El Salvador: Masa and Mass Murder

El Salvador: Masa and Mass Murder

     El Salvador should be a tropical paradise, its sun baked Pacific Coast in the heart of Central America brimming with sugarcane and coffee, a call for tourists seeking Eden. But, this smallest of nations became anything but a paradise, its agricultural riches a curse that drew foreign vultures and local tyrants alike.

    Dubbed a “Coffee Republic” in the early 1900s—while neighbors earned the “Banana Republic” label—El Salvador’s independence from Spain (1821), the First Mexican Empire (1823), and the Federal Republic of Central America (1839) quickly gave way to elite families who seized indigenous lands, selling them to foreign coffee barons for obscene profit. Stability masked staggering inequality as Pipil descendants toiled to death on plantations, fattening the rich while the poor starved.

    While the Western world of the US and Europe fought to “make the world safe for democracy”, the people of El Salvador started to get restless and clamored for reform. The Great Depression crushed coffee prices, stripping away the oligarchy’s veneer of prosperity. The oligarchy’s chosen president, Pio Romero Bosque, would dangle some democratic crumbs to keep the people at bay and quiet the unrest. In 1931, Arturo Araujo, a Labor Party leader tied with the indigenous and unions won the presidency, the first truly democratic election in El Salvador’s history.But, Araujo would enact massive cuts to military spending and began drawing up plans to seize coffee lands. This would enrage both the army and US interests.

     On December 2, 1931, with US backing, General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez would stage a military coup, overthrowing Araujo and ending El Salvador’s brief foray into democratic rule. This also would begin five decades plus of brutal military dictatorship, backed by western powers, and funded by corporate greed. This is the era we will focus on, one of mass murder, repression, and blood soaked boots. 

     Of course, this is a food blog, and El Salvador’s cuisine is unique indeed. Often shaped by both indigenous staples as well as the food of Spanish colonists, El Salvador’s struggles against this dictatorship are deeply intertwined with its cuisine. Curtido, the pickled cabbage slaw of the Pipil people, fed survivors of the 1932 La Matanza Massacre. Pastelitos salvadoreños, fried empanadas with annato stained dough, fed protestors in 1977 as they took to San Salvador’s streets. Pannes con pollo, shredded chicken sandwiches, filled the streets during a brief moment of hope after the dictatorship’s fall. Finally, pupusas, El Salvador’s national dish of fried corn dough stuffed with cheese, beans and pork, were made in underground hubs that fed both guerilla rebellion and stomachs in the early 80s. We’ll also explore how these echoes of repression linger today, as CECOT’s mass arrests and Bukele’s bitcoin populism threaten to resurrect the past.

     El Salvador’s story is one written in both blood and masa, so today lets taste and honor both.

     

Curtido: Survival Slaw

     For centuries, the Pipil people of Central America have been fermenting vegetables. Once Europeans brought cabbage, that practice extended to the cabbage as well. As fermenting vegetables was an inexpensive practice that made food last longer, indigenous households would combine pickled cabbage with other vegetables, and local spices to create a tangy slaw that has become a staple: curtido. Indigenous workers working coffee plantations didn’t have much, but the barrels of curtido they had at home were a staple of their cuisine. Of course, it was at these agricultural homesteads that one of Central America’s greatest tragedies would unfold.

    The U.S.-backed military coup that toppled Arturo Araujo’s labor-rooted presidency in 1931 unleashed a reign of terror. General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez’s regime moved swiftly, annulling the 1932 legislative elections after Communist Party wins and crushing a failed urban revolt. Paranoia drove them to target the indigenous workers and left-wing supporters fueling the uprising, especially in El Salvador’s western coffee heartland—the Pipil’s domain.

     El Salvador’s western regions are where the indigenous Pipil people make their home, and where most of the country’s coffee was produced. Dotting the landscape were coffee plantations, as well as the modest homes of Pipil workers with barrels of pungent and spicy curtido fermenting outside, with volcanic mountains serving as a backdrop. It was in this relatively peaceful place filled with the smell of coffee blossoms and sounds of rural life that left wing parties would find their backing.

