“A special sauce? Don’t we just have patis with pesa?” my cousin Beng asked.

Patis if it’s served in a hurry but if not, it needs to have the tiltilan that goes with a proper pesa was the answer she got from the members of our clan’s Kitchen Cabinet.

To be honest it is only recently that I have rediscovered the paniltilan but yes, I distinctly remember my grandmother served pesa with a red sauce on the side. This sauce was so fragrant and tasty, it could very well have been the only thing served.

But with all things tasty, let’s start from the top. What is pesa? Perhaps to Capampangans along and near the coastlines, pesa can only be fish, be it bulig, bangus, lapu-lapu or whatever. To others, it has further evolved to include other meats, chicken most especially. This is by no means a nuance in dialects but as a matter of fact, historical.
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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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One of the things one must remember when eating the food of another culture is to savour it on its own terms, never impose your own. That is me reminding myself, after having partaken of the Bacolod tinola (some say tinowa).

(I’m publishing with only the introductory write-up to force myself to deal with the backlog. I’ll be back in less than a month, tee hee!)