El Salvador28

Relajo is the toasted seed-and-spice blend behind El Salvador's darkest braises. Here's what goes into it, and how pan con pollo, pavo en relajo, and gallo en chicha each pull it a different way.

From thick hot atol de elote to fermented atol shuco and cold horchata de morro, El Salvador drinks its corn as many ways as it eats it. A guide to the five you should know.

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.

El Salvador's great street plate: cassava boiled soft, then fried crisp, piled with fried pork, curtido, and tomato salsa. Boil first, fry second, and you get a crisp crust over a fluffy middle.

Five small coffee towns strung along one scenic road in western El Salvador. Juayúa's weekend food fair is the headline, but the whole route is murals, fincas, waterfalls, and cool mountain air.