Popusas

Popusas crept into my food

experiences as an adolescent.

My first time inside of a pupuseria

felt like a foreign environment.

American cheese was the only cheese I had

ever truly enjoyed up until that point.

As I scanned the menu full of unfamiliar options,

I thought I had played it safe by choosing

a cheese pupusa.

It looked good when it arrived, but to my disappointment,

the cheese inside wasn't American. I asked the waitress in

vain if they had any, in hopes I could try to enjoy the pupusa more.

However, they didn't. I believe she didn't even know what I was

requesting. American cheese might have been foreign to her.

Little did I know that in the future, I would

have some of the best homemade pupusas ever,

that would convert me into a life long fan.

Countless youth group fundraisers were earned

by hours of chopping vegetables for curtido,

the pat-clap-fold hand movements, and delivering

offering pupusas to church members. Near or far,

we went to sell pupusas til they were all gone.

Who knows how many food blenders spun for

their last time, in an attempt to grind pork meat.

Revueltas were an easy favorite, it's a delicious

combination of pork, cheese, and beans. However,

I love love love squash and cheese pupusas.

Houston is home to many pupuserias,

but I have found several of them fall

short of the culinary voodoo homemade

pupusas have. They are often served over

white wax paper, where pool of orange grease

become quite visible. So much so, a greasy

pupusa is a tell tell sign of a bad pupusa in my mind.

Roxana's mother made pupusas every weekend.

And from time to time, she would spoil me by using

rice flour instead of corn flour to make her pupusas.

Something about the combination of rice flour and

beans really made the flavors pop.

Fast forward 6-8 years, and I don't have a steady

source of authentic homemade pupusas. So I got

all the ingredients I needed to make pupusas at home.

Popusas are normally about 3-4 inches in diameter,

so I set out to create itty bitty popusas. Once I grew

tired of that, I pulled out my ginger-bread cookie cutter

and made, you guessed it, a popusa man.