The pupusa is a 'tipica comida', or traditional Salvadoran dish. Pupusas are made of thick tortilla shells generally made with corn dough and filled with a variety of ingredients. In Olocuita specifically, the specialty is for the tortilla shells to be made with rice flour dough; Olocuita is where rice flour dough pupusas originated!
After an interminably long wait at airport customs, we got to the taxi line where we were promptly besieged by about 10 different people trying to "help" us. We chose a gentleman named Oscar, who ended up being our taxi driver (read: tour guide) for the afternoon. Oscar drove us to Olocuita, approximately 20 km from the airport, where you could literally count the pupuserias one after another (there were around 50 of them w/in a 1.5 mile radius)!
One pupuseria after another!
Oscar selected one which he said was "bueno", and we had a chance to watch the ladies making them fresh on the spot... "made to order!"
As the ladies prepared our pupusas, we walked around the little "town" and took some pictures. Here was a man making a delivery to the ice-cream vendor from the back of a pick-up filled with goats:
We also saw one of the shops tasked with supplying the ingredients and grinding the corn/rice flour for the tortilla shells:
We finally made our way back to our pupuseria, Pupuseria Tania, where we were greeted with our motley assortment of pupusas (con frijoles (beans), queso (cheese), chicharron (pork), loroco (some type of S. American flower), as well as a number of other ingredients. It was delish served with curtido (a lightly fermented cabbage slaw with red chiles and vinegar - you can see it in the foreground of the last picture), as well as a watery tomato-based salsa.
The very satisfied crew... "mission accomplished!"
