El Salvador Culture & Language

The pupusa is the national dish and is not negotiable. A thick corn or rice tortilla stuffed before cooking — with refried beans, quesillo cheese, chicharrón, or the green loroco flower bud — griddled and served with curtido, a lightly fermented cabbage slaw, and a thin tomato salsa. They cost well under a dollar, they are eaten standing up in the evening, and there is a National Pupusa Day on the second Sunday of November.

Also worth ordering: yuca frita with chicharrón, pan con pollo, and horchata — which here is made from morro seeds and tastes nothing like the Mexican rice version.

Coffee is the other national product, grown in the Apaneca-Ilamatepec highlands, and the Pacamara variety was bred here. Estate tours are straightforward to arrange from the Ruta de las Flores towns.

Nawat, the indigenous Pipil language, is critically endangered — a few hundred elderly speakers remain, a direct consequence of 1932 — and is now the subject of a serious revitalisation effort with classes for children. It is the reason so many place names here end in -tepec, -tenango and -apa.

Salvadorans use vos rather than tú in everyday speech, with its own verb endings, and the diaspora is woven through daily life — remittances from relatives in the United States fund a great many households, and the cultural traffic runs both ways.

Catholicism remains dominant and evangelical churches have grown substantially. Village patron-saint festivals are the real calendar; Semana Santa fills the coast, and Ataco and Izalco make elaborate coloured sawdust carpets in the streets for the processions.

Spanish is the language, and English is limited outside the surf towns, San Salvador hotels and tour operations. A little Spanish goes a long way here, and people are patient with it.

Salvadorans use vos instead of tú: ¿de dónde sos? rather than ¿de dónde eres?, vení rather than ven. Textbook Spanish is understood perfectly; this is just what you will hear back.

Local usage worth knowing: ¡vaya pues! (the all-purpose sign-off — okay then, see you, fine), chero/chera (friend), cipote or bicho (kid), púchica (a mild "wow" or "damn"), chivo (cool), bolado (thing).

Salvadorans are called guanacos — a nickname they use of themselves with affection, and one you should let them use first.

Nawat survives in place names everywhere you look: -tepec means hill or mountain, -at or -apa means water. Cuscatlán, the old name for this land, is Nawat.