NC Folk Festival fundraiser puts area's international cuisine in the spotlight

The North Carolina Folk Festival is bringing back its Folk A'Fare fundraiser for the first time since 2019. 

Angelica Dearco Smith can trace her cooking career back to childhood in her native Colombia, where her father ran a stand selling savory pastries known as empanadas.

“I learned how to make empanadas with him,” she says. “So I was one of those kids who had to get up early, make empanadas, go to school, come back, help prep and get up in the morning, make empanadas again.”

Now she and her husband Stephen White run Sofrito Latin Innovation Kitchen in High Point. Empanadas are one of the biggest sellers on their menu, which also includes Puerto Rican, Venezuelan and Caribbean influences.

Sofrito Latin Innovation Kitchen is one of the restaurants taking part in Folk A'Fare, which will feature other cuisines from around the world that are served in the Greensboro area.

Amy Grossman is president and CEO of the North Carolina Folk Festival. She says highlighting the region's foodways works with the festival's mission to honor the creative ways that people celebrate their culture.

“Greensboro is known, it is a destination for international global cuisine and we're able to convene about 13 of those restaurants for one evening, where people can get a tasting of signature dishes from a lot of those folks,” she says.

Folk A'Fare is scheduled for May 11.