The Center for Student Involvement and the Council for Cultural Activities will host Recetas con Amor on both campuses to embrace the Latinx heritage through the universal language of food.
The event will take place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday in Salón Cassia on the Brownsville campus and from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday in the University Ballroom on the Edinburg campus.
Recetas con Amor is part of UTRGV’s observance of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which is celebrated each year from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 to honor the cultures and contributions of both Hispanic and Latino Americans, according to the National Hispanic Heritage Month website.
Raul Leal Jr., program coordinator for the Center for Student Involvement, said Recetas con Amor was created to highlight comfort foods.
“So foods that make people feel warm and reminds them of home,” Leal said. “We were also thinking about our Latinx students who are not necessarily from the area and probably are missing that home-cooked meal from mom and dad.”
The Center for Student Involvement and the Council for Cultural Activities tried to make the event “sound like a love letter to Latin American countries and provide students with an opportunity to get to try some foods from Latin American areas,” he said.
The council used to host a similar event called Café Latino Americano, but this year they wanted to change the event and focus on “comfort foods.”
“We opted to change the title of the event to Recetas con Amor,” Leal said. “We were wanting it to be kind of like a love letter to Latin America, to the culture, and just making sure that we were highlighting as much as we possibly could.”
Attendees will be able to enjoy different Latin American dishes.
“The first one is an ice cream shop, La Garrafa, and they do … nieves artesanales,” Leal said about the business located in Mission and Pharr. “And, so, we found them because they had an article recently in the news about how they do Jalisco-style ice cream.”
Students will also be able to taste food from Venezuela and Colombia during the event.
“We are hosting ¡Que Chevere!, and they specialize in Venezuelan food,” Leal said about the restaurant in McAllen. “And, so, we’ll be doing empanadas de pollo from there. And then the last restaurant that we have will be Café Canasto. [They] specialize in Colombian food. And we’ll be doing a dish called salento and palmira.”
Café Canasto is a restaurant in Brownsville. Salento is a guava-and-cheese puff pastry and palmira is a cheese bread.
The Center for Student Involvement and the council want to make students feel welcome and at home.
“Especially given that we do have such a large international student population,” Leal said. “We also want to make sure that students that are not necessarily from the area feel represented in the things that we’re doing and we’re hosting.”
Olga Zulema Villaseñor, an integrated health science sophomore, said the event will help represent the Hispanic community.
“I think it’s great because it’s like, they care about us,” Villaseñor said. “It’s important because I feel like most people here are Hispanic.”
Jose Manuel De Leo, a mass communication junior, said the event is an opportunity for students to know about other cultures and try different dishes.
De Leo encourages students to always remember where they came from.
“It reminds you of where you come from [and] your family,” he said. “Never forget your Mexican roots. No matter how successful you are or how your life is going, always remember where you came from.”
Leal encourages students to attend the event and have fun.
“The really cool thing about the event is that you get to learn about the different cultures through food,” he said. “The way to my heart is my stomach. And, so, I like to learn about other people and the things that make them feel at home. We’ll also have some arts and crafts so students can paint at the event if they’re interested in attending.”
