They’re also eaten with your hands (especially not with a fork and knife!), tearing off chunks of pupusa and dipping it in the salsa and cortido before eating.
The most common combination of pupusas is probably frijol con queso (beans with cheese), revuelta (ham and cheese) or just queso (cheese), but there are loads of other combinations.
What combination would you choose?
The best way to describe what I feel when eating pupusas is warmth. Pupusas are physically very hot, and I’ve burned my fingers many times trying to eat pupusas too quickly. I also feel emotional warmth, eating pupusas in good company. It's the same feeling you get when your grandma gives you a big hug. As I said, pupusas are best enjoyed in company, and there’s nothing like going for pupusas on a Sunday night after a long rehearsal with my hermanos (brothers) in the band.
Is there a food that gives you this sort of feeling?
Pupusas are prepared from a masa or dough made from either rice or corn flour. The dough is rolled into a ball and then patted into a disc. Whatever filling you’ve chosen is then added (for me it’s either a mix of beans and cheese or a mix of cheese and loroco, the delicious bud of a local flower), and then a piece of dough is added to cover the filling. At this point the ball of dough with filling is patted into a disc and then tossed onto the plancha, or the long, flat, really hot grill until the pupusa is cooked through (almost toasted) and ready to be served.
