The art of making pupusas has been passed down in our family from generation to generation. Jorgelina's mother Candelaria Granados, taught her the family recipe at an early age, as a child she started using her hands to make delicious round pupusas made out of corn masa stuffed with cheese, chicharon, beans, and loroco grown off the land. Then she would take the pupusas and place them with her child sized hands on the family griddle that sat on top of the handmade clay oven burning with firewood made by her father Rafael Granados. The art included knowing at what point she needed to turn the pupusa over with her hands to cook on the other side.
As an adult, Jorgelina migrated to the US in the late 70s. In the mid 80s she found herself as a single mother raising her children in South Central LA. In order to make ends meet and with an entrepreneurial spirit she began making and selling Salvadoran corn tamales, pupusas, and the ever so delicate and traditional 'quesadilla de arroz' (Salvadoran sweet bread made of rice flour, cheese, etc.). She is a true role model not just to her kids and grandkids but to anyone who dreams of a better future for themself and their future generations.
Pupusas have been linked to the Pipil tribes who inhabited the territory now known as El Salvador. Cooking implements for their preparation have been excavated in Joya de Cerén, site of a native village that was buried by ashes from a volcano eruption, and where foodstuffs were preserved as they were being cooked almost 2000 years ago. The instruments for their preparation have also been found in other archaeological sites in El Salvador.
The Salvadoran civil war forced a Salvadoran migration to other countries, mainly the United States, which made pupusas available elsewhere: Salvadoran immigrants brought the dish to most areas of the US, and they spread to Canada and Australia as well.
The Salvadoran Legislative Assembly declared pupusas as the national dish of El Salvador and every second Sunday of November would be National Pupusas Day.
The Guardian named pupusas that year's Best Street Food in New York.
Jorgelina and her children are proud of how far they’ve come and are excited to share their culture by bringing Pupusas to Humboldt County.