World Café
Travel the World Café at Elizabethtown Public Library
Elizabethtown Coffee Company is the heart of the World Café program at Elizabethtown Public Library and helps to advance our mission. The vision of the World Café is to increase awareness of authors, cultures and realities from around the globe. We want everyone to be able to discover new places and different ideas that expand our thinking and our minds.
Each month the Library selects a different location. Sometimes its a region within the United States. It might be a coffee or tea growing country and it may even be a body of water that houses sea creatures and mythical beings. You can sign up to participate in this year-long program and complete your World Café passport for a year of exploration and a chance to win fun prizes.
June Features El Salvador!
Location and Geography
El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America. It shares a border with Guatemala to the northwest and Honduras to the northeast. Its coastline is made up by the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Fonseca. It is the only Central American country not to have coastline along the Caribbean.
For being a small country, even smaller than Pennsylvania, El Salvador is home to many volcanoes. While most are dormant, some are still active with eruptions occurring as recently as 2023. The amount of volcanoes plays a major role in El Salvador’s geography. Roughly four-fifths of the country is comprised of the volcanic mountain ranges and a central plateau. The remainder of the land is the coastal plain. The volcanoes are also the reason why many of the beaches have black sand.
The Maya in El Salvador
El Salvador has some of the southernmost Mayan ruins. Some of these sites include the Tazumal Archaeological Park, which was occupied roughly from 100 to 1200 CE, and the Casa Blanca Archaeological Park, which has an inscribed Mayan stele and an indigo dyeing workshop. Another prominent site is Joya de Cerén. This was a farming village settled in the mid-first millennium CE. A volcanic eruption made the soil at the settlement rather fertile. Unfortunately, it was soon destroyed and covered from the eruption of the Laguna Caldera volcano around 600 CE. The site was then lost until discovered in 1976 when starting to build grain silos. The site was frozen in time in a way similar to Pompeii, resulting in one of the best preserved pre-hispanic villages. You can learn more about the site and explore pictures on the UNESCO website.
Salvadoran Lomo Relleno
Lomo relleno (“stuffed loin” in English), is a traditional way to prepare either a pork or beef loin in El Salvador, especially around Christmas. The loin is cut so that it becomes a flat piece of meat that is then pounded, seasoned, has a stuffing laid on the meat, rolled up, and then cooked. The filling can be varied, and usually consists of a variety of vegetables. In our recipe, the filling features onions and mozzarella cheese. Pictured here, it is served with beans and broccoli slaw. For a more authentic Salvadoran meal, adding the national dish of pupusas is a great choice.