This unprepossessing supermarket with a low red tiled roof on Georgia Avenue is popular with the local Latino community for its assortment of dried fish, from a very large, split, golden-skinned creature to regular-sized fish, none of which were familiar to me and whose names the friendly owner and other customers couldn't name in English for laughing their heads off.

 

It's the kind of place where I want to buy every unfamiliar snack they sell - strictly in the interests of research, you understand. There's guacamole-flavored totilla chips, for instance. Who wouldn't want a taste of them? And what are morro seeds? If you want to make your own tortillas without going through all the trouble of grinding and creating your masa, they sell Harina Preparado para Tortillas. In the freezer you'll find frozen fruit and veg like Jacote, Mombia purple, Mombia Nance, none of which, like the dried fish by the checkout, mean anything to me, I'm afraid. But they also stock jars of honey with honeycomb in it, sugar cane and lovely big loofahs.

 

La Salvadorenita, 11417 Georgia Ave, Silver Spring, 301 942 8126.‎