Mami’s Kitchen

‍La cocina de la Señora Ana Garcia, Mami’s Kitchen, is full of the same fragrances and flavors she remembers as a child in her grandmother’s kitchen back in El Salvador: the melted cheese scent of fried pupusas; the tangy smell of cortido, a pickled mixture of shredded cabbage and carrots with sliced jalapeños; and the spicy taste of salsa roja - both toppings for traditional pupusas.

‍Pupusas, the national dish of El Salvador, are a type of flatbread made with masa, a cornmeal dough, and stuffed with refried beans, pulled pork and cheese, loroco – the edible flower buds from a vine native to El Salvador, or other traditional mixtures of meats, cheeses, and vegetables.

‍ “I learned how to make these from my grandma and mother,” Ana says as she works over a hot, blackened stove-top flatiron, seasoned from frying tens of thousands of pupusas over the years. She takes a small amount of masa from the mixing bowl, pats it between her hands to form a thin circular “pancake,” spreads a couple spoonful’s of filling on top, and covers it with another thin piece of masa. Then she gently lays it on the flatiron, slowly frying this stuffed flatbread. Ana reaches for more masa and starts to pat it thin. Soon the skillet is full of pupusas. When both the top and bottom of the pupusas are a warm golden-brown color, they are done.

This recipe is not written down, having been passed from generation to generation by word of mouth. And Ana doesn’t use measuring cups or thermometers either. It is all by sight and feel. She just knows these things as she is as part of the recipe as any other ingredient.

The first batch of pupusas are neatly displayed on a wooden serving board. Next to it sits a small bowl of cortido slightly covered with salsa roja. These are for eating now, before Ana starts cooking the larger batches of pupusas.

Pupusas are eaten with the hands, ripping a piece of the flatbread off being careful not to let any of the filling fall out, then top with cortido and salsa for a taste of El Salvador.

In 2003 Ana and her husband, Asdrubal “Sal,” emigrated to Worcester from their home in San Salvador, El Salvador’s capital. Sal said, “It was too unstable there - too much crime and violence.” They didn’t want to raise their family under those conditions.

Neither Ana nor Sal dreamed they’d work as cooks. But after working construction jobs for six years in the US, Sal started working part time at a local eatery, eventually working full time stints at a variety of restaurants in Central Massachusetts. Ana, a stay-at-home mom for their three young children during this time, started making traditional Salvadoran dishes for her family. Still, the family had a difficult time making ends meet. So, Ana and one of her friends thought of making traditional Salvadoran food - soups, pupusas, bread and chicken - to sell to many of the Hispanic kitchen workers wherever Sal worked. Then others, often non-Hispanics, started asking for traditional Salvadoran food for their own families or for their private parties. This was the moment that Ana’s idea of just selling Salvadoran food as a supplemental income became a passion. “There was a level of appreciation and enjoyment [non-Hispanic customers] gained from trying our food,” Ana said. “And seeing the level of enjoyment people got from it made me want to do it more.”

In 2013 Ana’s three sons came up with a name of their parent’s new endeavor: “Mami’s Kitchen.” Since then, Ana, with the help of Sal, has been making and selling traditional Salvadoran pupusas, sopa de pata (cow’s foot soup), tamales, and much more to customers in the Worcester area. Ana believes Mami’s Kitchen provides “the first authentic taste of El Salvador Worcester has gotten.”

“I enjoy sharing with [my customers] a small piece of our culture,” Ana says. “And welcoming them into a part of the world they’ve never been in.”

And that is what makes Ana’s pupusas ¡Riquísimos!

It’s what make them delicious, indeed.

‍Mami’s Kitchen will be setting up shop at the Out-to-Lunch Festival and Farmers Market at the Worcester Common Oval on the following Wednesdays from 11 am to 3 pm: July 15, July 29, and August 5.

You can also connect with Ana through Facebook (Mami’s Kitchen), on Instagram @mamiskitchenworcester, or by phone (774-303-6150 or 774-303-6215) to find other locations she offers delicious pupusas and other traditional Salvadoran food.