When I am in El Salvador, I try to cook with local ingredients and try my hand at whipping up a bit of local fare. During the Easter holidays, we received a gift of small marañones - cashew apples. Of course the prized part of the marañon is the seed that hangs down below the fruit. Some people have told me that the fruit is good for much more than animal feed, but I have seen plenty of marañones stuck on popsicle sticks and put into the freezer as a treat for children, and I also have heard that some people make a refresco or fresh fruit drink from the fruit. With the gift of a small plastic bag full of small marañones sitting in my kitchen, I decided to do a bit of research and make something with them. I settled on a refresco. The first step was to remove the seeds from the apples. I naively thought I could dry the seeds and maybe roast them. After all, cashews are delicious. However, with a little researc...
Tales of mysterious encounters with a headless priest in the dark of night are not uncommonly told among the Salvadoran people. After the time of the Spanish invasion, when conquerors wielding swords or carrying Bibles established their power, there emerged a legend of an imaginary priest who wanders in the streets and pathways as a lost soul. He appears to those who are out walking in the evening. He is searching for his head. He, or perhaps his head, lets out screams into the night. Those who see him feel cold and are sometimes paralyzed with fear and cannot speak for days. The story of the Priest with no Head is well-known and frequently told in Tonacatepeque. Some say the ghost of El Padre sin Cabeza (the headless priest) is real. Some say the story was invented by the church in order to scare indigenous people into becoming Christians. Some who study traditional, Salvadoran tales say this legend was created by enemies of the church. A painting of ...
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