditions that it can claim as being uniquely its own (and not just generically Latin American or Central American). Although it's most famous sons and daughters are largely unknown outside the country’s borders, El Salvador does have one peg that it can hang its hat on – the pupusa. It's true that you can find pupusas elsewhere in Central America (and also in many US cities, now that the population of Salvadorans who reside in the US exceeds two million), but you’ll almost always find them referred to as "pupusas salvadoreñas" because the pupusa is generally recognized as one of the relatively few cultural inventions that is 100% Salvadoran (although some people do suggest that this culinary innovation actually originated in Honduras).

So, you ask, what exactly is a pupusa? Basically, a pupusa is a corn tortilla stuffed with some combination of beans, white cheese, and/or "chicharrón" (which is essentially ground pig fat), cooked on a lard-splattered griddle, and served with a watery tomato sauce and "curtido" (pickled cabbage). No culinary masterpiece, but filling and tasty nonetheless.

Where can you find some pupusas? In a pupusería, of course. How can you find one of those? Well, it's about as difficult to find a pupusería in El Salvador as it is to find a freckle on an Irishman – they're everywhere. Indeed, if a community has only one commercial establishment, chances are that it's a pupusería.

So, that's it then? Not quite. Like any national dish, there are endless varieties of the pupusa. The town of Olocuilta, between San Salvador and the airport, is famous for removing corn from the equation and making their pupusas from rice instead. Although many people prefer rice pupusas to their corn cousins, I find the Olocuilta-style concoction too rubbery for my tastes.

More excitingly, some enterprising Salvadorans with the capacity to think outside the box (or in this case, the bean-cheese-chicharrón triangle) fill their pupusas with all sorts of non-traditional ingredients. "Ayote" (a local variety of squash) and "loroco" (a bitter little flower bud) both find there way into pupusas at many pupuserías. More exotic fillings include chicken, fish, shrimp, crab, pepperoni, salami, mushrooms, green peppers, onions, and spinach. The curtido itself can also get jazzed up with the addition of carrots, onions, chili peppers, oregano, cauliflower, beets, and (in the San Miguel area) even mayonnaise.

So, where's a good place to get some good pupusas? I recommend Pupusería Adriana in Ahuachapán (located in front of the park that’s nearest the bus terminal) for their wide variety of ingredients, and the pupuserías found along the Tourist Dock in Puerto El Triunfo for their shrimp pupusas.

Lastly, it might come in handy to know that the word "pupusa" is also used to refer to the female genitalia. So, it's ok to tell the lady at the pupusería that you like pupusas (me gustan las pupusas), but you shouldn't tell her that you like “her” pupusa (me gusta su pupusa).

When I arrived in El Salvador in June 2001, it was easy to find a pupusa for 1 colon (11.43 cents) in most small towns and/or rural areas. Then, as dollarization progressed, the price of the pupusa suffered from some rounding inflation and jumped up to 12 cents. 12 cents per pupusa soon was replaced by 2 for a cora (i.e. "quarter" -- 25 cents). And then, the price increase that really broke the bank sent pupusa prices spiraling up to 15 cents each.