Who Put the Beans in My Bindle?
Where I live, the Mexicans are called Latinos rather than Hispanics, and they mostly come from Guatemala and El Salvador. So we don't really have taco trucks like they do in other states; we have pupusa trucks. They do sell tacos but mainly they sell pupusas.
A pupusa is somewhat like a round, flat tamale that is griddled rather than steamed. Unlike flat, thin Mexican tortillas, Central American ones are smaller around and thicker. Stuff a schmear of filling on the inside, and you gots yourself one o' them pupusas I been talkin' about. In my experience the most common fillings are cheese and pork. I gather that the original is mixture of cheese and an edible flower called loroco, but in my experience the trucks and restaurants only sell plain cheese ones. And pork.
They're nothing wonderful, but they are filling and cheap, and now that I've noticed the supermarket carries them for about a buck each, they make a nice nukeable lunch at work. The supermarket, in fact, was where I first got a loroco 'n' cheese one. Honestly I couldn't tell the difference from a plain cheese one. Maybe if I did a side-by-side taste-test I would, but I haven't. The supermarket pork ones were quite different from the restaurant/truck pork ones, too: there was a sort of vinegary sourness to them. I didn't care for them naked, but a spoonful of salsa made them not unpleasant. (Oh, and BTW, foodies: if a mixture of chopped things has little liquid and you can mound it in a heap and it'll stay that way, it's a relish, not a salsa.)
Anyway, this week I tried the red bean & cheese ones, and they are what pupusas were meant to be. The cheese and pork ones are basically boring, and while the bean & cheese ones aren't exactly exciting, there's something about beans and masa and cheese together that makes the sum greater than the parts. I'll take a bean 'n' cheese pupusa over a bean 'n' cheese burrito any day (which actually isn't saying much as I don't much care for bean 'n' cheese burritos. Whatever is added to beans 'n' cheese by masa, is also removed by wheat).
A pupusa is somewhat like a round, flat tamale that is griddled rather than steamed. Unlike flat, thin Mexican tortillas, Central American ones are smaller around and thicker. Stuff a schmear of filling on the inside, and you gots yourself one o' them pupusas I been talkin' about. In my experience the most common fillings are cheese and pork. I gather that the original is mixture of cheese and an edible flower called loroco, but in my experience the trucks and restaurants only sell plain cheese ones. And pork.
They're nothing wonderful, but they are filling and cheap, and now that I've noticed the supermarket carries them for about a buck each, they make a nice nukeable lunch at work. The supermarket, in fact, was where I first got a loroco 'n' cheese one. Honestly I couldn't tell the difference from a plain cheese one. Maybe if I did a side-by-side taste-test I would, but I haven't. The supermarket pork ones were quite different from the restaurant/truck pork ones, too: there was a sort of vinegary sourness to them. I didn't care for them naked, but a spoonful of salsa made them not unpleasant. (Oh, and BTW, foodies: if a mixture of chopped things has little liquid and you can mound it in a heap and it'll stay that way, it's a relish, not a salsa.)
Anyway, this week I tried the red bean & cheese ones, and they are what pupusas were meant to be. The cheese and pork ones are basically boring, and while the bean & cheese ones aren't exactly exciting, there's something about beans and masa and cheese together that makes the sum greater than the parts. I'll take a bean 'n' cheese pupusa over a bean 'n' cheese burrito any day (which actually isn't saying much as I don't much care for bean 'n' cheese burritos. Whatever is added to beans 'n' cheese by masa, is also removed by wheat).
posted by Dr. Bubbles at 13:45
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