Comments on: Let’s Cooking = Pupusas

By: Robles

Robles — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:48:11 +0000

Hola. Pupusas are Salvadoran. Because they come from such a small country, and are so popular..others have wanted to take credit. I’ve heard that Honduras aside from Guatemala have said it is their dish. Cooking utinsels used to make pupusas were un-earthed in a mayan village (ruines) covered by a volcanic explotion quite some time ago. See link bellow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pupusas

By: tiffany

tiffany — Tue, 22 May 2007 16:10:31 +0000

papusas taste alot better when you add lard to the maseca not oil and salt you have to taste everything while your making it for it to come out right i know because my neighbor sells them here in nj for 2.00 each i ngot tired of paying alot when i could have just asked for the recipe which i did.

By: cheyenne

cheyenne — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 20:33:23 +0000

Hey there! I’m so psyched that you made the pupusas. I think I might have to make these again soon now.

I know that Laughing Cow cheese well. We have made many a breakfasty sandwich out of Laughing Cow and baguette (or whatever is around) in strange places where cafes were not forthcoming. I think it would be a great choice for filling with the texture.

By: Laszlo

Laszlo — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 12:58:09 +0000

You talked me into it (actually not a big deal, I’m an easy eat) and yesterday I tried my hand at making pupusas. Damn, they’re good! Even when made by a newbie pupusa maker. I’m positive I didn’t get anything right except the rice flour, but I still want some more - right now!

My variation was a cheese pupusa made with Laughing Cow soft cheese wedges - the real thing, not the pale unworthy low fat industrial waste product that people afraid of their food consume in an effort to prevent the inevitable. It’s a soft spreading cheese that comes in wedges packed in a circular cardboard box, for those who haven’t seen it before. 1 wedge is the perfect size for a 4″ pupusa. I topped them with pico del gallo (cold, raw finely chopped onion, tomato, cilantro, peppers, spices) and Tabasco smoked chipotle pepper sauce.

While the flavors were lovely, the best part for me was the textures. I cooked the pupusas in a non-stick frying pan (don’t have a griddle) in a bit of butter (instead of oil). The outside cooked up into a crispy shell, with an uneven golden finish and some black spots, while the inside was hot and soft. I tried eating the first one with a fork, but the second went better with fingers. They’re incredibly filling, even though they only have about 250 calories each.

Thank you so much for your writeup. You have made my mouth very happy. But I’m not trying any of the anchovy recipes.

Fair winds to you both,

Laszlo

By: GOR

GOR — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 01:35:32 +0000

PAPUSAS!!
I LOVE papusas. You may remember that I lived for three months with a Salvadoran family in Medford before I moved to Maryland. There were sunday papusas, dinner papusas, dessert papusas. Some spicy hot, some bland “comfort” food.

Then, a Guatamalan restaurant opened in Talent. I can’t remember what they called their papusas but they were the same thing. I mentioned the Salvadoran variety and neively asked if they were the same. I was accosted with an angry retort from the waiter, the cook came out, and I was informed that papusas were Guatamalan. Guatamalan papusas were the only “real thing” and that the Salvadorans made pale, unworthy copies.

Back at home, my landlady informed me that the Salvadorans made the only true papusas and that the Guatamalans, unimaginative and backward as they were, only made pale, unworthy copies. She mentioned to some of the ladies who assembled on Sunday afternoons to cook and gossip, that I had suggested that papusas were Guatamalan. The ladies all eyed me suspiciously and vowed to change my heathen ways. So - I had a surfit of papusas for about two weeks. I gained weight I didn’t need but the experience was instructive.

AND, your pictures of San Salvador make me want to visit. I’m checking out busses now.

Ciao,
GOR

By: cheyenne

cheyenne — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 20:15:54 +0000

Well, that depends upon a lot of things. Where you are when the hurricane season begins; where you want to be when it ends; where you want to be during the season; whether you plan on staying on the boat for the duration of the season (and sailing) or if you intend to leave it and return when the season ends. We happened to be heading south so south of the hurricane ‘line’ made the most sense for us. In addition, we had some time constraints (we had to be at a wedding in early June) so we wanted to get our boat someplace where we could leave it for a month or more. Bahia del Sol worked out perfectly for us since it was the first safe-ish place one could leave a boat south of the Tehuantapec (so timing was good for us), and we had the option of leaving it on our own anchor (not some mooring, which can be hard to trust), which is by far the most economical option. As far as the heat, both places are hot enough for me, thank you (more humidity in the south perhaps). As for the thunderstorms, well, the boat is at anchor so you aren’t actually having to sail in bad weather, just sit below in it (no big whoop). The estuary is calm under normal circumstances but even during the roughest storm we witnessed, we were totally fine, just bouncing. We left the boat for three months total (one month each time on its own anchor) and it was always fine upon return. Central America is small so inland travel to Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, and of course elsewhere in El Salvador is easy and convenient. Other boaters we have run across spent the summer (left the boat for periods of time during travel to US, etc.) in Barillas (El Salvador), where you must pay for a mooring ($11.50/day–no anchoring allowed) or in Nicaragua at Puesta del Sol, where you must pay for a mooring (no anchoring allowed) or a dock slip. Bahia del Sol is the most well connected, but possibly the most difficult to enter/exit (although all accounts we’ve heard of the Barillas entry have not sounded very easy either). Puesta is simple to enter and exit.

I would definitely not spend the hurricane season in Puerto Vallarta because I would spend all my time worrying about the weather and would not feel comfortable leaving it anchored for any length of time. I would not be interested in paying marina slip fees at PV marina either (too expensive and subject to availability). If I absolutely had to leave the boat someplace in mainland Mexico within the hurricane zone, I might choose Huatulco.

The other alternative is to continue further south: to Costa Rica or Panama where you are absolutely out of all hurricane danger. From what I understand, it is much wetter the closer you get to Panama during the summer months and there aren’t very many marinas in Costa Rica; one could possibly feel comfortable leaving the boat on the hook in Golfito, but I don’t know that for certain.

By: curious

curious — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 05:10:19 +0000

So if you were to summer again, somewhere along the west coast of North America south of the U.S. border, would you still pick the thunderstorms of the tropics, the sheer heat of the sea of cortez, a compromise such as puerto vallarta?

Or would you just get out of the region completely?