Every Thursday morning in Colombia, the Montoya Posada family would gather in their grandma’s house. Over 20 people spending their time together and most importantly, cooking lunch.
Elon senior Camila Montoya Posada was born and raised in Medellín, Colombia, in a culture where cooking is a large part of their identity. The first time she helped in the kitchen was at six years old.
“I’m sure before that if I wasn’t actively helping I was there sitting somewhere, just watching,” Montoya Posada said. “You grow up around it, and it becomes such an integral part of your life.”
Some Thursdays, Montoya Posada’s mom would let Camila and her sister skip school to help prepare food and spend extra time with their grandma, knowing how important it was to create these memories.
One of her favorite memories from these Thursdays is preparing and eating bandeja paisa. A traditional Colombian platter is made with rice and beans, sometimes mixed with ingredients like fried egg, plantains, avocados, tomatoes and chicharrón — fried pork belly. It takes hours to prepare, but Montoya Posada said it is “one of the most delicious things ever.”
She said those memories are what inspired her to start El Centro’s in-person cooking classes called “Vamos a la Cocina,” meaning “Let’s go to the kitchen.” Montoya Posada started these classes her sophomore year to give students a hands-on way to learn about Hispanic cooking and culture.
“I realized that we didn’t have any type of cooking program and I was like, ‘Hello?’ This is the biggest part of our culture,” Montoya Posada said.
Each class’s dish comes from El Centro’s Hispanic country of the month, the organization’s way to highlight the wide range of Hispanic culture across countries. Music from the country fills the kitchen, and classes start with a history lesson and overview of the dish. The cooking classes are a food-fueled way for students to learn about a country and culture that may be unfamiliar.
“A lot of the people that come to the classes aren’t Latinx or Hispanic, and that is no problem at all,” Montoya Posada said. “It’s actually the reason why we wanted these classes. It’s to bring more people into our culture and some of the experiences that we share.”
Senior Izzi Gorden is a friend of Montoya Posada and said she enjoyed the welcoming atmosphere of the class. Gorden said she isn’t as knowledgeable about Hispanic culture as her friend, but the class uses food to expose attendees to the culture and bring people out of their comfort zone.
“I just wanted to try something different, and it’s a good way to learn about other people’s cultures,” Gorden said. “I feel like the classes themselves bring in people from different ones. Like there would be people from Hispanic culture, or sometimes you have some frat guys that come into these classes. It pulls in a very large audience.”
Gorden said she attends other El Centro events like the Open House or Hispanic Heritage Month Kickoff. She said that the environment is always welcoming, no matter the background of attendees.
Each class lasts about an hour, so Montoya Posada said there’s no time to make bigger dishes like bandeja paisa.
The dishes can be desserts like alfajores, Argentinian cookies stacked on top of each other with dulce de leche stuffed between them, and covered in powdered sugar.
Sometimes classes will cook traditional dishes, including arepas and empanadas. Arepas are thin, cornmeal pastries from Colombia, stuffed with meats and cheeses. Empanadas are made across multiple countries, and Montoya Posada makes sure to teach the differences across cultures across multiple lessons.
Senior Hannah Bliss is roommates with Montoya Posada and has gone to a few classes both to support her friend and to learn more about Hispanic culture and food. Bliss said that she’s seen the work Montoya Posada puts into the classes during the lesson and when preparing.
“Living with her, I know the kind of effort she puts into her classes,” Bliss said. “Making her own cookbook and planning out exactly what she’s going to need a week in advance.”
Montoya Posada said she wanted to really get students involved in the classes, everyone getting the chance to mix ingredients and make the dish themselves. When things go wrong, she’ll jump in to help fix it. One time a large group of students showed up to class, more than she was expecting, but she still made sure everyone was included in the cooking.
“It was really cool to see everybody just buddy up like ‘We’re going to do this together, and we’re going to make it work,’” Montoya Posada said. “I thought that was a really cool moment that really does remind me of how we do it back home and how much of a reflection of our culture that is.”
She said that when she was starting the cooking class she wanted to avoid it being a demonstration and that the interactivity is one of the biggest compliments she’s gotten about the classes.
Montoya Posada said she loves to see students’ reactions to the food they made, often taking photos of the completed dish.
“It’s without a fault, at least two or three people will be like, ‘I’m sending a picture to my mom,’” Montoya Posada said. “It’s really interesting, so I think it just makes them really proud that they were able to cook something new on their own.”
Students can sign up for Vamos a la Cocina through the link in El Centro’s Instagram profile, @elcentroelon. The first class of the fall semester is Sept. 28.