El Centro invites students and faculty to hands-on cooking workshop

On March 27 from 2:50 p.m. to 6 p.m., El Centro will be hosting a food workshop in Cal Poly Humboldt’s Food Sovereignty Lab. The workshop is only open for 20 individuals, with 15 spots available for students and 5 available for faculty. Anyone interested in attending must register before March 23 at noon through a google form.

The workshop will place a focus on beans and will begin with a powerpoint focused on food sovereignty and sustainable agricultural systems, such as the Milpa system. The presentation will then be followed by multiple hands-on demonstrations that will teach the attendants how to make different cultural dishes such as Salvadorian quesadillas, Columbian Arepas, pupusas, cafe de olla, and tacos de papa.

While the workshops will provide students with practical skills and knowledge, they also act as a way to expose a wider audience to different Latine cultures, and provide a space where people can feel at home with a larger community.

“I would love for students to know that,” said Leti Phillips Armenta, the food sovereignty and wellness student assistant at El Centro, as well as the primary organizer for the event. “To know that like on campus, if you do not feel that that’s the space for you, this is the space for you.”

The hands-on workshop is scheduled the day after El Centro’s Mercadito de Verdura which will take place on the campus’s upper quad on March 26, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Mercadito will allow students and faculty to obtain fresh produce and ingredients so that they have the ability to recreate the recipes they learn from the hands-on workshop on their own.