Easter Sunday or Pascung Pangasubling Mebie to Capampangans is traditionally celebrated like Christmas in homes. Food on the table approximates the Christmas feast but what I notice is how the food is more Filipino. Perhaps it has something to do with the summer season which makes it more appropriate to serve tropical food instead of Western temperate zone food which can stand our cool December climate.

In our beloved town of Sta. Rita, Easter morning breakfast consists of what dreams are made of. Many families would serve pistu, the requisite celebratory breakfast dish. This is paired with pandesal and a cup of suclating batirul with singlé duman. It is possible that some sopas would be available, also some ensaimada which might then be carried over to the minindal or the mid-morning snack.

Lunch would most probably consist of asado and a soup. Pochero might also be part of the meal, this time with meat instead of the pochero of Good Friday which is made with fish. Unlike in the Western tradition, our Easter meals are varied although there are patterns of seasonal cooking by town or region.

For merienda or the afternoon snack, my grandmother made lacatan or glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk and served with grated coconut (puto maya). What struck me even then was how it was so simple, almost austere compared to the back-breaking and very special bico of Good Friday when we were supposed to be fasting. My grandmother’s simple explanation was that the puto maya was symbolic (mibabague) of the white of the risen Christ.

Very interesting, and if I took it further down the line of literary analysis, it would be pregnant with meaning. White and austere = pure and simple. I really haven’t asked around to find out if this was just our household tradition my Lola started late in her life (because I remember it but my mother and aunties do not) or if it is something more customary.

Happy Easter!