El Salvador29

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.

Short answer: Salvadoran food runs on the griddle and the masa. The pupusa is the national dish and the place to start, but the table is wider: fried yuca, stewed-chicken sandwiches, flat fried enchiladas, sweet cheese breads, and a morro-seed horchata that is nothing like the Mexican one. Two things turn up with almost everything, curtido and salsa, so make them once and keep them on hand. The indigenous roots here are Pipil (Nawat-speaking), not Maya, and it shows in the corn-and-comal heart of the cooking. Pupusas have become a…