Mixing cuisines a culinary hit
Take comfort foods from two Latin American countries, combine them in a fast-food restaurant in East Boston, and you may be on to an intriguing gastronomic meeting ground.
Jaime Trujillo, a 46-year-old Colombian living in the Boston area since 1981, has altered traditional Central and South American dishes in one easy step, trademarking the result and using the slogan, ''The American Corn Pancake with Latin Taste!"
He calls his dish ''arepusa," the culinary union of a Colombian arepa and a Salvadoran pupusa.
To appreciate the uniqueness of this combination, it's important to know that the arepa is part of everyday Colombian cuisine. So are pupusas in El Salvador.
The two dishes have a corn flour base in common. But while pupusas are generally thick and stuffed with the likes of cheese, bean, and pork fillings, Colombian arepas are a relatively flat, tortilla-like patty with its toppings, such as cheese and scrambled eggs, a matter of preference.
Until now.
At the Pupusas Express restaurant on Bennington Street, where Trujillo is a business partner, his recent concoction has become another expression of different Latino groups' bicultural accommodations in America. ''I noticed that my customers were Central American, Colombian, and Americans," said Trujillo, a former bookkeeper. ''So I started to imagine a menu that would satisfy all those tastes.
''Separate the word further," he pointed out, ''and you see that 'arepusa' also means arepa USA."
This unofficially designated corner of Arepa USA attracts white Americans, African Americans, Mexicans, Colombians, Salvadorans, and Hondurans, all eager for fast food: hamburgers, corn dogs, fried chicken, arepas, and pupusas.
Fliers at the counter introduce the arepusa to inquiring minds and palates.
Trujillo, who has traveled throughout Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, and Canada, admits that he's never had a cooking class. His innovative dish occurred to him while observing a Guatemalan woman make Salvadoran pupusas in one of his Rhode Island restaurants.
Her attempts at a pupusa, though thicker and bigger, reminded Trujillo of the arepa, except that ''people have to think about what to put on top of the arepa."
In Trujillo's kitchen, the arepusa options include chicken teriyaki, steak and cheese, chili beans, ham and pineapple, liver, Italian sausage, and pepperoni.
Morelia Preciado, from East Boston, sampled several varieties of arepusa after Trujillo approached her with the nudge, ''Try my invention."
Arepusas are ''bien ricas," she declared. ''They're delicious with a cup of coffee, hot chocolate, or an horchata."
Francisco Yepes said, ''It's very practical . . . it's like a stuffed arepa."
Trujillo said he plans to have an arepusa kiosk in downtown Boston, and also wants to sell arepusas in the frozen food section of grocery stores, a made-in-the-USA Colombian-Salvadoran fusion.
''I've been told that Salvadoran pupusas cannot be cooked by men," Trujillo said.
Indeed, in El Salvador the word for someone who makes the dish is ''pupusera." A male form of the noun does not exist in the language.
''But arepusas," Trujillo announced with a smile, ''are for everybody."
The Pupusas Express restaurant is at 30 Bennington St., East Boston, 617-561-7777. 