“Food brings people together on many different levels. It’s nourishment of the soul and body; it’s truly love.” – Giada De Laurentiis, chef, author & restaurateur
(Second of two parts)
As mentioned in my previous column, I’ve asked my friend Michaela Fenix to share her favorite childhood food. This is her piece.
Like Neny Regino, I also look back to what my Lola (grandmother) cooked as part of my childhood cherished food memories.
Josefa Reyes Malixi took care of my sisters and I (we were just four then out of eight later) when my parents had to go abroad for my father’s medical treatment.
In my book, “Country Cooking: Philippine Regional Cuisines” (Anvil Publishing, 2014), I began her story with her calling us to the table. She would shout “Vamos!” and for a long time, before I studied Spanish in high school, I thought that meant, “Let’s eat!”
That time with Lola Pitang, as she was called by others, exposed me to provincial cooking even if we lived in Quezon City. She would slaughter live chicken in the open area outside the kitchen and I witnessed one headless chicken that escaped her grasp running around. Her tinolang manok (chicken stew) always included the unhatched eggs but my sisters and I waited until our Lolo had his share before we attacked the eggs and liver. When there were more hands needed to prepare for Christmas lunch with all the families, she recruited me at four years old to stir the haleyang ube (purple yam jam) as well as the mayonnaise she made from scratch. That would always merit a slap on the hand if this four-year-old became tired but she knew when to excuse me from the task.
Her food was always so good that her sons sometimes timed their visit to be part of lunch or dinner. One son always brought unusual ingredients, at least to me, for her to cook like pabuka (eel).
She knew how to cook seafood because her Reyes family from Bataan owned fishponds where shrimps and crabs also abound.
The memory I cherish most was watching her take her coffee with milk (from the bottle left by a carabao caretaker at the fence every morning). She would dip her pan de sal slathered with butter into her coffee. I was always beside her looking at her coffee ritual waiting for her to share her pleasure with me. And she knew and understood and always gave me a bite of her buttered pan de sal dipped in her coffee with milk.
I would never be a good cook like her. But she recognized my more cooking astute sister by teaching her the intricacies of deboning chicken, for instance. My ninang, Nora Daza, told me that Lola never shared any of her recipes. It wasn’t being selfish, I thought. She just had no time to tell you how much salt, sugar, etc. goes into the cooking. She never measured. She tasted and then adjusted.
But I do remember the last time she cooked. She had just finished our holiday treat of baked chicken and ham and was so tired that she rested on a wall of the dining room then slowly slipped her body down only to break her hip. She had a hip replacement but never recovered from that.
I will always be grateful for my experience with Lola which probably made me appreciate the art of cooking early on. And isn’t writing about cooking, Philippine cooking in particular, as important as cooking the food?