    Pipil workers would work brutally long hours in back breaking conditions on the coffee plantations for companies who paid them pennies. Not to mention, many of these plantations were built on their ancestral lands. It was decades of this exploitative situation that led to Pipil rebellion, their quiet rage building the labor left in the process. The people of the west rarely had a voice in the halls of San Salvador, but cancelling the election results as they were on the verge of sending a message would prove to be a last straw.

    In the late hours of January 22, 1932, regime soldiers in the western part of the country were met by sticks, machetes and makeshift shotguns in an indigenous led rebellion. For weeks, the Pipil had been meeting with Communist Party leaders over plates of curtido freshly taken from the barrel, having been deeply affected by the cancelled elections. The government was partially prepared, having arrested several communist leaders in the week preceding the rebellion who pointed to an action being imminent if they didn’t negotiate. The government quickly reacted, declaring martial law, and crushing the rebels with their superior firepower, having the rebellion fully under control by January 25th. But, they didn’t stop there.

    Immediately after crushing the rebellion, the military sent reinforcements to the western part of the country and began a campaign of mass murder of indigenous people. The killing was indiscriminate, as jack-booted soldiers flipped over barrels of curtido in several towns to find civilians hiding and dragging them to the central square, executing the entire male population of population centers by machine gun.

    The government also gave unconditional amnesty to those who “committed crimes of any nature to restore order, repress, persecute, punish, and capture those accused of the crime of rebellion”, which essentially encouraged unofficial paramilitary groups to take part in the violence as well. Communist and indigenous leaders were executed by firing squad and lynched, including the organizer of the uprising, Farabundo Martí, as the military moved to consolidate power and establish complete control. When all was said and done, around 30,000 people were executed, 4% of the population and the majority of the Pipil people. The event is now known as “La Matanza”, or “The Massacre”. Despite instigating the coup, the US was slow to recognize the Martínez military government, but did so in early 1934, citing this event as proving “his ability to bring stability to the country.” This excuse of “restoring order” echoes today in CECOT’s walls, where Bukele’s regime imprisons alleged terrorists, reviving the past’s repressive tactics. The Pipil, battered but unbroken, survived, their curtido a defiant legacy.

    Making the curtido after researching this event was quite sobering, but I can understand why for centuries it has been considered such a staple. The tangy, spicy-sweet nature of the slaw adds a nice flavor to just about everything. Just remember when making it, that the hands who originally did so, did so with an unyielding defiance. I did not have mexican oregano, so i subbed marjoram and it worked well. 

Curtido (Salvadoran Pickled Cabbage Slaw)

Ingredients

½ head green cabbage, thinly shredded

1 large carrot, grated

½ small white onion, thinly sliced

¼ small red onion, thinly sliced (optional)

1 cup white vinegar

1 tsp dried Mexican oregano (or Marjoram)

½ tsp toasted cumin seeds (optional)

1 tsp salt (adjust to taste)

½–1 tsp sugar (adjust to taste)

1–2 jalapeños, thinly sliced, or ½ tsp crushed red pepper (optional, for heat)

1 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro or mint (optional, added after cooling)

Instructions

Combine: In a large bowl, mix cabbage, carrot, and onions. Pour 1 cup boiling water over vegetables; let sit for 5 minutes. Drain thoroughly.

Add: Mix in vinegar, oregano, cumin seeds (if using), salt, sugar, and jalapeños or red pepper (if using). Toss well. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Pack: Pack mixture tightly into a clean jar, pressing down to submerge vegetables in liquid.

Rest: Let sit at room temperature for 1–3 hours (optional, for deeper flavor), then refrigerate for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

Finish: Stir in cilantro or mint (if using) before serving.

Storage/Serving Notes

Store in refrigerator; flavors improve over a few days.

