Pupusa report

Salvadoran snack food makes a rare public appearance

Dining Out by Robert Nadeau

Cafeteria El Salvador (617) 776-4422 402 Mystic Avenue, Somerville Open daily, noon to midnight No liquor No credit cards Up one step from sidewalk level La Pupusa Guanaca (617) 524-4900 378 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain (Hyde Square) Open daily, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. No liquor No credit cards Up two steps from sidewalk level

I began hearing about -- and sometimes tasting -- pupusas in the early 1980s, when rip-roaring Reagan lawbreakers were so eager to make another Vietnam in El Salvador that they were going through the Ten Commandments like a bird watcher's life list to make it happen. Several hundred thousand Salvadoran youth fled the country, mostly to the United States. Nowadays the Iran-contra conspirators all have talk shows and think-tank positions. The Salvadorans are still here, too -- still mostly illegal, still sending money home and yearning for pupusas.

A pupusa, the national snack of El Salvador, is made of two corn tortillas thinly stuffed with meat, beans, and cheese (or various permutations thereof), topped with tomato sauce and "curtido," a pickled-cabbage relish somewhere between cole slaw and sauerkraut, with a dash of hot pepper. It is an unwritten rule that Salvadoran men talk about pupusas, but only women actually make them. The discussion, with its overlay of Latin fatalism and mother-love, is somewhat similar to the discourse around chili con carne. Instead of "My chili is the best in the world, and everyone else's is unfit for donkeys," we have something like, "My mother's pupusas are the best in the world, but these will have to do for today."

Quality issues are hard to pin down. I have had a variety of pupusas over the years, mostly from underground pupuserias and informal pupusa stores, all located in private apartments and supplying other apartments. In El Salvador, pupusas are street food, but I have never seen them in public in Boston, even at all-Salvadoran soccer games. Even Salvadoran restaurants have been quite rare, El Rancho in Somerville and some crypto-Salvadoran Mexican joints in East Boston and Chelsea being the exceptions.

But now there are two public pupuserias. And my mother doesn't make pupusas, so there's room for both a winner and some that will do for today.

Since we don't often do dollar snacks here, there may be some rushing and lining up. So I urge readers to take this one a little easier than Oliver North and Elliot Abrams did. Pupusas are grilled to order and are best eaten hot, although you can also take them home. Relax and enjoy the slap of the dough as it is flattened by hand, and the frying sound as some of the filling drips onto the grill. Do not wolf your pupusas (two or three to a person, I would suggest), but remember to top them with the curtido, which is often the best part. Good ones also have the sacred flavors of toasted corn and hot grease.

Unfortunately, I preferred the pupusas at Cafeteria El Salvador, far from where I live, to my neighborhood version at La Papusa Guanaca. Hard to say why. Cafeteria El Salvador is a big place, seating about 40 customers at widely spaced tables. I've never seen more than a few people inside on the weekday evenings I sometimes pass that stretch of Mystic Avenue. But the family who works there jumped into action when I walked in, and eventually delivered three juicy pupusas ($1 each), fresh and well-filled. I liked cheese the best, and bean and cheese second, but the pork version was also tasty. They list quite a lot of other food, of which I'd bet they have maybe 20 percent actually in stock, but they do have a sense of humor. The big combination platter is the "plato super mario," and another is "el chupa cabras," a pun on the name of the Puerto Rican Sasquatch. I would guess that the place fills up on Sundays after church, and probably after one of those soccer games a few streets away.

At La Pupusa Guanaca, there are only about 12 seats (two tables, two counters), and service can be slow, but for a cheap fill-up, something different, or takeout, the place is a find. (The name comes from "Guanaco," a term that other Central Americans use for Salvadorans -- probably because a guanaco is a tropical bird that makes a lot of noise, and Salvadorans are stereotyped as being voluble.)

I found the pupusas relatively thin and uninspired, with the cheese variety the tastiest on its own. The pork filling is a little like Carolina pulled pork, but stretched instead. And the bean-and-cheese version was not much of anything. The corn and the curtido are the dominant flavors in any case; this is street food, highway food, packed-lunch food -- home-away-from-home for Salvadorans, and a nifty snack for anyone.

If, on the other hand, you want to sit down with a knife and fork, seven dollars will buy you a dinner of perfectly broiled boned chicken breast, a nice little fresh salsa, refried black beans, and Savadoran "black rice" (which is actually dark purple with the liquid from the black beans), as well as salad and a couple of thick Salvadoran-style tortillas -- not much thinner than pupusas.

A week later, you're hungry again, and ready for yuca con chicharrón ($3), which is deep-fried chunks of yuca -- nearly pure starch and a perfect fried root -- mixed up with pork salted and fried to the texture of French confit, and more curtido. I also had a chicken burrito ($3.50), which was better than your average Tex-Mex burrito. Another time it might be tacos Salvadorequos ($3), three tortillas rolled around ground beef or chicken and fried stiff as cannoli. If you are still thinking Tex-Mex (and none of this is very spicy), these are more like flautas than tacos, and come with tomato sauce and salad.

To completely confound your Tex-Mex terminology, how about a quesadilla ($1) for dessert? The Salvadoran quesadilla is, and has always been, an eggy cheese bread with sesame seeds, typically reserved for Sunday dessert. What I hadn't seen before is the quesadilla-as-cupcake. Some other dollar desserts are rice pudding and pineapple upside-down cake. Or you could easily have the cheese empanada ($1), although it is intended as a savory. La Pupusa Guanaca also has weekend specials like big soups and tamales. Service is a guy behind the counter, atmosphere is bright lights and whoever else walks in.

Both these restaurants show that cheap is not necessarily slapdash or boring. This isn't fast food -- it's soul food, made to order and eaten piping hot.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at robtnadeau@aol.com.

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