All the Good Girls are Taken in El Salvador

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador- There are hundreds of varieties of sweet breads and little pastry cookies that are popular in El Salvador. In the USA we would call this variety of baked goods coffee cakes. There are entire bakeries all over the country dedicated to pretty much only selling items from this liturgy of coffee cakes. Most of them are a little stale and hard and begged to be dipped, some of them taste good, some are a little funny looking, most have interesting names.

Sweet breads or coffee cakes in El Salvador

There are two varieties of popular coffee cakes that essentially act as sisters to each other. One is called Honrada — meaning “honorable girl” — and the other is called Peperecha — roughly meaning “slut.” The good girl cakes are essentially layers of sweet pie crust assembled together with brown sugar on top. The bad girl cakes are essentially layers of sweet pie crust assembled together with brown sugar on top that is dyed bright red.

Apparently, the bright red coloring is enough to turn an honorable woman into a slut. El Salvador is a very Christian country.

I walked into a bakery with the intention of trying both varieties of women in El Salvador.

Peperecha sweet bread or coffee cake in El Salvador

I requested one peperecha — slut — to be followed up by one honrada — good girl.

The bakery lady hastily scooped me out one brightly red colored coffee cake from an entire tray of its own kind, but had to apologize on meeting my next request:

All of the good girls were taken.

I contented myself with eating the slut merely.

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