I first learned what an alfajor (plural: alfajores) was when I was in college. One of my best friends had a friend whose family had lived in Peru (they immigrated twice: once from Japan to Peru, and then a second time from Peru to the U.S.), and during that time, they were introduced to these little sweet treats. My friend used to rave about her friend’s family’s homemade alfajores. And although I’d never tasted them, occasionally I would see them at Latin American bakeries here in New York, and I’d pick up one or two. I loved all the different textures and flavors in a single bite.

Alfajores are Spanish in origin, but they have taken on different iterations as they have traveled the globe. An alfajor comes in a number of different shapes and sizes, but in Latin America, you can expect it to consist of two round buttery cookies, usually made with butter, corn starch/nut/wheat flour, sandwiched between a thick layer of dulce de leche. If you are lucky, in some parts of Latin America, you can even find alfajores filled with cajeta, or goat’s milk caramel, instead of dulce de leche, which is technically sugar and cow’s milk caramel. They are also sometimes rolled on their sides in shredded coconut. They are buttery, flaky, crunchy, soft, sweet, and not too sweet all at the same time!

Almost everywhere we went in Montevideo and now Buenos Aires, we saw alfajores, mostly made with corn starch to be even more flaky and nutty. Most of the time, they were dusted in powdered sugar and sometimes rolled in shredded coconut. You can find them in bakeries made fresh, as well as at supermarkets and random little grocery shops pre-packaged individually. Argentina is particularly obsessed with alfajores, as they are known to be the world’s largest consumer of alfajores, consuming more than a billion alfajores per year. The food packaging, likely by law, is also very transparent and honest: they are high in both saturated fat (butter) and “excessive sugar.” So far, the best one that I’ve enjoyed on this trip has been at the Mercado Ferrando in Montevideo, at the bakery that is on your left when you walk in. They have several types of alfajores, including a chocolate and a chocolate-filled one, but I wanted the more classic variation and just got the alfajor de maicena (with corn flour). It was flaky, buttery, and not too sweet. I was obsessed and fought the urge to buy another one. I’ve had many cookies in my lifetime to date, but I will say that the decadence of a South American style alfajor really ranks up there when it comes to the meaning of “decadence” in a single bite of dessert.

Regarding dulce de leche — it is truly ubiquitous here, regardless of whether you are at a bakery, looking at a restaurant dessert menu, or at the supermarket. You cannot escape dulce de leche here! We found out that there are even dulce de leche taste contests across some South American countries, probably similar to the baguette contest in France. Though oddly enough, we’ve noticed that dulce de leche here actually isn’t as cloyingly sweet and rich as the ones we’ve eaten back home. Not sure if it’s just us, but it’s something we both concluded, after having quite a bit of dulce de leche in almost everything and anything sweet here.

Yesterday, I came to Philadelphia for a quick overnight trip to have a meeting with a customer. The only real alone time I would get to walk around and explore would be early Thursday morning before my flight, so I walked around Center City and Rittenhouse Square before getting into an Uber going to the airport. In the last several weeks with the hot weather and my obsession with having cold brew / iced coffee in the morning, I was definitely in a coffee mood. So I did a quick search for places walking distance from my hotel where I could get a unique coffee drink. I found a place that was about an 8-minute walk from my hotel. It was completely nondescript; if I didn’t map it or look it up, there was little chance I would have stumbled upon it, especially since it was barely marked from the outside and was in an alley.

I walked inside the cafe, and it was huge. Even though I travel quite a bit, because I am so used to the small, cramped spaces and limited seating in New York, I still always marvel at the space inside cafes in other cities. The floor space was so wide, and the tables were large with lots of walking space between them. I ordered an iced strawberry oat milk latte plus an almond croissant from a local nearby French bakery. The oat milk was blended with pureed strawberries and infused with beet juice, and it really complemented the espresso well. I love finding unique drinks like this when traveling, even on short notice.

Since our delicious trip to Colombia in May 2019, so exactly five years ago, I hadn’t been this excited to try local fruit while traveling. El Salvador, being in Central America, has a warm, tropical climate, which then makes it a great place for delicious fruit that you cannot get (or at least, get easily) in the U.S. While they have the usual fruits you’d expect, such as mangoes, pineapples, and papayas (all were extremely sweet and delicious!), we also came across and tried some new and unique ones we’d never previously tasted.

Paternas: This is one of those fruits that may appear strange to you as a Westerner if you’ve never had it. It strongly resembles petai or “stink beans” in its pod-like structure, which is HUGE. When you split the green pod open, a row of white seeds is revealed. The seeds are all covered in a soft, white, almost fuzzy marshmallow-like coating. When you eat these, you’re meant to use your teeth and scrape the white fuzzy fruit off the seeds. While the seeds should not be consumed raw (they’re quite hard), Salvadorans like to have the seeds boiled and then eat them as a snack with salt and lemon juice. This was not our favorite, as it was a bit of work and not much flesh, but it did have an interesting sweet flavor, plus a unique fuzzy texture.

