What a Salvadoran corn cake and a Chilean empanada have in common in September

Every September, seven nations uphold the anniversaries that define them, and the foods they cook for those occasions end up on the same American calendar. A pupusa turns up at dawn on a Los Angeles parade route, and chiles en nogada shows up as a seasonal special in Chicago. That’s when the connection between the food and its history becomes worth tracing back.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2026 Hispanic Heritage Month Facts for Features lays out why the calendar falls where it does. Sept. 15 is the independence anniversary of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Mexico’s Independence Day is Sept. 16. Chile’s Fiestas Patrias begins Sept. 18, commemorating the First Government Junta of 1810.

The 31-day window runs through Oct. 15 under Public Law 100-402, signed by President Reagan in 1988 after Senator Paul Simon’s bill passed Congress. President George H.W. Bush issued the first full-month proclamation on Sept. 14, 1989.

5 of those 7 countries share Sept. 15 

Five of the seven countries mentioned have culinary traditions tied to pre-colonial Indigenous ingredients and techniques, though each dish has its own history. El Salvador’s story is among the oldest. The pupusa is among the country’s most recognized national foods, with traditions widely traced to Indigenous cooking before Spanish colonization. Joya de Cerén, a farming village buried under volcanic ash around 600 AD, confirms maize was central to food preparation there, though the site does not provide definitive evidence of the modern pupusa itself.

The dish is straightforward in construction and almost impossible to rush. Thick corn masa is pressed by hand, stuffed with cheese, refried beans or seasoned pork, sealed and cooked on a comal until the outside crisps. It comes with curtido, a tangy cabbage slaw with vinegar and chili. 

Guatemala’s pepián, a rich stew traditionally associated with Maya culinary heritage, is even older, with formal recognition to prove its cultural importance. The Guatemalan government declared it as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Nation in 2007, alongside jocón and kak’ik. It is built on toasted pumpkin seeds and dried chiles ground into a sauce, a technique with deep roots in Indigenous cooking, and the result is nutty, smoky and deeply savory, served over chicken with rice and tortillas.

Honduras and Nicaragua each bring a dish whose origin story shows how food absorbs the world around it. The baleada is a thick wheat-flour tortilla folded over refried red beans, crumbled queso seco and mantequilla. One widely cited account places it in La Ceiba in the 1960s, where a street vendor named Doña Tere sold folded flour tortillas alongside the railway serving Standard Fruit’s banana operations, making a wheat-flour dish one of Honduras’ best-known foods in a country where corn tortillas are foundational.

Across the border, Nicaragua’s vigorón has a documented origin story. According to a history recorded by Granada scholar Alejandro Barberena Pérez, María Luisa Cisneros Lacayo, known as La Loca, created the dish around 1914 while selling food at baseball games in Granada, borrowing its name from a medicinal tonic advertisement. The dish is boiled yuca, crispy chicharrón and a curtido of vinegar-dressed cabbage, tomato and onion, served on a banana leaf and eaten by hand.

Costa Rica, the fifth country sharing Sept. 15, puts gallo pinto at the center of the day. The rice-and-beans dish is so tied to Costa Rican identity that both countries claim to have invented it, a rivalry that has inspired competing attempts at the world’s largest serving. Costa Rican versions commonly use black beans; Nicaraguan versions often use red, though both have regional variations.

Mexico and the nuns who made a flag out of food

Mexico’s independence day falls one day after those five Central American nations, and its most famous dish has one of the most popular origin stories in Mexican cuisine. According to the best-known account, Augustinian nuns at Puebla’s Convent of Santa Mónica prepared chiles en nogada for General Agustín de Iturbide in August 1821, assembling roasted poblano peppers, fresh Castilla walnuts and pomegranate seeds into a dish whose green, white and red were said to echo the colors of the newly independent nation’s flag.

Historians note that the documentary evidence is not conclusive and other origin stories exist, but chiles en nogada has become closely associated with Mexico’s September independence celebrations. It appears on menus from July through September, when its traditional seasonal ingredients, fresh Castilla walnuts and pomegranates, are available.

Chile slows down for a week

Chile’s Fiestas Patrias officially occur on Sept. 18 and 19, with celebrations often stretching across the week. Sept. 18 commemorates the First Government Junta of 1810, the beginning of Chile’s path to independence in 1818.

Fondas, open-air canvas tents with wooden tables, dance floors and food stalls, go up across the country from the Atacama Desert to Patagonia. The classic Fiestas Patrias empanada is baked, not fried, with flaky pastry filled with minced beef, onion, cumin, a hard-boiled egg, raisins and a single olive. Fondas also pour chicha, a fermented drink made from grapes in central Chile or apples in the south, served throughout the week alongside grilled meats and the cueca, Chile’s national courtship dance. 

The close the calendar was built for

The dishes that represent Hispanic Heritage Month were not designed for export. Pupusas, pepián, vigorón, baleadas, chiles en nogada and empanadas de pino are celebration foods built for specific dates and places. What has happened since the 31-day observance was signed into law is that American appetites caught up with the calendar. Birria has grown roughly 350% on U.S. restaurant menus over four years. The observance runs Sept. 15 through Oct. 15 because Congress made it so. The foods it features have histories that don’t fit neatly inside 31 days. 

Jennifer Allen is a retired professional chef and long-time writer. Her work appears in dozens of publications, including MSN, Yahoo, The Washington Post and The Seattle Times. These days, she’s busy in the kitchen developing recipes and traveling the world, and you can find all her best creations at Cook What You Love.

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