Sones jaroches, a genre of Mexican music, floated out of the Chancellor’s Dining Room 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5.

The crowd filling the room enjoyed the food and culture of Latin American countries while listening to sones jaroches singer La Negra Graciana, from Veracruz, Mexico.

The event was part of the monthly Hispanic Culinary Arts and Culture Show, sponsored by N.C. Central University’s department of modern foreign languages.

The program featured several professors from the department.

John Harrington, department chair, said the purpose of the program was to make learning more interesting.

“What can be a dry experience in the classroom comes to life,” said Harrington.

Marco Polo Hernandez Cuevas, an associate professor in the department, demonstrated his culinary skills

He served empanadas, pouches of fried bread filled with meat and vegetables.

He also showed the audience how to make salsa, while teaching them about the countries that he said are “known wrongly as Latin America.”

Johnny Webster, associate professor of Spanish, and Cristina Rodriguez Cabral, assistant professor of Spanish, also spoke.

Rodriguez Cabral is the first black Uruguayan to receive a doctorate.

She talked about the tendency of people to focus more on the Spanish influence on Latin America than the African influence.

“When I was a child, condumbe was the music from and for the blacks,” said Rodriguez Cabral.

Today everyone in Uruguay claims the condumbe genre of music.

Cabral also recounted her experience at a workshop where a professor said there were no blacks in Uruguay.

Rodriguez Cabral decided to take a stand and let the professor and others know that black Uruguayans do exist.

Webster, a Dominican Republic native, has written several books, articles and poems. He read a few poems and gave background information about his interest in black Hispanic poets.

While he was studying for his master’s degree, Webster realized that he was not hearing about any black poets in Hispanic America.

Jose Agudelo, visiting Spanish instructor, spoke briefly about his native country of Colombia.

Agudelo and his wife will speak more about Colombia at a future department-sponsored Culinary Arts and Culture Show. The students were enthusiastic after the event.

Social work junior Clementine Smith said she learned to appreciate food from another culture. “It was very good,” she said, adding that she plans to come to the next event sponsored by the department.