CORN- It's what's for dinner!

I'm always surprised to find the similarities between El Salvador and my home in the midwest. Corn's a big deal here. Everything's made from corn- tortillas (a typical Salvadoran will consume between 4-6 tortillas a day), tamales, riguas, pupusas. Corn is easily the most important staple here. Next is frijoles, which is funny, because Illinois is the corn and soybean state. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. 

Right about now everyone in the country is drying out their corn. Some people have their own fields, some people buy hundreds of corn husks off their neighbors. The first step to corn ownership is drying the corn out on a tarp in the middle of the road. Why the middle of the road? Well, it's hot and there's a lot of sun there. Who cares about cars. Once you dry out your corn on the cob, you sit for hours on end just picking the kernels out. I've found that older people can do this relatively fast. It's almost a scientific fact that they posses acute corn kerneling skills.

Then you take the thousands of corn kernels and lay them out in the sun. Again, it's best if you lay the tarp out in the middle of the road.

I tried to think of a corny caption, but I got nothin.

BTW this is my favorite part of my commute. Too bad this pic is from a cloudy day. 

 People soak the dried out corn kernels in water then take it to the molino to make the corn mash all us PCV's have grown to love. Corn mash makes for good deep fried things, too.

Or you just boil the corn and eat it.