What foods do they eat in El Salvador?

My husband and I recently visited El Salvador, and I was fascinated by the many different foods they eat there. They don't eat anything that is too crazy (I was glad because I have a pretty picky stomach), but their diet is quite different from the normal American diet. Let's look at some traditional dishes they commonly eat there:

1) Pupusas

In the pictures you can see my husband and I being taught how to make pupusas by a Salvadorean woman. It is quite a fascinating process. Basically, you can use a corn or a rice dough (made simply by mixing the desired flour with water), mold it into a ball, create a bowl shape and place the desired filling inside (usually cheese, beans, or meat), wrap the dough around the filling, and shape it into a flat disk, then fry. The end result is a tortilla-like treat stuffed with your favorite filling. You serve pupusas with curtido (made from pickled cabbage, carrots, and peppers) and salsa (this isn't the salsa you are probably used to eating, it's more like watered down tomato juice). For more information on how to make pupusas, check out this website: http://www.whats4eats.com/breads/pupusas-recipe. Stop in at your local Salvadorean restaurant if you want to try the real (or almost real) deal.

2) Frijoles and Platanos

 

This dish is a classic breakfast meal there (like pancakes, bacon, and eggs in the U.S.). This dish is probably my personal favorite of all the dishes I tried in El Salvador. We would call it beans, cream, and fried plantains. This is a dish you could make at home. The mother of the family we stayed with taught me how to make the beans. It's not too complicated.

• Boil 1lb of dry kidney beans (or I would assume the precooked canned ones would work as well) until soft.
• Chop 1/4 onion and 1/4 cup chile verde (green peppers), and lightly fry them in oil.
• Place the onion, peppers, and the cooked beans in a blender. Add a little water (about 2 Tbsp) and blend until the mixture is the right consistency. Add more water if needed.
• Pour the blended beans into the same pan and oil that you fried the peppers and onions in (this is to add more flavor to the beans). Fry the beans, stirring periodically. Eventually the oil will be completely stirred in with the beans.
• Add garlic salt and other seasonings to taste. 

Now, I realize that it seems like we are adding a lot of unnecessary fat (via the oil) into what would otherwise be a pretty healthy meal. In argument for the frying method: At least they are using vegetable oils that are low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fat rather than using butter, margarine, or lard (which is what we often add in our cooking), all of which are high in saturated or trans fat (For more on choosing healthy fats, check out this site: http://www.wholeliving.com/article/oil-change). However, if you are like me and like to cut the fat out of cooking in any way possible, I'm sure that you can cook the beans in a nonstick pan without oil. However, the flavor may be a bit different.

Okay, now that you have your beans ready, fry up some plantains (or bananas if you prefer), grab some cream and pan (bread in Spanish, it's really like what we would call a dinner roll) and eat away. They mix everything together and scoop it up with the bread, but I prefer to keep things separate.

3) Pancakes

Another interesting fact: They drink a lot of bottled juice, soda and water because their water source isn't pure. I loved the pineapple juice!

This one surprised me a lot. The first morning we were there, we were served what they called pancakes. Now, they did resemble the kind of pancakes I grew up with, but they were soooooo much yummier! You almost didn't need to add any syrup on them because they were so sweet and delicious! I wish I had a recipe because I would definitely switch to Salvadorean pancakes over the original American version.

4) Chicken and Rice

I was fascinated when I found out that they eat a lot of chicken there! There were chickens roaming the streets and in everyone's yards, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I was grateful to have something in common with the Salvadoreans: We both love chicken and rice! Oh, and veggies! I had a harder time accepting their version of the tortilla (top left in the picture), which was much thicker than the American counterpart.

5) Fruit

I thought I was a fruit lover through and through. The only fruit I don't LOVE is the pear, and even those I can eat. Boy I was wrong! They have VERY different fruits in Central America. My husband's favorite is the Licha, a redish-pink fruit with a prickly skin, which I thought was okay. Another strange fruit is the annona. It's like a pomegranate in the way that you eat the fruit around the seeds and then spit out the seeds (unless you are like me and eat the pomegranate seeds too), but the taste is quite different than anything I'm used to, and very difficult to describe. Here are some pictures:

Inside of the Annona

Outside of the Annona

I was intrigued overall at the Salvadorean diet. You may have noticed that a lot of do fry a lot of their home cooked meals, many shy away from eating pizza, hamburgers, and other "fast" foods. I study nutrition and I still eat those foods with joy (though in moderation of course). They also eat a lot more sea food than I think the normal American eats (one reason for this may be the difference in the price of sea food in the different areas. In El Salvador, they have so much sea food that it is cheaper than in places in the U.S. that are far from a port). I would say that both diets have their benefits and draw-backs. The truth is, no matter where you live (unless you are somewhere with a very nutritionally limited food supply, but that's a topic for another day), there are choices you can make relative to your diet that are either healthier or less healthy. Again, the choice is yours :)

If you've been places where they eat interesting foods, please comment and tell us about them!

-Kamie