Before the arrival of the Spaniards, indigenous civilizations mastered culinary techniques and methods, which continue to be in use in modern Salvadoran cuisine.
Preservation Methods
To understand Salvadoran culinary roots, it is necessary to go back to the beginnings of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican civilizations and explore their history, as they laid the foundations for what is now eaten, allowing us to know the vast richness of ingredients, methods, and techniques we have inherited.
Air Drying: this technique, practiced since ancient times, involves drying foods using sun and wind. It helps prevent spoilage by removing water through evaporation, drying in the open air, under the sun, smoking, or wind.
Salting: this method has been used throughout time and primarily serves to dehydrate foods, enhance their flavor, and eliminate bacteria. It involves completely covering foods with salt so they dehydrate and last longer.
Cooking Techniques
Pre-Hispanic gastronomy in El Salvador encompasses a set of processes and techniques that enrich its diet. Here are the most important and significant:
Nixtamalization: this is the process of cooking maize kernels with water and lime, which facilitates removing the pericarp (the skin that surrounds and protects the seed). It also controls bacteria and microbial activity, improves water absorption, increases the starch’s consistency, and enhances maize nutrients.
Direct or Indirect Grilling: involves placing food directly or indirectly over fire to achieve the desired doneness. This was one of the most common methods in pre-Columbian times and is still widely used today.
Steaming: this ancient technique involves wrapping food in maize or banana leaves and placing them inside clay pots with water to produce steam.
Charcoal Cooking: this method consists of cooking food over a bed of embers inside a hole in the ground.
Mortar and Pestle: a technique of grinding using an instrument called a molcajete or, today, a mortar.
Underground Oven (Barbecue): involves cooking food in a subterranean oven, also known as pibil.
Many of these gastronomic techniques have survived through time, and it is also worth mentioning important pre-Hispanic tools such as: molcajete, grinding stone, comal, jars, cazuelas, baskets, clay dishes, pots, sticks, obsidian knives, vessels, hollow gourds, and cooking instruments.
During this era, the hemispherical polychrome pots were first crafted, often painted in red, green, yellow, and other colors. Their likely function was to prepare and serve food.
