My mom and I are standing in front of our lighted stove, waiting for the cooking oil to boil. With a bowl of pinipig on her left hand, she then sprinkles a handful of pinipig into the saucepan with her right. We then watch each grain momentarily sink into the boiling oil, only to rise to the top and reborn as popped pinipig. The raw pinipig is just flattened rice, usually of the glutinous variety that is harvested two weeks before maturity, and the cooked pinipig is called pahabok nga pinipig - from the Hiligaynon word habok, meaning to swell or to balloon.
After its baptism in boiling cooking oil, pinipig has become crunchier and softer to eat. For me, this is a new treat to try with my tablea tsokolate, but for my mom, it has been turned into something sentimental.
Since the enhanced-quarantine days, we never had the chance to get some pinipig at home, and it's not by accident that we suddenly have a bowl now.
Just the day before, I was pounding this bowl of pinipig on a lusong, or wooden mortar, in order to flatten them after they were roasted over low fire. They are popular as toppings for desserts, but for our family, pinipig is so much more than just a topping. The rice I helped pound on the lusong using the hal-ong (alho in other dialects), or wooden pestle, was from the dinorado rice harvest of the farmers of the Mailum Organic Village Association in Bago City, Negros Occidental, who came to sell and showcase their organic produce at the Slow Food Earth Market at Casa A. Gamboa, the ancestral home of the late Doreen Gamboa Fernandez.
And how did I end up here? The late Doreen Gamboa Fernandez was the reason.
Doreen Gamboa Fernandez was a teacher, prolific writer, columnist and, according to the New York Times, the greatest champion of Filipino food. She passed away in 2002.😢
Recognized as one of the 100 Filipinos who shaped the arts from 1898 to 1998, Doreen Fernandez was a cultural and food historian. She was a foodie even before the word was invented, and in her memory and honor, the Doreen Gamboa Fernandez Food Writing Award was organized. That's the writing competition I joined last year and the winners were announced just three months ago; I was one of them.😎
For years, I mostly wrote in my blog about Korean dishes that provided me comfort and solace during stressful days at work in Seoul because, sadly, the Pinoy carinderias there were only open on Sundays. I only wrote about the native Pinoy delicacies, not really to promote them, but as a way for me to reminisce in words the joy they brought me when I was home in the Philippines. So when I learned about the Doreen Gamboa Fernandez Food Award and the theme for the competition was "roots, fruits and vegetables", I decided to join with an entry about my sentimental story about kolo, or breadfruit (read essay here).
Grateful for this win, I decided to pay homage to Doreen Fernandez, and what better way to do that was visit her ancestral home in Silay City during the Earth Market, and write about it!
Doreen Gamboa's niece, Ms. Reena Gamboa, and the Slow Food Community members organize the monthly Earth Market where fruit and vegetable vendors from organic farms, makers of canned native delicacies, local chefs, organic coffee makers, and Slow Food advocates assemble to encourage the local communities to patronize farmers' produce, and where locals enjoy the traditional dishes as well as learn about the Slow Food movement that "envisions a world in which all people can access and enjoy food that is good for them, good for those who grow it and good for the planet."
How appropriate it is that the Earth Market is held, not only in Doreen Fernandez's ancestral home, but also in Silay City whose people really know how to celebrate its rich culinary heritage.
Aside from its many Silaynon families that still make popular native delicacies, Silay City is where ambulant vendors gather at its public market early in the morning to source the delicacies, snacks and edibles that they sell at neighboring cities and municipalities. It was also in Silay City where my mom and I once satisfied our cravings for the native delicacies like fresh lumpia, panara, empanada, and salab at the Kaon Ta (Let's Eat) food festival in Silay City held at the Balay Negrense (read blog here).😍
Had she been to the Earth Market, Doreen Fernandez would have enjoyed the traditional dishes, bought organic produce and bottled preserves, savored Mr. Chris Fadriga's award-winning dark chocolates, quizzed Chef Vincent Abawan as he demonstrated how to cook the Ilonggo dish kusahos, and perhaps, even led the conversations about food.
She may be gone, but part of her legacy reminds us that we keep alive traditions and celebrate the Filipino cuisine with the young generations.
Now, as my mom and I are about to enjoy our pahabok nga pinipig, she recalls that during the old days, our elders enjoyed this type of pinipig by pouring over it warm tablea tsokolate, a habit they must have brought with them from Jaro, Iloilo, when they decided to start a new life in the Negros island more than a century ago.
My mom's tablea tsokolate and her pahabok nga pinipig, along with the Filipino dishes we always enjoy, are the tastes and flavors of the past, having been enjoyed and taught to us by our elders whom we continue to remember and celebrate every time we enjoy these ourselves.
Kaon 'ta! Let's eat!😋
(Photos of my Mom's tablea tsokolate, pahabok nga pinipig, and the Slow Food Earth Market events)
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