El Salvador: Pupusa

What the hell is a pupusa, anyway? And why bother?

That might as well be the title of this post, since that's exactly what I was thinking by the time I was done with the pupusa-making process.

I'll start by saying I've never been to El Salvador, or anywhere remotely close to it for that matter. The country has no sentimental value. I've never even thought much about it. Never seen a pupusa on a restaurant menu.

But at some point last Monday, my week was off to a rough start. I was totally unmotivated. Totally disinterested in most of the things I needed to get done at work. And it was cold and crappy out. Who even wants to get out of bed in that weather? I mean, come on. This is Florida! I'm here for a reason.

I dragged through the first few days of the week, starting to feel a little bummed. I wished I had some sort of distraction. Something to get me excited and pull me out of my funk.

Then I remembered the wine bag of fun. The occasional monotony of life was part of the reason I started this blog in the first place. Just something to spice things up when life needed just a bit of seasoning.

As cheesy as it sounds, it works. There's something kind of thrilling about spontaneously reaching into a bag, pulling out a country's name and vowing to pay it a little visit - at least in your kitchen. Maybe it's the surprise. You never know what you're going to get, and then before you know it your exploring the cuisine of El Salvador.

It seemed so exotic at first. So cool. So Latin.

That was before I started the pupusa making.

A pupusa is a traditional Salvadorian hot pocket of sorts, made with a dough of corn flour and stuffed with random things, like meat, beans or cheeses. I actually found an Emeril recipe that involved shredded pork and white cheese. He calls it Salvadorian Pulled Pork Pupusa with Pickled Cabbage. It's the only pupusa recipe on the Food Network web site. (I now think I know why.)

Thus began quite the process. The recipe required that the side dish alone sit for 24 hours before eating (I cheated and tasted it a good six hours in). In the interim, the pork cooks for a good four hours. And then there's this little situation with the corn pockets - making the dough, molding little balls, trying to flatten and stuff them with the pork mixture without breaking the dough, which is fairly delicate. In all, I probably spent about seven hours trying to accomplish all this (with down time in between to clean up the kitchen).

The end result was pretty good. I'd probably serve this at a party.

But seven hours? This might even surpass the moussaka in intensity. Or homemade pasta. And on this first go around, I was fairly tired by the time I even got to making my little dough balls. I fell like the pupusas were coming out kind of crappy.

At some point last week, I managed to convince one of my editors to take me to lunch. We decided on Vietnamese, and headed to Miss Saigon for some pho.

On the ride there, I started telling him about my own experience making pho (remember, the whole 10-plus hours making broth). He kind of laughed and said that's exactly why he doesn't make ethnic food.

"Someone else already knows how to make it so well," he said. "It's like sushi. It's an art. I could never make it as good."

His message: Why bother when you could drive around the corner for takeout in under an hour?

But even as I painstakingly rolled my little corn flour balls, trying to keep them from breaking as I stuffed them with pork and cheese, I could appreciate the effort. I could appreciate that someone, at some point in time took the time to come up with this cultural staple. I could appreciate it in a way I never would have had I never tried to make it myself.

It's a pain in the ass, rolling those little corn balls by hand and then frying them. Should I ever find myself in El Salvador enjoying one of these tasty treats - or any comparable restaurant - I'll be sure to thank the cook for his effort. And tomorrow, I'm kind of looking forward to getting back to what I perhaps do best, at least better than making pupusas. Working at a newspaper.