'It's an amazing combo': This is why pupusas are a popular dish in New Bedford.

NEW BEDFORD — When Javier Rojas first began to make pupusas in the 1990s, he sold about a thousand a day.

A thick tortilla filled with a meat, cheese, or vegetables (or some combination of those options), the origins of the pupusa are often traced to El Salvador. Nonetheless, it is a staple throughout Central America.

"It's a cheap and heavy food made for workers," Rojas said.

It was the opportunity that motivated the native of Zacatecas, Mexico — a pupusaless land — to learn how to prepare them.

"It was mostly to people working in the factories," the owner of Mi Antojo, a Mexican restaurant, said. "There weren't many places where you could get them then." 

According to James Griffin, a professor at the College of Hospitality Management at Johnson and Wales University in Providence, pupusas have one crucial ingredient linking it to many other regional specialties. 

Maiz is the common ingredient

"It's that maiz, that corn, that's the base of the pupusa, tamal, and even as you go further south over the Panamanian isthmus into Colombia, Venezuela, they might call them arepas," Griffin, who grew up eating the dish made by his Panamanian mother, said. "They're all made from that same fine cornmeal batter."

The dish has remained a quick, easy, and calorific meal for workers. Yet as populations age and have their own children, one other factor has propelled the humble pupusa's popularity: nostalgia.

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"Imagine you're a kid [in the U.S.] and your first hand food is a burger," said Griffin. "For them, their first hand food is a pupusa."

He said that pupusas came to New Bedford by way of Providence, an initial center of settlement for many fleeing Central America's instability in the1980s and 1990s. As the cost of living rose, they began to look to the SouthCoast, and brought the beloved childhood dish with them.

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"When I first started, I'd have to explain to some people what they were," Rojas said. "But now not so much. Everyone eats them."

'I fell in love'

The dishes ubiquity in New Bedford has only grown since.

According to the American Community Survey's most recent data on Central Americans in New Bedford, there were 3,594 living in the city in 2015, though experts believe the number to actually be much higher.

Among them, 37-year old Flor Flores, a chef at Mi Antojo originally from El Salvador. The dish was a staple throughout her childhood. She said she made her first when she was about nine years old.

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"Where I grew up we were very poor," the Salvadoran chef told The Standard-Times in Spanish, molding a mass of dough around a filling of cheese and beans before flattening them and throwing them on the grill. "We couldn't afford the meat or the cheese, just the beans." 

While serving a plate of steaming pupusas, accompanied by pickled vegetables and a tomato dipping sauce, Johana Ortiz, recalled the plate's significance to her growing up in Honduras.

"They still eat them more in El Salvador than Honduras, but they're made the same way."

Oritz said that the dish is more popular in the western regions of the country that border El Salvador. Being from the north, she did not eat a pupusa until she turned 16. 

"The first time I tried them I fell in love," she said, adding that her favorite filling is pumpkin.

Ortiz said the food owed its' popularity to one, simple factor.

"It's the taste," she said. "I think that the corn flour, mixed with cheese and the other fillings just creates an explosion of flavor. It's an amazing combo."

Contact Kevin G. Andrade at kandrade@s-t.com and follow him on Twitter: @KevinGAndrade. Support local journalism and subscribe to the Standard-Times today!