New cookbook celebrates recipes and travels of Denver’s new immigrants

Using only her fingertips, newcomer Lila Ilarraza from Venezuela flips round cakes of dough over the stove, until they are crispy on both sides.

Ilarraza traditionally ate these arepas for breakfast (or any meal, really) in his hometown of San Felipe.

With the help of an assistant professor from the University of Denver, Ilarraza and other immigrant chefs are sharing nostalgic recipes from their home countries in a new cookbook that captures their newfound perspective in Denver.

“My mother always told me to stand next to her when I was cooking so you could see,” Ilarraza said, “and that with love, everything will be fine.”

“When we center community testimony, liberatory praxis occurs.”

Dr. Roncoroni, a psychologist and associate professor at the University of Denver, is co-author of the cookbook with her husband, Delio Figueroa.

“Cocina Libre: Immigrant Resistance Recipes” features 35 recipes and testimonials from immigrants living in Denver. The book features people from a variety of countries, including Peru, Ukraine, Mexico, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Guatemala. (You can buy it here.)

Proceeds from the book’s sales will benefit the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, which focuses on advocacy for the rights and well-being of immigrants across the state.

“Centering community testimony creates a liberating practice,” Roncoroni says. “We love through food, we care for each other through food, we grieve through food. Cooking together and sharing meals was an identity-affirming practice.”

A native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Roncoroni has worked closely with immigrant communities for many years through her research on culturally sensitive healthcare and health promotion.

Though Roncoloni and Figueroa had never written or published a cookbook before, they asked immigrants to share recipes that expressed their individuality as a way to see another side of people who live in the shadows.

“It erases the power differentials,” Roncoroni explained of the process of connecting with people as a physician and higher education instructor. “When you cook with people, the power differentials disappear and disappear, and I think that’s where the space for storytelling comes in.”

In Roncoroni’s kitchen, Irraraza chops cilantro and boiled eggs for the arepa filling.

“Do you remember the first time you made arepas?” I asked.

“Yes,” Ilarraza said, “I broke up in a triangle.”

“It came out as a triangle,” we laughed.

Share your travel stories

Cocina Libre started largely by word of mouth, Roncoloni said.

Many of the chefs featured in the cookbook, including Carlos Blanco, Ingrid Encalada Latorre and Victor Galván, have previously shared their stories publicly.

“It’s really scary to talk about your story when you’re at risk of deportation,” Roncoroni said, “so I think it’s helpful for some of them to say, ‘OK, it’s OK to share your story, and you can be a really powerful example for people who haven’t shared their stories yet.'”

In the book, Ilarraza, who will mark her one-year anniversary in Denver in September, recounts the story of her journey to the U.S., where she trekked through the dangerous Darien jungle and rode aboard La Bestia with her two daughters, one of her daughters’ boyfriends and two nieces.

“We had only God guiding us along the way, no one else,” Ilarraza wrote.

Gabriela Medina, a health educator from Mexico City who now lives in Westwood, described her recipe for the Impossible Dessert (half chocolate cake, half flan) as a fusion of two sides of her life: as a daughter in Mexico City and as a wife and mother of two in Denver.

“Being an immigrant is hard, and no one wants to be in that position,” Medina said. “They see us as thugs, or as if we’re here to take what other people have, but we’re not. We’re here to work, to create, and to pay taxes.”

Remembering loved ones through food

Like many of the chefs Roncoloni spoke to, the food at Cocina Libre is a nostalgic memory for Illarraza.

The smell of arepas transports her back to Venezuela, and it’s like an exercise in remembering loved ones.

She dreams of one day opening a beauty salon and restaurant.

“I know that by the grace of God I can make it,” Ilarraza said. “I know that by the grace of God I can make it.”