Mamones (mamon for singular): These are very sour, tangy round fruits the size of extra-large cherries with a huge pit inside. When you crack through the hard green shell, a pale salmon-pink colored flesh is revealed that is similar to that of a lychee. Some are more sweet than sour. Overall, I’d compare them to those hard warheads candies that rotted my teeth as a child: you suck on them and then spit them out. While you can certainly gnaw on the flesh, it will cause a bit of extra work for you later when you floss. Somehow, I managed to get through about three pounds of these mamones (Chris only ate about 5-6), which cost just $1 at the local market in Centro Historico! When I saw them, I remembered we had them on the road from Medellin to Guatape in Colombia. There, they are known as mamoncillo.

Mamey: These appear like the mamey in Mexico, but are a completely different fruit (Mexican mamey fruit is called sapote here in El Salvador). They have a hard, brown exterior that is rough, almost like a cross between sand paper and a mature brown coconut. Once it’s peeled, a deep red-orange flesh is revealed. It tasted like something between a mango and a papaya, with faintly sweet flesh. Some pieces were softer, while others were crunchy. We got a large bag of mamey already peeled and cut up for us at the market for $1.

Nances: These look like yellow or orange colored cherries and are of a similar size. I got a bag of these fruit from a road side fruit vendor, and I have a feeling they were not quite ripe, unfortunately. Though I have read that locals eat nances both ripe and unripe. The fruits we had purchased were already warm in a bag, and when I opened it, this very different, almost fermented smell started coming out that was reminiscent of durian in terms of its pungency. When I bit into them, they were extremely chalky in texture. I wish I had the opportunity to eat these ripe, but alas, you just can’t try everything everywhere!

Mangoes: Clearly mangoes are not a new fruit for us, as we are THE mango family and always will be. But I do know that the mangoes grown and sold in El Salvador are not like the ones we get in the U.S. or have tried in India or Australia. Though I have read the variety is called either Indian or Creole mango, all I know for sure is that all the mangoes being sold at the markets and fruit stands are all a deep red color, with splashes of deep yellow and orange. Salvadorans love to eat their mangoes almost ripe and just ripe, so when you buy them pre-peeled and cut, they are usually one of these options (or even very unripe and green!). It must be a cultural thing, as in India, they love their mangoes extremely ripe to the point where they are so juicy that they drip down your arms as you eat them. Here in El Salvador, mangoes are usually served topped with different hot chili flakes, lime, or different savory/salty toppings. But when we had ours twice, I only wanted the ripe plain mangoes and specified this to the vendors. Even the semi-ripe mangoes had a strong sweet fragrance that made my mouth water. These mangoes were ultra delicious: they had this really pleasant, firm, almost meaty texture when you bite into them. Then, when you start chewing, the flavor is strong, potent, and in-your-face. It reminded me of the flavor and sweetness of the Filipino dried (and sugared) mangoes I used to have as a treat when I was a child that my grandma would often buy for us. They were so addictive; both times we had them, I was so sad when I was on my last bite.

Coconuts: We stopped at a road side stall and I asked for coconut water from a fresh coconut. Here, the coconut is usually already cut open, the juice poured into a plastic bag with the young coconut meat shaven, then stored in an ice chest until it’s purchased. But when I went up to the stall, I asked if I could have a freshly cracked one. The vendor happily agreed. She went to another ice chest where she had fat green coconuts stored, hacked it open with a machete, proceeded to pour the glorious juice into a bit pitcher, shaved the thick coconut shavings out, and then placed it all (a bit precariously!) into a big plastic bag with a straw. To drink this, you needed to hold the bag and the straw; there was no placing the bag down on any surface, otherwise the juice would be lost! It was cool, sweet and incredibly refreshing. The young white coconut flesh pieces were so satisfying and meaty.

Papaya: We had this in juice form several times, and it was delicious and sweet, unlike the miserable hit-or-miss papayas back in the U.S. I happily ordered this during our times eating out. We also enjoyed it as part of the breakfast buffet at our hotel, where it was a welcome end to brekkie. I could eat this papaya every single day and be totally satisfied.

Fruit in El Salvador has been an adventure in itself. I always think of people who live in regions of the world like here and Colombia and wonder to myself: if they have the chance to come to the U.S., they must really feel sorry for us and how pathetic our fruit is. I still remember our guide in Guatape, Colombia, and how he said he’d been to the U.S. and found what we call “orange juice” absolutely atrocious.