Ethnic Food Project

Dona Azucena Autentico Comida Salvadorena’s is a narrow restaurant tucked in between others near the intersection of Glebe Road and Pershing Drive in Arlington. When I went there on a Saturday night, it was packed with lines inside the door. The interior is similar to a diner or fast food place, but they have servers and the place was packed with what I can assume are local Salvadoreans. Even though the restaurant was nondescript, the profusion of Christmas decorations made it really charming. You can carry out or eat-in and all the food is prepared in front of you.

Salvadoran cuisine is primarily influenced by the Maya, Lenca, and Pipil peoples. The Mayan people are the native populations that are spread throughout the Yucatan peninsula, not just in El Salvador. The Lenca people are the indigenous people that live in southwestern Honduras and in eastern El Salvador whose lives revolve around milpa (“field”), a crop-growing system. Lenca men cultivate coffee, cacao, tobacco, plantains, gourds, maize, wheat, beans, squash, sugarcane, and chili peppers. The Pipil peoples live in western El Salvador and speak a different dialect (called Nahuat or Pipil). This group has the strongest influence on the current culture of El Salvador, and a large portion of the population claims Pipil ancestry, despite the fact that few speak the language.

The standard and most well-known dish from El Salvador is the pupusa, which we ordered. They were made in front of us by a group of women and were fresh and hot. The word pupusa comes from the Pipil word pupusawa. The traditional pupusa is made with thick hand-made corn flour and stuffed with cheese, chicarron (fried pork rinds), refried beans, and/or loroco (a vine flower). These are then flattened and grilled. In El Salvador, they sometimes use rice flour instead, however ours were definitely made with corn (this variation comes from Olocuiltaon the east side of San Salvador). In the United States, often they use commercially prepared corn flour (like Maseca). I’m not sure if we were served this.

In addition to pupusas, we ordered fried yuca (yuca frita), which was crisp and delicious. This dish is very typical and is deep fried cassava root. We also ordered fried plantains, which are also very typical. These were served with sour cream, which cuts the sweetness and is cold.

Along with all this came a massive amount of what resembled coleslaw. This mixture is called curtido and is pickled cabbage, onion, red chilies, vinegar, and carrots. The curtido was spicy and sour at the same time, with salsa placed on top. Perhaps the best description of it is that it is similar to a fusion of sauerkraut and coleslaw, with perhaps kimchi thrown in (sometimes it is allowed to ferment slightly at room temperature prior to serving). Salvaide states that the curtido is eaten with the pupusa, and people break aaprt the pupusa and pick up the curtido with it, but it is also eaten with most meals. Additionally, they state that pupusas are from the Pipil people almost three millenia ago. Tools to cook pupusas have been found in camp sits that age back almost 2,000 in Joya de Ceren, El Salvador.

Apparently sandwiches are popular food items in El Salvador, but they did not serve any. Another popular item that we did not try was a soup, which looked like it contained seafood.

We also tried a dessert called chilates that resembled a hush puppy, but was a dessert. It was a rather bland ball and served with a lot of syrup, which tasted strongly of molasses. Apparently chilates are served in a savory version, too. However, I have not been able to find much information on Salvadoren cuisine. We sampled some horchata, a traditional beverage made from ground rice. I’d had it before and remembered it being thin, sweet, milky and cinnamon flavored. However, this horchata was thick and tasted sort of like peanuts. I’m not sure if this is a variation on the typical horchata.

Unfortunately, we did not try other staples, like chicha (a mild alcoholic drink made from fermented ground corn), tres leches cake (a cake soaked in evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and cream, similar in taste to a cheesecake), or the infamous soup.

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