Recipe contest honors culture

The National Hispanic Honor Society, Sigma Delta Pi, invites the UTRGV community to participate in the Culinary Memories Literary Contest with the purpose of honoring culture.

Laura Garza, a lecturer in the Literatures & Cultural Studies department and adviser to Sigma Delta Pi, said the contest helps students connect with their roots. 

“It is a contest in which the objective is to connect the practice in the kitchen with reminiscing, with memory,” she said. “The participants will understand that cooking unites the memory and experience, serving as a way to understand their own identities through the connection to their own cultural roots and the present.” 

Garza said that the rules for the contest are simple, as everything is based on the memories of the participants. 

“What we are asking for is a text where the participant writes a cooking recipe, the real one, the one they use in their family,” Garza said. “In addition to the recipe and the dish’s procedure, a narrative that is the literary representation of what memories the preparation of the dish brings to them.” 

Garza said the text must be between 250 and 500 words. 

“The essay can be in English or Spanish,” she said. “Offensive words or bad words should be avoided.” 

Ana Peña-Oliva, a lecturer of Hispanic linguistics in the Department of Writing and Language Studies and adviser to Sigma Delta Pi, encourages participants to write their essay in Spanish. 

“The goal is to spread the study of the Spanish language, so we ask them to write it in Spanish,” she said. “What we evaluate is not the way they write, but the content of their narrative.”

Peña-Oliva said the best three essays will receive a certificate. 

“The student will be notified through email, which is how we communicate with the [participants],” she said. “Then, the certificates will be awarded to the winners. The last day to submit entries is on April 1 and we expect to notify the students by April 15.” 

The university community can submit their entries via email to sigmadeltapi@utrgv.edu. 

Garza said the judges of the contest will focus on whether the three parts of the essay are present: the recipe, the procedure and the narrative. 

Brenda Hernandez, second-place winner of the Culinary Memory Literary Contest in 2019 and a multidisciplinary studies graduate student, said she wrote her narrative essay focusing on chiles rellenos, a traditional dish her mom used to make. 

“I decided to participate because it seemed interesting to me as I have multiple memories of how I would spend time with my mom,” Hernandez said. “Her passion was the kitchen, so the theme of my essay was based on my mom and it got my attention.”

Hernandez said when she wrote the narration, she and her family were going through a hard time in their lives.

“When I wrote, [I started] a stage with my mom because she had Alzheimer’s,” she said. “So that is also why I chose it, because it meant something special for me and because we can no longer relive that, since she doesn’t cook for us anymore.” 

Hernandez said she enjoyed participating in the contest because it made her remember good times.

“I think it is important to participate in these contests because it gives the opportunity to remember the memories that they have of their family,” she said. “They can revive Mexican or Hispanic traditions of their culture. It brings you a little closer to a piece of your culture.”

Peña-Oliva invites the university community to participate in the Culinary Memories Literary Contest. 

“We are not evaluating the work based on spelling,” she said. “We are simply evaluating the content of the work. We invite everyone to participate. It is something very lovely that unites students, professors and staff.”

–Translated by Itzel Rivera