H.G.Watson
CCE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
It’s not a particularly hot day out, but inside America Latina in downtown Kitchener, it is heating up. Ana Melendez, the cook at the restaurant-cum-grocery store, is overseeing a griddle packed with pupusas. The small corn tortillas are stuffed with beans and cheese and then flattened. After five minutes on the grill (two and half on each side), she snatches them off and puts them aside. An order for 30 has come in and there is no time to waste.
“I won’t do that, it’s too hard,” laughs Ana Grimaldi, the owner of America Latina. But she and Melendez are regulars at the Hot Summer Pupusas Festival, happening August 17 outside Kitchener City Hall. For the past eight years this festival has been a celebration of the food and music of Latin America.
Jesus Cerritos is the organizer of Pupusas Festival. Like Melendez and Grimaldi, he’s a member of the large Salvadorian community here in the region, which he estimates at about 4,000 families.
“We want to let people know we have different food and it tastes good,” he explained. Locals, including Melendez, cook up traditional food like pupusas while both local and international bands play. It’s not limited to the Salvadorian community either – vendors include people from Colombia, Nicaragua and Mexico. “It’s to have fun one day with music and get together,” said Cerritos.
It makes sense that pupusas would be the star of the show, however. The street food came from humble beginnings. “It came out of need,” said Grimaldi. “There was a mother who had children, and she began to make the pupusas to feed them, but then they became the most popular thing in El Salvador.” The stuffed corn tortillas are now a popular street treat morning, noon and night and are as common in El Salvador as hot dog stands are here.
They’re incredibly easy to eat — you can munch on them one handed. But made well, like at America Latina, they’re also a wonderfully complex food. Melendez serves them with a coleslaw style salsa and hot sauce so spicy and good you’ll almost see stars.
Melendez makes rolling them look easy, but its skill that allows her to make them perfectly uniform, with the exact serving of beans and cheese in each one. They’re incredibly popular. In fact, the order of 30 is for a man who drove all the way from Guelph to get them — he’ll eat ten in the store and bring 20 home to eat later.
You would think Melendez had been making the food since she was young, but in truth, it wasn’t too long ago that she couldn’t make them at all. “She had a business in El Salvador but when she came here she didn’t want to learn English but she wanted to work,” laughed Grimaldi, translating for Melendez. So what did she do? “She didn’t know how to make pupusas [but] she learned here,” said Grimaldi. It’s now been ten years since she started and she’s got it down to an art.
What can you have in a Pupusa?
Bean and cheese
This basic filling is vegetarian friendly, and can be made with any variety of bean though red and black beans are popular.
Jalapeno and cheese
Fans of spicy food will enjoy this version, which combined with hot sauce will probably cause hallucinations
Chicharrón
Cooked and ground up pork meat, differing than the fried pork rinds most are familiar with.
Loroco
Loroco is an edible flower native to El Salvador. Grimaldi explained that this stuffing is popular with the hip set. “Even artist who go to El Salavador, those are their favourite.”
