Isela Post

A cold, finely chopped beef salad, tender and bright with radish, onion, mint, and plenty of lime. The mint is the signature, and it's what makes the Salvadoran version taste like itself.

Not a folded cheese tortilla: a dense, sweet-salty cheese pound cake of rice flour and hard cheese, topped with sesame and baked golden. Breakfast and coffee-break food, sold by the slice.

El Salvador's great celebration sandwich: chicken slow-stewed in a deep, spiced recaudo, piled on a crusty roll with the warm sauce spooned over the top. Everything turns on that sauce.

Not the rolled Mexican kind: flat, crisp-fried tortillas piled with beef, tomato sauce, tangy curtido, cheese, and a slice of hard-boiled egg. A street and party food, eaten with your hands.

El Salvador's horchata isn't the rice drink you picture. It's built on toasted morro seeds ground with sesame, pumpkin seed, peanut, cacao, and cinnamon. Nutty, toasty, a little chocolatey, served cold.