Pastelitos Salvadoreños: Annatto-Stained Rebellion

     Masa, or corn dough, has been used in Central America for millenia. It was a staple of indigenous Mesoamerican cuisine. You can see this influence throughout Latin America from Mexican tortillas to Colombian Arepas. Pastelitos, fried stuffed pastries made of masa, exist within this vein. Spanish colonists brought with them the concept of a stuffed pastry, and this is where pastelitos evolved from. El Salvador is not the only country to have pastelitos, with Cuba and Argentina being known for sweet varieties, and Venezuela being known for a breakfast variety. What sets apart the Salvadoran variety of pastelitos is two things, the use of savory ingredients such as meat and potatoes, and the use of annatto powder to flavor the dough, which gives them a slight red hue. In San Salvador’s urban heart, these pastelitos became a beloved street food, with vendors frying them fresh for laborers seeking a quick, affordable bite amid the city’s relentless pace. In 1977, those vendors found themselves with front-row seats to yet another display of open bloodshed.

     The decades after La Matanza saw the growth of open repression in El Salvador. While the country nominally held elections, they were widely viewed as rigged, a sham to prop up military rule. A series of political parties tied to the regime—the National Pro Patria Party, the Unification Social Democratic Party, the Revolutionary Party of Democratic Unification, and finally the National Conciliation Party—served as facades to give legitimacy to the dictatorship. Symbols associated with the left, like red flags, were banned outright. Much like after La Matanza, the government relied on non-state paramilitaries to hunt down leftists, often with a wink and a nod from the military, who provided legal cover and coordination while avoiding public endorsement. Leftists, pushed to the margins, formed guerrilla groups like the Farabundo Martí Popular Liberation Forces and the People’s Revolutionary Army, creating a vicious cycle: the government hunted leftists, leftists fought back, and the regime used the armed resistance as an excuse to escalate repression.

     Yet, a token liberal opposition persisted, composed of true believers willing to risk their lives. The National Opposition Union, formed from smaller parties like the Christian Democratic Party, contested the 1972 election, likely winning amid widespread dissent—only to see official results declare Colonel Arturo Armando Molina the victor in a suspiciously close race. Molina’s tenure, marked by an oil crisis that plunged the country into economic turmoil, fueled outrage. His heavy-handed response—violently suppressing student protests and seizing plantations to boost output—alienating the economic oligarchy, activating liberal students in opposition, and enraging working class people alike. By the end of his term, the military government’s popularity hit a new low, setting the stage for bolder resistance.

     In 1977, another fraudulent election would see General Carlos Humberto Romero win, a darling of the US, the economic oligarchy, and the military top brass. This time however, people would not take it lying down. On February 28, 1977, a wide variety of protestors ranging from students to urban workers to peasant campesinos gathered in San Salvador’s Plaza Libertad to denounce the rigged vote. Plaza Libertad’s pastelito vendors were there to feed the protestors. However, not only a form of sustenance, the red annato-stained dough of the pastelitos saw them held aloft as a symbol, a stand-in for the red symbols of the left that the government had banned. 

     The government did not respond with grace. The protest was violently suppressed, with soldiers unleashing a brutal attack that resulted in the deaths of many. While the heavily censored media offered little clarity, this "February 28th Massacre" is estimated to have claimed the lives of at least 50 protestors, with some accounts suggesting the number may have been as high as 200. As the protestors fell, the pastelitos in their hands littered the square, their red-stained dough mingling with blood. 

     However, this open display of rebellion against a long-entrenched military regime hinted to changes happening in the wind, and there were those in the military that knew they could not continue to swim upstream. This kind of open brutality to maintain tyranny usually signifies that a dictatorship is in its death knells. Unfortunately, this would not be the last time that a government in El Salvador would subvert the law to enact a campaign of state repression. In the modern era, Bukele would declare a “state of exception”. Though initially framed as a crackdown on gang violence, Bukele’s declared 'state of exception’ has allowed him to engage in mass arrests without due process, has consolidated the power of the judiciary with puppet appointees, and has subverted human rights norms. His political vehicles, the Grand Alliance for National Unity and Nuevas Ideas, appear less driven by ideology and more by the consolidation of personal power—echoing the revolving-door party politics of past authoritarian regimes.

    I don’t have much to add about the pastelitos other than that they are easy to form with your hands. Make sure you mix the dough until it is a play dough consistency. 

