El Salvador: Slow-Braised Chicken Pinol with Casamiento Rice & Curtido Pickled Slaw
Known as the ‘Land of Volcanoes’, El Salvador is the only Central American country that doesn’t have an east-facing Caribbean coastline. Instead, El Salvador faces west into the Pacific Ocean where it is a player in the Pacific Ring of Fire , a volcanic zone where eruptions and earth quakes are common. 500 years ago, El Salvador was home to the eclectic Pipil people. Influenced by both Mayan and Aztec cultures the Pipil were highly adept in art-making, astronomy, and maths. They had a complex, cooperative agricultural society centred around maize, beans, and cacao, but all that changed in 1524 when Spanish conquistadores forcibly colonised the Pipil and their lands. Then, 300 years later, in 1821, El Salvador claimed its independence back from Spain. over the last 200 years El Salvadore’s cuisine has become as eclectic as its Pipil ancestors, weaving ancient culinary traditions and ingredients such as tomatoes and avocado together with intr...