Picture a warm, pillowy corn tortilla stuffed with cheese, pork, refried beans and more, made to be ripped apart with your fingers and eaten while still melty on the inside and toasty on the outside. The perfect handheld street food, comforting side dish or stackable main course, like a savory Central American shortstack.
This is the pupusa.
Originating from the traditional cuisine of indigenous Pipil tribes in what is now El Salvador, the pupusa entered America’s culinary consciousness when civil war forced many Salvadorans into the United States.
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The dish has become more popular in recent years as mainstream American food trends have embraced more off-the-beaten-path international cuisines, but pupusas have been a mainstay of Salvadoran immigrants for much longer. Just ask one of the women working the griddle inside the El Encanto truck.
The brightly colored truck sits outside the Tiger Bend Discount Zone gas station on Tiger Bend Road. It is emblazoned with pictures of tacos and tortas and fills the parking lot with the smell of peppers and corn. You know it’s going to be good when two patrons ahead of you place their orders in fluent Spanish before passing their cash through one of the truck’s screen windows. An unassuming styrofoam box never felt so promising.
El Encanto keeps it simple with pupusas stuffed with a blend of cheeses and served up with the traditional fixings: pickled cabbage and a spicy salsa verde. Best when fresh off the griddle, the melty cheese filling has a spicy and savory spike of pepper that plays nicely with the heat of the salsa and the acidity of the cabbage.
These pupusas are a testament to well-executed simplicity, the kind that can only be born from years and years of tradition, passed down from one worn pair of hands to the next.
Pupusas pinpointed
Check out these spots in Baton Rouge for your pupusa fix:
La Salvadoreña Restaurant
3285 Nicholson Drive
La Reyna
13213 Perkins Road
lareynarestaurant.com
Genesis Pupuseria Y Taqueria
1683 O’Neal Lane
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El Magey Mexican Buffet
8290 Siegen Lane
elmagey.com
El Encanto food truck
Tiger Bend Road at Jefferson Highway
This article was originally published in the March 2017 issue of 225 Magazine.