Crating Community through Cooking
Semester: Spring 2025
Praxis Course: SPAN 247: Gastropoetica Latinoamericana
Faculty Advisor: Juan Suárez Ontaneda
Field Site: Puentes de Salud, ACLAMO
Praxis Poster:
SPAN_Group 1 Poster- Elise, Maya, Karen, Sarah
Further Context:
Throughout the semester, our class has learned about the history and significance of food in Latinx communities. From corn, which is an indigenous crop central to Mesoamerican civilizations, to cacao, originally from southern Asia and spread through colonization. We’ve seen how food tells stories of migration, resistance, tradition, and memory. These crops are ingredients in many of today’s Latinx dishes. Just something as simple and essential like the corn tortilla.
As part of our learning, we visited Puentes de Salud, an organization that supports the Latinx immigrant community in Philadelphia. Our class through Praxis and this course created interactive projects to teach teenagers about staple crops like corn, yuca, plantains, quinoa, cacao, potatoes, beans, pineapple, coconut, and aji (chili pepper). We as a class designed fun group activities like drawing, games, and tasty snacks to introduce these ingredients and their cultural roots in a meaningful way.
After our first visit, during a group reflection with Puentes de Salud, we realized the kids were craving more than just activities; they wanted food so the next time, we delivered. Our class was divided into groups, where we each prepared a dish that highlighted one or more of the crops we studied. The food that we made included pico de gallo, guacamole, mangonadas, chocoflan, and tostadas de tinga. Our group picked tostadas de tinga which was a new and fun experience for us since it was our first time cooking together.
We followed a special recipe passed down from Karen’s mom who makes tostadas de tinga at least once every week. It’s a family favorite. We cooked everything in the ECC kitchen beforehand and brought it to Puentes de Salud, along with toppings that include lettuce, sour cream beans and queso cotija. One thing we learned while making it, is that if your tomato sauce comes out too acidic, a little sugar helps balance it out. Everyone was allowed to build their own tostadas. It was a creative and collaborative way to connect over food, allowing each child to make the meal their own. While we were reflecting at the end of this trip, one of the volunteers Lucia shared a memory that was really meaningful. She said that when she first reunited with her mother in the U.S., she saw a small window with the kitchen light on. Inside, her mother stood at the stove with the stove on and a pan of tinga chicken. She hadn’t had tinga since then. The tostadas de tinga brought that memory rushing back to her.
What started as a class praxis project became something deeper. It became a shared experience rooted in tradition, storytelling, and community. Recipes are more than instructions, they’re bridges between generations. They stay with us for life. Cooking and eating together at Puentes de Salud wasn’t just fun, it was healing as well. It was a reminder that food keeps us grounded in our own cultures and how food also opens doors to understanding others. Through tostadas de tinga, we honored Karen’s family recipe, celebrated the kids’ curiosity, and brought someone back to a memory of home. And that? That’s the real power of food.