Pastelitos Salvadoreños (Salvadoran Meat Pies)

Ingredients

Dough

2 cups masa harina

1½ cups warm water (adjust as needed)

½ tsp annatto powder or paprika

1 tbsp vegetable oil

½ tsp salt

Pinch of ground cumin (optional)

Filling

1 lb ground beef or chicken

1 tbsp vegetable oil

½ small white onion, finely minced

2 cloves garlic, finely minced

½ small green bell pepper, finely diced

½ small potato, peeled and finely diced

½ tsp ground cumin

½ tsp dried oregano

1 tbsp tomato paste (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro (optional)

For Frying

Vegetable oil for frying

Instructions

Prepare Filling: Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Sauté onion until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic; cook 1 minute.

Cook Meat: Add beef or chicken; cook until browned, breaking it apart. Drain excess fat.

Add Vegetables: Stir in bell pepper, potato, cumin, oregano, tomato paste (if using), salt, and pepper. Cook until vegetables are tender, about 8 minutes. Stir in cilantro (if using). Cool slightly.

Make Dough: Mix masa harina, water, annatto, oil, salt, and cumin (if using) in a bowl until a smooth, pliable dough forms. Adjust water or masa as needed.

Assemble: Divide dough into golf-ball-sized portions. Flatten each into a 4–5-inch disk. Place 1 tbsp filling in center, fold into a half-moon, and seal edges tightly.

Fry: Heat 1 inch of oil in a skillet to medium-high. Fry pastelitos in batches, 3–5 minutes per side, until golden and crispy. Drain on paper towels. Serve warm.

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Salsa Verde (Green Salsa)

Ingredients

1. 1 lb tomatillos, husked and rinsed
2. 1–2 serrano peppers, stems removed
3. ½ small white onion, roughly chopped
4. 2 cloves garlic, peeled
5. ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
6. 1 tbsp lime juice
7. ¼ cup water
8. Salt to taste

Instructions

1. Cook: In a saucepan, cover tomatillos and serranos with water. Boil, then simmer 10–15 minutes until tomatillos are soft and olive green. Drain, reserving some liquid.
2. Blend: Blend tomatillos, serranos, onion, garlic, cilantro, lime juice, and water until desired consistency. Add reserved liquid if too thick.
3. Season: Season with salt to taste.
4. Chill: Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to meld flavors. Serve chilled.
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Panes Con Pollo: Sandwiches of Shredded Hope

    Panes con pollo is a Salvadoran sandwich consisting of shredded stewed chicken and various vegetables. It is left to simmer for hours in a sauce consisting of tomatoes, worcestershire sauce, and other spices. It is then served into rolls also stuffed with radishes, curtido, lettuce, and sometimes eggs. It is served warm and wrapped in napkins, and is ubiquitous with being passed around at holiday celebrations, birthdays, and general times of happiness. Briefly, in 1979, El Salvador had a reason to pass this sandwich around.

    After the Massacre of February 28th 1977, the military government of Carlos Humberto Romero would face an escalating crisis of confidence. The brutal suppression of that day sparked nationwide outrage, fueling open displays of rebellion.The government responded with more brutality, arresting and disappearing dissidents, which only deepened the revolts. Left-wing guerrillas, sensing the regime’s grip slipping, intensified their activities, prompting the government to bolster support for right-wing death squads. This vicious cycle—repression, revolt, guerrilla escalation, and death squad violence—pushed the country toward chaos.

    An unlikely voice of dissent rose from the Catholic Church. In 1977, Óscar Romero became Archbishop of San Salvador, initially a conservative figure. But after his close friend and fellow priest Rutilio Grande was murdered by the military in 1977 for alleged leftist ties, Romero’s perspective shifted. Influenced by Liberation Theology—a left-wing Catholic movement sweeping Latin America—he began decrying the regime’s brutality and disappearances from his pulpit. His sermons, broadcast nationwide, inspired hope among the oppressed, amplifying calls for justice.

