A pupusa is a thick griddle cake or flatbread from El Salvador and Honduras[1][2][3][4] made with cornmeal or rice flour, similar to the Colombian and Venezuelan arepa.

It is typically accompanied by curtido (a spicy fermented cabbage slaw) and tomato salsa, and is traditionally eaten by hand.

[5] In her book Interlude and Other Verses, Lidia Pérez de Novoa believed that pupusa derives from the Nawat word pupusawa meaning "to puff up".

In his book Quicheísmos: Contribution to the Study of American Folklore..., Santiago Barberena [es] believed that the word pupusa originated from a combination of the K'iche' words pop (meaning "sphere") and utz (meaning "good thing"), forming the word poputz meaning "good sphere", however, the term poputz does not appear in any K'iche' language dictionaries.

The topic of the pupusa's origin also came up during the negotiation for the Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA–DR).

[9] The oldest historical record of pupusas dates back to Nicaragua in 1837, when Guatemalan poet José Batres Montúfar documented and ate the dish while traveling through Masaya, Rivas, and Granada.

The tortillas cost 8 per half a real, but they are enormous, a foot in diameter and true laborer's pistons: they are almost never called tortillas, except for their accidents: one filled, that is, a pupusa from San Salvador; a stir, ground the dough together with the cheese; an empty one, which is what I prefer, is the one that has nothing extra.

[22] Guinness World Records listed the largest pupusa at 15 feet (4.6 m), created in Olocuilta, El Salvador, on 8 November 2015.

[citation needed] Rice flour is used to make the dough and they are usually stuffed with chopped pork, cheese, beans, zucchini, and other vegetables.

In Santa Fe, New Mexico, variations include using spinach, pepperoni, cheese, and green chile.

Taco Cabana, a Tex-Mex chain in Texas, created a dish called the pupusa that has no relation to the Salvadoran food.

[27] In spite of their low market price, pupusas represent an important element in the economy of El Salvador.

[citation needed] Frozen pupusas can be found in the refrigerated section of many Hispanic and international supermarkets in the United States, especially those located in highly concentrated areas of Salvadorans such as Washington, D.C., and Long Island, New York.