The Pilgrim’s Pots and Pans

Mom and aunties scanning the restaurant's four menu offerings.

January is a month of birthdays for family and friends. I have at least five friends celebrating it this month. There’s one auntie and a cousin. Of course there’s yours truly too. It is like extending the Christmas feast for a month, the way things are going.

On the 15th was Auntie Dinah’s birthday. It has been sixteen (16) years she was home from Madrid and since she flew in on 19 December, was eagerly sampling native fare. Where would it be the place to take her than in a restaurant with native cuisine? Off we went to San Fernando and had a sumptuous lunch. Like any Saplala dine-out, we had the waiters scurrying to and from our table with requests for extra knives, saucers, condiments and whatever else made a meal more enjoyable.

True to form, as soon as we started on the dessert, they started planning for the next meal, the next day’s breakfast and eating out when my Auntie Vicky and Uncle Bert would fly in this month. Why true to form? That’s because planning the next meal and the next day’s meals is something we seem to do as a family when we get together. Not that it takes a reunion to accomplish that. My late grandmother used to start dinner cooking as soon as lunch was done.

Of course that was meant to be economical – not to waste the heat from the firewood while it was going. But in this age of automatic gas ranges and microwave ovens? Well, it is probably our way of keeping Lola’s traditions alive and of course, to better enjoy our time together.

The essay below was written in September 2005 for PinoyExpats. I thought of re-posting it here as a sort of reminder to finish the research that I have begun and to reconstruct what I lost when my PC crashed last year. Something to also distract Anne and Mike. They have complained that my last three posts are fake entries.

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What a fossil I am! I could be one of the last of my generation trained by grandmothers who were alive before the Second World War. Apprenticed by Lola the Keeper of Kitchen Traditions says a lot about my current cooking style. For starters, my sauté has garlic crushed with a mortar and pestle, not minced, no garlic press. There’s a difference in flavour and texture, mind you. Then there’s guisang saguíua and guisang mátusta, depending on what dish I’m preparing. There are a thousand and one ‘major’ and ‘minor’ rules of the Capampangan kitchen which I’ll discuss shortly.

But who am I kidding? I’ll bore myself to death if I did that. I can’t dazzle with recipes and cooking techniques. I’d rather talk about the little discoveries I learn from being a nosy brat. Example: Until around three decades ago, Capampangans did not eat tocino but they had pindang and this was of the best quality – venison, carabao meat, beef and pork. What happened? How did tocino (a.k.a. bucayong babi according to Lola) overtake the age-old pindang? Ah, my research is still unfolding. But this I know – Pampanga exported cured venison or pindang usa to China and Japan for a very high price even in pre-colonial times. Source? The early chronicles of Spaniards in the Philippines.
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One of the things that I have wanted to do since even before I started food blogging is to recreate the old-fashioned bibingka. Today’s rice cake is quite fluffy, almost like bread. I still dream of the bibingka from Da Luming’s stall, beside the San Vicente Chapel (in Sta. Rita, of course). It was thin, used pure galapong (ground rice), didn’t have much eggs and some didn’t even use any baking powder. The cake was chewy and light.

More than a year ago, I interviewed someone from Becuran (my grandmother’s barrio) who knew how the old-style bibingka were made. She confirmed that they indeed didn’t use much eggs, if at all.

Soon, soon… I hope to get right back to the research. I’m digging up all my notes now.

Now the world knows the miracle in Pampanga. Across the world, they were watching the proclamation of our Gov. Fr. Ed live. That is why the SMS I received the morning after the event was a bit disorienting. They were giving out food and groceries in San Vicente, it said.

Vote-buying after the elections? What in the world is happening?

No, it was not. Storekeepers in Sta. Rita town’s commercial area were giving out free food and drinks to their customers in thanksgiving for Friday evening’s momentous event. I didn’t know what to think. What was happening? When did it ever happen in the history of Sta. Rita?

I had to see for myself. And truly, there they were. It was unplanned, uncoordinated but as of press time, I have seen for myself that at least four establishments couldn’t wait for the town fiesta (22 May) to feed their customers and friends to celebrate Among Ed’s victory – their victory!
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What an event it was the other Saturday, 14 April! I expected a busload of curious culinary enthusiasts, eager to learn more about Pampanga’s cuisine. True enough, there was a family from Bicol who thought of doing the tour to learn about the food which seems to have reached mythical proportions in the realm of Philippine cuisine. What I was not prepared for was a handful of Capampangans hoping to better understand their roots.

Cultural appreciation through food! Isn’t that what I’m really advocating? Fantastic.

After a day eating and discussing the principles and little-known facts about Capampangan cuisine, what do our guests have to say about their tour?

Read all about it on Karlo’s blog.

There you have it! Indeed, a proper presentation of our cuisine, in its right context and a showcase of its evolution is much appreciated. Even with the heat of summer, the tour was such a success that not even a day passed when the organisers were already getting requests for succeeding trips. They just had to schedule another one.

The next trip will be on 5 May 2007. The details are also on the Sleepy Traveler’s announcement.

Some of you may have seen the tour featured on QTV 11’s Sapulso last Monday, 23 April 2007 at 10:00 p.m.