Pupusas and the Pipil – Global Adventures in Food and Archaeology

The Recipes

Pupusas

1 hr 5 mins Intermediate

I first had the pleasure of eating pupusas when working at Ceren, a World Heritage archaeological site in El Salvador. The pupusa is a staple dish in El Salvador and can be eaten at any meal. They made from thick corn tortillas, stuffed with a savory (sometimes sweet) filling. The fillings tend to change with the time of day, with sweeter ones being served with breakfast and more savory for lunch/dinner. The most common filling usually involves beans, cheese, and pork.

The exact origin of the pupusa is unknown; however, some form of it likely goes back thousands of years. Maize was domesticated from teosinte some 9,000 years ago in Mexico and gradually became a staple crop across the Americas. In fact, in Mesoamerica, maize was a large -if not primary- part of the diet by 4,000 years ago. You can read about the domestication of maize here. For the Americas, maize was more than just a crop; its production and consumption were linked to everything from religion to hierarchy to economic systems to political power. For many cultures, maize was even linked to the most powerful religious deities, such as the Maya Maize God.

A section of the Codex Mendoza illustrating an Aztec woman teaching her daughter to make tortillas

Maize itself is an interesting crop in that its traditional preparation as a dough (masa) for consumption requires some very specific steps. Paula Morton, In Tortillas: A Cultural History describes the process as “soak[ing] the corn in large pots of water mixed with the fine caustic power produced from the local limestone, [then] rinsed… in cast ceramic colanders (pichanchas), and ground… on the metate to create the basic corn dough.” The soaking in an alkaline solution, called nixtamalization, is necessary to remove mycotoxins and make it more nutritious and more easily ground. This dough can then be used to make tamales, tortillas, pupusas, or other masa dough foods.

For El Salvador, we see clear evidence of food, including maize, production, preparation, and consumption at the Ceren site. Rarely do archaeologists get such a detailed picture of the past, but fortunately for us (and unfortunately for the inhabitants of Ceren), the village was buried rapidly by the volcanic eruption of the Loma Caldera sometime around the 7th century CE. The eruption preserved materials, structures, foods, and everything else (just like at Pompeii). While El Salvador is home to many volcanoes (see below), actually discovering these sites is incredibly rare and takes a bit of luck.

Payson and Zan in from of the Boqueron edifice within the San Salvador volcano

At Ceren, archaeologists have discovered household kitchen gardens, filled with an astounding variety of crops including maize, malanga, agave, beans, squash, cacao, chili, and the list goes on. Further from the village center were large agricultural fields, mainly growing maize and manioc (a root crop), interspaced with squash and beans. We know that the eruption happened in the late summer/early fall, likely August because the maize was fully ripe and the stalks bent for harvest.

A corn stalk, cast in plaster, from Ceren, 2013.

In addition, households contained all sorts of food preparation, storage, and serving elements. Chilis were hung from the rafters to dry. Corn, beans, and squash were stored in ceramic vessels. Food processing tools, such as obsidian knives and grinding stones were found in large quantities within the households. And highly decorated vessels, such as bowls, plates, and cups, used to serve the food, remnants of which sometimes still remained, were found in numerous structures. In fact, studies of the organic plant remains in these vessels speak to a very diverse diet of the ancient inhabitants of Ceren. In terms of maize and masa dough, the people Ceren likely used it to make Tamales, cooked in coals of the hearths.

This Page Left: Tetrapod (four-legged) vessel from serving tamales. The polychrome painting is in geometric motifs. This Page Right: Hemispherical bowl, polychrome painted inside and outside, used for serving gruel kinds of foods, largely ground maize based. all of these bowls that have been found at Ceren upside down still have the finger swipes of food in them. Apparently leaving them upside down was a visual clue they need to be washed. — A polychrome vessel from Ceren

Evidence of pupusas, however, is less clear. Neither pupusas nor tortillas have been found at Ceren. That is perhaps because pupusas may have introduced much later, in the 10th or 11th century with the arrival of the Pipil from Central Mexico into southern Guatemala and El Salvador. The Pipil made a dish, which they called “kukumutzin”, by cooking thick tortillas, stuffed with meat, beans, and squash flowers, on a comal over a hearth. The term pupusa likely derives from the Pipil word “pupusawa” which means to puff up and/or the Náhuat word poptl.

At the time of the conquest, the Pipil population of El Salvador was likely around 1,000,000! However, with conquest, disease, war (notable the 1932 uprising of the Pipil againt Colonial powers which resulted in the masascre of 30,000 Pipil peoples), and the ensuing (and ongoing) forms of subjugation and violence, the Pipil population plummeted. In the 1980s, approximately 2,000 Nahuat-speaking Pipil maintained an indigenous way of life in western El Salvador. Today, the number may be as low as 200.

Zan and I dressed in traditional Pipil clothing

Despite the brutal history against the Pipil peoples, they, and their culture, are still an integral part of El Salvadoran identity. Towns bear their place names. Indigenous textiles and other goods are sold at markets. And the popularity of the pupusa, now the national dish of El Salvador, has not only grown but also become a common export to other places (there are over 20 pupuserias-the name for pupusa stands-near where I live in Colorado). In some ways, the pupusa represents the enduing Pipil culture.