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Pupusa

Pupusa

Specialised

Masa patted by hand around a filling and cooked on a COMAL, served with CURTIDO — lightly fermented cabbage, carrot and onion in vinegar — and a thin tomato salsa, and eaten with the fingers. The named fillings: de QUESO; de CHICHARRÓN; de FRIJOL; REVUELTA, the three together; and de LOROCO, the edible flower bud of Fernaldia pandurata, which is the one ingredient that is unmistakably Salvadoran. Also pupusas de ayote, de espinaca, and — in the east — made with RICE flour rather than maize, at Olocuilta. ⚠ ITS ORIGIN IS CLAIMED FOR THE PIPIL AND FOR THE PRE-COLUMBIAN PERIOD; that claim is widely repeated and is not conclusively documented, and the modern dish’s spread across the country is a twentieth-century development. A national Día de la Pupusa was legislated in 2005. ⚠ AND IT IS THE FOOD THE DIASPORA CARRIED: the pupusería is the most visible Salvadoran institution abroad.

Atlas — where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

  • Nahua-Pipil community documented

Languages: Spanish, Pipil

What is recorded

  • El Salvador legislates a national Día de la Pupusa, observed on the second Sunday of November. documented
  • The pupusa is documented with named fillings including queso, chicharrón, frijol, revuelta and loroco, the last being the flower bud of Fernaldia pandurata and distinctively Salvadoran. Rice-flour pupusas are documented at Olocuilta. Claims of Pipil and pre-Columbian origin are widely repeated and are not conclusively documented; the dish’s spread as a national food is a twentieth-century development. A national Día de la Pupusa was established in 2005. probable

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

Recorded as relating to this foodway

  • related to Baleada possible

    ⚠ STRUCTURAL SIMILARITY ONLY — both are filled griddle breads. The baleada is WHEAT and folded; the pupusa is MAIZE and sealed. No ancestry is inferred from resemblance.

  • related to Guatemalan Tortilla documented

    The Salvadoran tortilla is thicker again and is the pupusa’s base.

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.