    Archbishop Romero’s influence would join the chorus of other voices fueling the unrest that made President Romero’s reign untenable. By 1979, the government was on the verge of collapse. Opposition parties staged a general strike, as civilian crowds marched through San Salvador and started seizing control of buildings. The government started putting down the protesters with live bullets, an event that was broadcast internationally, and caused several Western nations to begin to close their embassies out of fear of a devolution into violence. 

   Neighboring Nicaragua’s government recently had fallen to the left wing rebels, the Sandinistas. With popular support growing for left wing guerilla groups in El Salvador, many thought that El Salvador could befall the same fate. A group of young reform-minded military officers would decide to prevent the situation from worsening and take action. 

   On October 15, 1979, the young military officers, who called themselves the Military Youth staged a coup of the Romero government. No blood was shed, and most of the military had rallied behind them. They would announce the establishment of a Revolutionary Government Junta, formed of military officers as well as civilian opposition leaders, to engage in transitioning the country to a democracy, offer amnesty to leftist leaders who laid down their arms, reign in right wing death squads, enact land reform, and dismantle the US-backed military dictatorship that had existed for almost 50 years. For the first time since 1931, hope surged amongst the working class.

    The tone amongst the people was jubilant. Panes con pollo, a sandwich reserved for celebration, was immediately sold on the streets of San Salvador by vendors. Churches, including Archbishop Romero’s, began distributing the warm sandwich amongst the populace. It was a time for celebration. Left wing guerillas began to engage in dialogue to end their conflict. For the first time in a long time, the streets of San Salvador smelt more like toasted bread than tear gas. 

    But like the chicken in those sandwiches, the hope soon started to shred apart. Competing factions doomed the junta’s work before it even started. Land reforms stalled in bureaucracy. While the most overt mechanisms for the government to work with paramilitary death squads were shut down, unofficial channels remained open, and in many cases death squads stepped up their activities, with the unofficial blessing of many in the new government. Military hardliners continued to dominate discussions, even as opposition members had a seat at the table. Left wing guerillas, beginning to feel as though the new boss was the same as the old boss, withdrew from discussions of demilitarizing. Archbishop Romero tentatively supported the revolutionary junta, but did so with the stipulation that promises would need to be carried out. Civilians would take to the streets in greater numbers, marching to demand the release of all information about those abducted by the military regime. Their panes con pollo served both as a celebration about the fight won, but also as fuel for the fight ahead. One by one, civilian members resigned from the government, and the junta increasingly relied on death squads to enforce its will.

    The figure who would most loudly decry the junta’s unfulfilled promises was Archbishop Romero. In his Metropolitan Cathedral, he would loudly say the names of parishioners who had gone missing, the names echoing from the rafters of the ornate Catholic church. His opposition would draw attention to the plight of El Salvador on a global stage. He became a global icon of resistance and rebellion in the face of an entrenched military oligarchy that wanted neither. As Romero frantically called for US President Jimmy Carter to reign in those in the military government most aligned with the US and stop funding the regime, the US would begin training paramilitary death squads. The thought was that with Nicaragua’s government falling to the Sandinistas, the death squads would be invaluable in the fight against encroaching communism. This would set the scene for the massive tragedy which would follow.

    On March 23, 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero was delivering a sermon in his cathedral, as he regularly did. In this particular sermon, he was calling on soldiers to stop carrying out government repression and violations of human rights, and instead answer god’s higher calling of love and peace. The next day he would say mass at a small hospital’s chapel. Before he finished his sermon, a red car pulled up in front of the chapel, and a gunman emerged from the vehicle, firing two shots into Romero’s heart, and then speeding off. We now know that the gunman was part of a right wing death squad, which would later become the Nationalist Republican Alliance, a major political party in El Salvador and the hit was ordered by Roberto D'Aubuisson, someone who would become the president of El Salvador’s legislature. It is highly likely that the squad members were trained by the US, and is almost a certainty that the government gave them its blessing. 

     Oscar Romero’s 1980 funeral was attended by over 250,000 people. One Jesuit priest in attendance quipped that it was the largest protest Latin America had ever seen. For one more day, the smell of toasted bread in San Salvador overpowered that of tear gas, but this time the panes con pollo was more of a dirge than a celebration. By the end of 1980, El Salvador had descended into a full blown civil war.

