If you ask around Grounds about the Lorna Sundberg International Center, you might receive some quizzical looks. But the center hopes to raise its profile this year by spotlighting foreign culture and cuisine, including a recent cooking demonstration by Cazon Tropical, a Central American restaurant.
The Lorna Sundberg International Center, a branch of the International Studies Office, focuses on the social and cultural aspect of the University’s dedication to internationalization.
Lauren Dobbs, a 2008 graduate of the College and current office manager of the Lorna Sundberg International Center, said the center is where “everyone can come together.” International guests of the University live together, prepare and eat meals together, and immerse themselves in their peers’ cultures at the center. Residents are known for their delectable meals, thanks to the many different cultural foods available at the center.
The center’s love of culture and food prompted it to offer a cooking demonstration by Cazon Tropical, a Central American restaurant, in late September. Dobbs said she helped organize the event because the center wanted to try a lot of new things this year — and what better way to bring people to the center than to offer free food?
“Food is one of the aspects we wanted to introduce as a fun cultural activity,” Dobbs said. She noted that food crosses cultural boundaries in a lot of ways, stating different cultures’ particular comfort foods as an example.
“Food is so common and we have to interact with it on a daily basis,” Dobbs noted, saying she enjoyed seeing everyone getting together through this commonality.
According to Dobbs, the center chose Cazon Tropical to host the demonstration because it is a “local restaurant, but with an international basis.”
Most of those attending the event had connections to the University’s Spanish program, and many of the Spanish teaching assistants and professors were in attendance.
Spanish students also came to the event in order to fulfill their cultural credit for their classes.
The owner of Cazon Tropical, D’Andry Then, made traditional foods such as pupusas and platanos fritos con crema. Pupusas are small wraps of dough that can be filled with anything from cheese to potatoes to pork, and platanos fritos are sweet, fried plantains.
“Spanish cultures gather around making food,” Asst. Spanish Prof. Daniel Chavez explained. “Some of this food requires much preparation with many people, sharing with neighbors and everyone around them.” This latter cultural element was maintained as the restaurant owner prepared food for the roughly 50 people gathered at the center.
The large group was split into two in order to provide a more personal atmosphere for the demonstration. During the wait, there were salsa lessons in the living room along with an unlimited supply of homemade salsa and tortilla chips.
After the demonstration and dancing, seemingly unending trays of food were brought into the dining room for all the visitors to try.
“I really liked trying foods that I never tasted before,” first-year College student Sydney Saunders said. “I really liked the yucca and pastelito.” The Central American food was a great break for the students who are used to typical dining hall food, she added.
The Lorna Sundberg International Center has already hosted many events this year, including a welcome back party for study abroad and exchange students and a dinner with French Prof. Majida Bargach, who hosted a Moroccan dinner for some former and current students. The center hopes to host more food-related events in the future, including more cooking classes, Dobbs said.