“¡Buen provecho!” Ms. Vanessa Zamudio said to her students before digging into Mi Pueblito’s authentic Colombian food. “Buen provecho” is Spanish for “enjoy your food.”

Students ate traditional Colombian foods such as empanadas, arepas, arroz con pollo, and bistec encebollado for their class, “Sabores Latinos.”

“Many of our students come back later because they didn’t know about the place, but once they have the experience, they come back and they bring their families,” Ms. Zamudio said. “So that’s my favorite part, that people are actually learning, exploring their community and learning from the diversity that we have here in Houston.”

Before going to Mi Pueblito, the students took a trip to the store Fiesta Mart, where they took part in a scavenger hunt to find authentic Latino foods and ingredients. 

“I think the field trips were very fun, and it’s nice to see different cultures,” said sophomore Rohan Yalamanchili.

“Sabores Latinos,” co-taught by Ms. Zamudio and Ms. Christina Cepeda, was created to enrich students in Latin cuisine and the history of the food. 

“This class is a lot about heritage and how food is connected to traditions and to the stuff we do in our daily lives, so Latinos, we are the largest minority in the U.S. now, and I think that most of our students know about Tex-Mex food, but not necessarily Latino food,” Ms. Zamudio said. “We are trying to obviously open the door for them to come and try new things but also to link that food with the tradition that we have and the history that we have in our heritage.”

Another field trip the students had was an opportunity to go to a supermarket called La Michoacana. 

“That was our first trip, and then we’ve had like food from La Michoacana,” junior Princess Nwora said. “We had tamales that our teacher picked up for us to eat.”

Many of the students had great takeaways from this class, not only from the field trips to supermarkets and restaurants but also from the lessons inside the classroom.

 “I learned about a lot of different types of food and where it comes from. For example, corn comes from Mesoamerica and like potatoes and tomatoes,” Rohan said.