A Good Swap

The El Salvador Corridor, as the market is known, has become a canvas upon which immigrants paint new renditions of their beloved fare using substitutes and shortcuts sourced from their new home, the ritual of diasporic cooking. In the heart of this cultural crossroads, vendors manage the delicate balance between saving money and time and delivering the utmost in taste, with flavors that bridge the gap between tradition and innovation. One common thread is the use of canned, jarred, and pre-packaged ingredients.

For Maricela (pictured), a fourth-generation street vendor from Usulutan, El Salvador, who has been serving Salvadoran food here since arriving in the U.S. five years ago, considering these trade-offs is a familiar puzzle in her kitchen. Sometimes she favors time saved, other times tradition overrides any swap—because a shortcut is only as good as the quality of the finished product, after all. 

Take atol de elote, for instance, a hot, thick beverage made from milk and sugar, and thickened with fresh corn. 

“Is there a way to make use of canned or frozen corn?” I ask. 

“No,” she replies, definitively. 

“No?”

“Well, then it’s not Salvadoran atol de elote. Tiene que ser fresco. It has to be fresh.”

While Maricela would never use canned corn, she does think canned condensed milk is the key to mimicking the flavor of atol de elote from back home. While many vendors in El Salvador use leche ordeñada, fresh cow milk, Maricela assures me that canned condensed milk creates that emblematic velvety slurp.

Compromises are made, but very selectively. Papas locas is not often found in Salvadoran restaurants, nor made by home cooks, but it’s a popular Salvadoran street food. Many
consider the dish to be simple: It’s fried potatoes with an array of toppings, like mayo, salsa negra, mustard, and shredded aged cheese. But when you’re a street vendor, even “simple” dishes require strategy. Maricela used to use russet potatoes, but those required peeling for the traditional look of papas locas. Instead of opting for frozen peeled and cut potatoes, she split the difference, so to speak. Now she uses yellow potatoes—the color of their peel is so similar to their flesh, she can get away with leaving it on—and invested in a stainless-steel, professional French fry cutter. But when it comes to her fried yuca dish, the efficiencies of frozen yuca outweigh any minor difference in taste.

Masa, a cornerstone of Salvadoran cuisine and a must for the famous pupusa, El Salvador’s national dish, is revered. But not enough for everyone to strictly adhere to the tradition of crafting it from scratch. “Nobody uses fresh masa,” Maricela says. “Because if they do, they will generate a smaller profit.” Instead, many use Maseca, dehydrated corn masa powder that transforms into dough. A 50-pound bag of Maseca costs about $38; fresh masa, on the other hand, costs about $1.99 per pound. And buying it fresh is too unpredictable. As much as Maricela understands and plans for the patterns of her sales, it’s often impossible to gauge exactly how much she will use, which makes using fresh masa a gamble, saving neither time nor money. The texture and taste may differ, but the spirit of pupusa-making remains intact. In the fast-paced world of street food, where every minute counts, such shortcuts become essential.

This is why the unexpected hero of the El Salvador Corridor is not something Central American but rather a U.S. version of an Italian staple: Prego’s traditional pasta sauce. The simple tomato sauce is sometimes used to replace the laborious process of making salsa de tomate, which is served with everything from pupusas to tamales.

These vendors wear their adaptability like a badge of honor, a symbol of survival in a culinary landscape that demands resourcefulness. The pantry becomes not just a storage space for ingredients but a portal to cultural continuity—linking the past and the present, the homeland and the adopted land. And the dishes shared are a testament to the Salvadoran spirit thriving in the heart of Los Angeles.