     Much like the reformers of 1979, Nayib Bukele got into office promising reform, and an end to corruption. He has instead twisted the entirety of El Salvador’s government to his will. 

     Panes con Pollo is one of the tastiest sandwiches I’ve ever had. It also LOOKS amazing too. I took a soft baguette and sliced down the middle before putting underneath the oven’s broiler setting, leaving a v-shape in the sandwich with which to put the ingredients. It tasted incredible—but more than that, it felt like a tribute. A sandwich to remember a brief, bright moment when the people of El Salvador believed change had finally come.

Panes con Pollo (Salvadoran Chicken Sandwiches)

Ingredients

Chicken

1 whole chicken, cut into pieces (or 2 lbs thighs/breasts)

2 roma tomatoes, roughly chopped

1 bell pepper, roughly chopped

1 white onion, half roughly chopped, half sliced

2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp oregano

3 tbsp tomato paste

2 cups chicken broth

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 bay leaves

1 tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Assembly

4–6 bolillo rolls or soft baguettes, lightly toasted

Curtido (see above)

Watercress or shredded lettuce

Sliced cucumbers

Tomato slices

Mayonnaise

Mustard

Optional: sliced radishes, avocado

Instructions

Cook Vegetables: Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Sauté sliced onion and bell pepper until soft, 5–7 minutes.

Brown Chicken: Add chicken; brown on all sides. Blend chopped tomatoes, bell pepper, chopped onion, and garlic until smooth. Pour over chicken.

Simmer: Add cumin, paprika, oregano, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, bay leaves, salt, pepper, and broth. Simmer, covered, 45–60 minutes until chicken is tender.

Shred: Shred chicken, return to sauce, and simmer uncovered 10–15 minutes until thickened. Remove bay leaves.

Assemble: Spread mayonnaise and mustard on rolls. Add shredded chicken, curtido, cucumbers, lettuce, tomato, and optional toppings. Serve immediately.

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Pupusas: The Guerrilla's Daily Bread (and Cheese and Beans)

    Pupusas are widely considered El Salvador’s national dish. Thick, masa griddle cakes, stuffed with fillings such as cheese, beans, pork, and sometimes others, and often served with curtido and salsa roja, they have been a staple of the region since pre-Colombian times. It actually comes from the Pipil word “pupushahua” which means “to puff up”. They are easy to make, hearty, and delicious. Ideal foods for laborers, students, rural farmers, and tourists, they are frequently cited as being eaten multiple times a day by Salvadorans, and El Salvador even celebrates a National Pupusa Day as a holiday. During the period known as the El Salvador Civil War, these griddle cakes became even more important, as a cheap underground way to provide sustenance to anti-government fighters. 

   Prior to the assassination of Oscar Romero, El Salvador’s leftist guerillas operated in several groups, which were largely independent of each other. By the end of 1980, they had united into one organization, the FMLN (in English, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front). It was named after the leader of the 1932 uprising that triggered La Matanza. Finding its greatest support among rural peasants and indigenous communities, the FMLN fought a U.S.-backed military regime, which received over $1 billion in aid from 1980 to 1984. The military enlisted right-wing death squads, often comprised of former officers disillusioned with the Revolutionary Junta, to hunt down leftists. Many of these groups had fascist ties—Roberto D’Aubuisson, who ordered Romero’s assassination, openly praised anti-Semitism, calling communism a “Jewish creation,” and admired Adolf Hitler. Some death squads mockingly named themselves after Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, El Salvador’s first military dictator, to taunt the left’s reverence for Martí.

     The FMLN were often cut off from any supply lines, having to scrounge for food and resources in isolated communities. Sympathetic people in rural communities would start underground pupusarias, using easily sourced local ingredients to provide food to FMLN combatants. Since pupusas were so ubiquitous, it would not alert suspicion of passing soldiers or death squad commandos if villagers were stocking up on masa and cheese. They often would griddle the pupusas over makeshift fires, and deliver them to the secret pupusarias wrapped in banana leaves. The FMLN would use these spots as strategy hubs, as the smell of masa permeated the air, and the taste of pupusas reminded them of the home they were fighting for.

