Delicious El Salvador with Alicia Maher – S03E12

by | Feb 21, 2022 | Salvis Unidos Podcast

Some of us are lucky to have a mom or an abuelita to teach us how to cook food from home. For the rest of us, there’s “Delicious El Salvador,” an award-winning Salvadoran cookbook by Alicia Maher. Alicia’s mission is to preserve our culture and teach the next generation of the diaspora that our food can compete on a world stage.

Alicia was born in Santa Ana, El Salvador and moved to Los Angeles when she was 19. She learned to cook from her mother, grandmother, aunts and friends. She is an award-winning author, a food historian, a cooking instructor, and most of all, a proud Salvadorena. 

  • Learning to cook from the masters
  • 10 years ago there were no good Salvadoran cookbooks
  • Came to US when 19 years old
  • The complexity of the ingredients of Salvadoran foods
  • Salvadoran cooking is still an oral and visual tradition
  • Gourmand Awards in 2014 – Best First Cookbook in the World
  • This book is for the next generations
  • Why write the first Salvadoran cookbook in English?
  • Second cookbook in the works
  • The science of baking
  • Salvadoran pastries in the next cookbook
  • Teaching cooking classes from El Salvador
  • Researching the origins of Salvadoran food
  • What ingredients are indigenous to El Salvador?
  • Joya de Ceren
  • What traditional Salvadoran foods are not indigenous to the Americas?
  • Tomato – The King of Vegetables in El Salvador
  • Sopa de Pata, Sopa de Chorizo – Levanta Muertos
  • The uniqueness of herbs in Salvadoran soups
  • Achiote – indigenous to Central America, also known as annatto seeds
  • Sesame seeds come from the Philippines to El Salvador during colonization
  • Are pupusas intimidating to make?
  • The secret to perfectly cooked pupusas: ingredients at room temperature
  • Don’t use oil with your pupusas!
  • The Immigrant Cookbook – Recipes to Make America Great
  • Post-war development of food and cuisine in El Salvador
  • Cookbooks come from immigrants

Show resources:

Music:
“Ya No Estas” by AR Ferdinand

 

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