Sunday, August 18
Basically, Corn Fest is the most Midwestern thing I've ever experienced in my life.
I was surprised to find out that Nuevo Cuscatlan (the community where PST is located) does Corn Fest too. Of course, there is a Salvadoran twist. The Catholic church runs this Festival del Maiz and they do it BIG. They sell tons of comida tipico like fried yucca, deep fried yucca puffs, fried tamales, fried corn mash. Sensing a trend here? And of course there's elote loco (corn on the cob with mayonnaise, ketchup and cheese) and this other pudding stuff that's made from corn. It's not so bad!
Throughout the festival teenage girls will come up to you and ask you to buy a vote so they can be the Reyna del Maiz. It's only 5 cents and all benefits go to the church, they say! Now of course, the notion of "buying" votes gives the patriotic American in me a tinge of disapproval, but I really want to see what being a corn queen entails. So I give her 5 cents, and she's off.
Later in the festival all the girls running for corn queen come on stage dressed in ornate dresses made of corn husks. Yes, corn dresses. Some were pretty fancy too! Others were a bit of a stretch (in more ways than one). There were about 8 girls total with ages ranging from 7-years-old to "Dear god, your mother let you out of the house in that dress!?" The girl I paid won the corn queen crown and led the corn parade down the streets of Nuevo. All the runner-ups sat on the hoods of beat up Hondas fitted with corn stalks and streamers and threw candy to their admirers along the parade route. A man set off fireworks from his bare hand and the chuchos barked in the streets.
Festival del Maiz- you're doing it right.
Holy corn Fest
The news came out to film all the corn festivities.
Corn parade.
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