This is how lunch is served visitors in old Capampangan households. Aside from the Christmas season, summer is usually the time we entertain the most, with the Lenten holidays, fiestas and the long vacation bringing in family and friends.

The kitchen is always a beehive of activity. The large pots and pans are taken out from where they are kept most of the year. Special recipes are lavished with all the love it takes to cook them.

Guests often leave fully satisfied and eager to come back. After all, Capampangans are known for their hospitality, as well as for the cooking that goes with it.

Each time I am asked where the best Capampangan food can be found, I am at a loss for words. There is no single place, nor a single town or even a district that has a monopoly over good cooking. Even towns that are famous for specific specialties (ex: tamales from Cabalantian in Bacolor) are most probably known for these because they are successful in selling them.

Many restaurants and chefs are also offering Capampangan dishes and these are very well-accepted but these have already been adapted to the mainstream market.

The best of Capampangan cuisine is served in private homes. This summer, several Pampanga houses are opening their doors to welcome visitors and introduce them to their specialties. One of the families are the Gosioco’s who still live in a large, vernacular house of around 150-years old (picture above).

Karlo the Sleepy Traveler and cultural tourism specialist Alquimista, Inc. are organising coordinating to organise the day trip. Yours truly will be one of the resource persons. E-mail Karlo (karlodeleon@gmail.com) to reserve a slot for the 14 April tour.

Tuesday evening, I get a phone call from an excited Mrs. Lillian Borromeo. A leading TV network will be taping a segment at her home in Mexico, Pampanga and she needs a few one-pot meal recipes that make use of rice as a main ingredient.

Rice, the staff of life in this part of the world. How very Filipino, how very Asian. We find no difficulty listing recipes and then proceed to eliminate those that are too common and those that require too much effort. The eminent people on the dining table (meaning my mother and aunts) help us with the listing, perhaps giving us a wide range of choices that date back to the Second World War. You can imagine how long a list we had – given the length and depth of history we had collectively, hehehe!

Rice is known to have been present in the Philippines since pre-historic era. From that time to this day, rice is not only an everyday staple, but figures in our major celebrations and rituals.

Rice is such a versatile ingredient that it not only serves as backbone of every Filipino meal but can be found in different forms: as a contrast to savoury food, dessert, snacks and what have you.

For the taping, Mrs. Borromeo and I decided on the classic celebratory biringhe, the less common lelut tugac, the historical quisa and a few others. For today’s recipe, we bring you lelut tugac, which is said to be a restorative for those who are sick since it is rich in carbohydrates and protein.

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One of the reasons I so love digging for old recipes is the joy I derive out of discovering new tastes. Or should I say old tastes that are so new to me, the child of the convenience food generation. One of the old-new dishes that I have had recently is cooked out of the whole garlic plant (Allium sativum).

I didn’t realise young garlic bulbs were cooked until my mother brought home a huge bunch from the marketplace and said we were having something my grandmother cooked often. I don’t remember having tasted anything like it, and since I was the kitchen assistant – meaning, in charge of chopping and slicing – it might mean she cooked this way before I was capable of kitchen duty. According to my mother, it was more likely that Lola cooked it way before I was born because she doesn’t remember having had it in at least three decades.

The Western recipes that I have perused only use garlic bulbs while Eastern cuisine utilise garlic leaves. Chinese, Vietnamese and Cambodian recipes very often make use of garlic leaves. The recipe that follows is distinctly Asian, with the use of tofu clearly showing Chinese influence.

Alpa is the generic Capampangan term for sautéed vegetables, usually without vinegar. The Tagalog equivalent would be ginisang gulay. A fast and easy way to utilise vegetables, alpa is everyday food and evokes many warm memories for many Capampangans.

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