     The Civil War, lasting until 1992, claimed over 75,000 lives, with a UN committee finding that 95% of the deaths were committed by right wing paramilitary death squads that were supported by the government, and trained by the US. While the FMLN was responsible for some civilian deaths, the vast majority of atrocities were perpetrated by the regime. Notable massacres include the 1981 El Mozote Massacre, where the U.S.-trained Atlacatl Battalion murdered 800–1,000 people, mostly children; the 1983 Las Hojas Massacre, where death squads shot 74 unarmed indigenous cooperative members in the head; the 1980 Sumpul River Massacre, where military forces killed 300–600 refugees fleeing to Honduras; and the 1982 El Calabozo Massacre, where the Atlacatl Battalion killed 200 civilians, mostly women and children, tying them up, shooting them, and drowning them in a river. Making those simple pupusas was an act of dangerous defiance—villagers risked their lives to sustain the resistance.

     Nevertheless, rural villagers continued to make pupusas and sustain the resistance. The regime’s scorched earth tactics would displace over 1 million refugees by the mid-1980s, and people from the tiny nation of El Salvador would become the 6th largest group of immigrants to the US. But, the FMLN, powered by pupusas, would endure. 1992 would see the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City, which would guarantee the establishment of a new civilian police force, judicial and electoral reforms, human rights protections, land reforms, and the demilitarization of the FMLN and its integration into civilian life, as well as a massive reduction in the size of El Salvador’s military. Since then, El Salvador has had two FMLN presidents. As for the death squads, a 1993 amnesty law protected those who partook in the massacres from prosecution. They’ve since re-emerged in different forms. Groups such as Sombra Negra, composed of former death squad members, have pledged to hunt down gang members, often with spotty accuracy. There has also been alleged contact between these organizations and the Bukele regime, which suggests a chilling continuity of repression. But, either way, pupusas remain a culinary staple of El Salvador, and a symbol of resilience in the face of danger, both at street stalls and family gatherings.

    I’ve long been a fan of arepas, and pupusas are very similar. Make sure you let them sit on a paper towel to cool and drain after cooking, and get that nice play dough consistency that was achieved with the pastelitos. Don’t overstuff either!

Pupusas (Salvadoran Stuffed Masa Cakes)

Ingredients

Dough

1. 2 cups masa harina
2. 1¼–1½ cups warm water (adjust as needed)
3. ½ tsp salt

Filling (Choose One or Combine)

1. 1 cup refried beans (preferably red beans, seasoned)
2. 1 cup shredded queso fresco or mozzarella
3. 1 cup cooked, shredded pork (chicharrón), finely chopped and seasoned with salt

For Cooking

1. Vegetable oil or cooking spray

To Serve

1. Curtido (see above)
2. Salsa Roja (Tomato Salsa)

Ingredients for Salsa Roja

1. 2 roma tomatoes, roughly chopped
2. ½ small white onion, roughly chopped
3. 1 clove garlic, peeled
4. 1–2 dried guajillo chiles, stemmed and seeded (or ½ tsp chili powder)
5. ¼ cup water
6. Salt to taste

Instructions

1. Make Salsa Roja: In a saucepan, simmer tomatoes, onion, garlic, and guajillo chiles in water until soft, about 10 minutes. Blend until smooth. Season with salt. Cool before serving.
2. Prepare Dough: Mix masa harina, water, and salt in a bowl until a soft, pliable dough forms, like playdough. Adjust water as needed. Cover and rest 10 minutes.
3. Assemble: Divide dough into golf-ball-sized portions (about 8–10). Flatten each into a 4-inch disk. Place 1–2 tbsp filling in the center. Fold dough over to encase filling, then gently flatten into a ½-inch thick disk, sealing any cracks.
4. Cook: Heat a griddle or skillet over medium heat, lightly greased with oil. Cook pupusas 3–4 minutes per side until golden with brown spots. Keep warm in a towel.
5. Serve: Top with curtido and salsa roja. Serve immediately.