Pupusa is the must-try food in El Salvador. It is a cornmeal tortilla filled with white cheese and beans, sometimes with shredded pork. It is grilled until it's warm and lightly browned. Served with curtido, their version of sauerkraut and salsa, this street food was the perfect accompaniment to the many cervezas: Regia, Pilsener, and Bahia.
The typical Salvadorian breakfast consists of sweet plantains, frijoles (beans), and huevos (eggs) with red and green bell peppers or with tomatoes and onions. It's heavy for a breakfast, though fortifying for those days spent in the water. A breakfast like this also makes for a reasonable cure from hangover that may have been caused by the night before.
The most interesting item we had for lunch was typically found in a humble roadside lunch stand that was just outside the entrance to the beach. Pacalla is a bitter vegetable or blossom of some sort that doesn't initially appear edible. For lunch one day we joined some locals who seemed to have stopped at this place especially for the pacalla. We were served this vegetable fried in a batter of eggs and cornmeal. It had the consistency of grilled Japanese eggplants, but with a bitter aftertaste that was delicious but also indescribably bitter in that way that only certain green vegetables are.