Arizona Pupusas Festival is a savory taste of home for El Salvadorans

Yesenia Ramirez is the organizer of downtown Phoenix’s annual Arizona Pupusas Festival, which is taking place Sunday, Nov 9.

Her family owns a string of Salvadoreño Restaurants across metro Phoenix.

Ramirez says pupusas are basically the national food of El Salvador and celebrating them is a chance to celebrate her culture.

Full conversation

YESENIA RAMIREZ: So a pupusa is a handmade corn tortilla, and inside it's filled with your choice of meat, cheese and beans or pretty much any combination of that.

Traditionally, the most common ones would be pork and cheese, loroco and cheese, which is a plant that's native to Central America.

Over the years, you know, we've added a whole lineup of different, you know, chicken ones, steak and cheese, shrimp ones. I created a whole line of vegan ones with different vegan meats and stuff. So you pretty much I joke around and it's like, whatever you want me to put in, I can probably put it in.

Once you have the pupusa made, you're going to eat it with what's called a curtido. Curtido means pickled. It's shredded cabbage and carrots pickled in vinegar with different seasonings.

It also comes with a salsa. So Salvadorans were not really known for the spiciness of our food. So the salsa is more on the mild side, but the blend between the salsa and the curtido with the pupusa, the whole complete bite is the whole flavor profile you're trying to go for.

LAUREN GILGER:  It sounds like a great combination. It reminds me of like, like an empanada or something like that. Even a quesadilla. It's like a version of this exists in a lot of different cultures, but yours is unique to El Salvador. 

RAMIREZ: Yes. You know, you can go to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. And the three countries eat pupusas, even Belize I think eats pupusas, too. So they kind of all claim that it's from their country.

But the reality is, because of all that back and forth arguing, I think it was like in 2007, I want to say, the government of El Salvador actually declared the second Sunday in November as the National Pupusa Day. And so it made it official that people are, you know, Salvadoran food. It's a national food. And so now we conquered the pupusas.

GILGER: Yeah, you got it. It sounds like this is a food that's really like a labor-intensive process, right. But really connected to your culture, your homeland. 

RAMIREZ: Yes, it definitely is. The way I see it is, obviously, you know, we can talk about, you know, like, colonialism and all those things that have happened, you know, over the years, you know, to the Indigenous community, I mean, El Salvador or the original people in El Salvador were Indigenous people, you know, then we had the, you know, people, the people that colonized came in.

And there's things that got erased. But pupusas have survived, you know, all of that. So, I mean, it's a special dish if you think about it. It's like, it's, it's the one thing of the ancestors that's made.

GILGER: A real long history. And that's kind of what you're doing, right? Like, exposing this traditional and very Salvadoran food to a broader population with your pupusa festival.

So tell us about the creation of that. You've been doing this for some years now.

RAMIREZ: Right. So I've been doing that on my own for the last almost 10 years now. And I mean, it's gone up and down, you know.

GILGER: So you weren't sure, it sounds like you were going to put on the pupusa festival this year.

RAMIREZ: Most of it for personal reasons. And also just I was kind of like, oh, you know, maybe I don't know if I really have the mental, you know, like capacity to be doing this kind of stuff, you know.

But then I thought about it and no, this is the reason why I need to be doing this kind of stuff, because this is what brings people together. And we have to keep on, you know, thriving and even in an environment where we're being kind of, you know, pushed down to not thriving.

GILGER: You're referring to the kind of political environment, immigration raids, ICE activity. 

RAMIREZ: Yeah, absolutely.

GILGER: Is there a lot of fear in the Salvadoran community right now because of immigration raids and Ice activity?

RAMIREZ: I think in general, yeah, I think there is definitely a lot of fear in the immigration community. You know, you have houses that are mixed households, you know, so even if you might have like half the people in the house, you know, that are status legal and then the other ones are not.

And so, you know, you're not walking around with complete freedom to be actively participating in your community. You know I've been hearing different things, you know, from different event coordinators, how attendance has been lower at certain events. You know, restaurants have been reporting slower sales, you know, during the week. There's definitely been some sort of impact.

GILGER: So it's economy, it's immigration, it's fear in the community. I mean, are you concerned that, you know, folks, are not going to be as willing to show up to a pupusa  festival this year?

RAMIREZ: I mean, I hope not. I've been hearing good vibes so far. But I definitely think, there might be, like, a small percentage of people that might not be as readily running out, you know, as previous years.

I mean, there's definitely that, that fear factor that kind of kicks in. But I think anytime you host a party, I always talk about anytime I host the festival, I think, you know, it's like when you're hosting a party and you're like, is anybody going to show up to my party?

You know, that's kind of what I'm getting right now. I'm getting like the jitters, you know? But I'm truly hoping that they're not that, that they're not going to, be fearful of coming down.

GILGER: Let me ask you lastly, Yesenia. Tell us, you know, there will be, I'm sure, a million different kinds of pupusas at this festival this weekend. What's your favorite? 

RAMIREZ: My go to is loroco y queso. Loroco is a plant that's native to Central America.

It's a flower. So before it blooms, it's chopped up and it's mixed. You know, you can mix it with cheese, and El Salvador, like you basically, it's like a staple over there, like you'll find it mixed in with cheeses and tamales and all sorts of dishes.

But for me, that's like my go to pupusa. The cooks look at me, I show up and I'm like, yeah, loroco and cheese.