It was now past 11PM, cold but not freezing. The airport bus finally arrived at Hannam-dong in the Yongsan District, my home in Seoul. My plane from Manila just landed over an hour ago. It was time to go back to work; my Christmas vacation was over.
As I waited on the sidewalk for the bus driver to pull out my maleta from the luggage compartment of his bus, Seoul welcomed me with a drizzle.
Wanting to get out of the cold, I started dragging my 30-kilo luggage with my left arm while my 10-kilo hand-carry bag burdened my right shoulder.
The final leg (pun, intended!) of my journey to my home-away-from-home would require me to walk for 400 meters and traverse two pedestrian lanes that crisscrossed one of the busiest intersections in Yongsan. I was now very tired and hungry.😩
And as I stood alone waiting for the green light at the crossing, the exhaustion from my cargo was too much that I looked up to the dark winter skies, my face wet with mist, and wanted to wail as the honking city buses and cars drove past me.😢
I then realized that, among my clothes and shoes, were the prized contents of my bags: dried mangoes for my Korean friends, homemade brazo de mercedes from Tita Gamay, Salazar hopia from Binondo, Mary Grace chocolate truffle cake (in a plastic container) and ensaimadas from my friend Cielo, piaya from Bailon's, Dolor's sapin-sapin, El Ideal's bread snacks, packs of tablea tsokolate, Manapla puto, and Tita Isa's dulce gatas!😁
Instead of crying, I started to chuckle!😅 I wasn't carrying ordinary cargo. I was carrying goodies from home! These weren't burden; these were delights!😄
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That was how these Philippine delicacies cheered me up in Korea. Even during freezing winter mornings in Seoul, when I couldn't go out because of heavy snowfall, I'd steam a pair of Manapla puto and melt tablea tsokolate in hot milk, and my day would feel warm and better.
At times, after a busy day in the office, I'd try to forget the stress and irritating office characters with a bar of Tita Isa's dulce gatas!
These flavors that reminded me of home always made me feel not so far away from home.
But now that I was, it was a delight to be 'reconnected' again with Tita Isa's dulce gatas!😊
Right in the middle of the 2023 Kaon Ta Festival at Balay Negrense in Silay City I met Tita Isa's daughter, Mrs. Sonia Javier-Tordesillas who has continued her mom's dulce gatas business. 'Tita Isa's Dulce Gatas' was one of the stalls of other Silaynon heritage recipes at the food festival. (According to my mom, it was Mrs. Sonia Tordesillas who took her orders when she phoned.😊)
And while the Silay rondalla was providing music to everyone, I told Mrs. Sonia Tordesillas that her Mom's dulce gatas was one reason I was at Kaon Ta!
And how did the story of Tita Isa's dulce gatas start?
According to one of her daughters, Sr. Vicenta Eloisa Javier, R.A., it all started with their Lola Hortensia 'Oten' Gamboa who made dulce gatas in the 1920s. With lots of sugar available in Negros plus the available supply of carabao's milk from their hacienda, it was easy to create such yummy delicacy. Back then, Lola Oten used milk cans as her dulce gatas containers.
In the 1950s, when Lola Oten felt she needed to turn over the dulce gatas business to the next generation, she passed it on to her niece, Eloisa 'Isa' Gamboa-Javier, who also added pili macaroons, merengue, pastel, and barquiron to her sweet creations.
It was her dulce gatas that stood the test of time and the discriminating taste of her customers. Although branded as "Tita Isa's Dulce Gatas", it is also called "mazapan de leche" when her sewing teacher, Señora Montserrat Viaplana, asked her to make some so she could bring this sweet delight to Spain as pasalubong. Tita Isa named dulce gatas as mazapan de leche for her Spanish consumers.
With Lola Oten's original recipe in the 1920s up to today, for a hundred years now, dulce gatas has been enjoyed by generations and has been a pasalubong to Spain, to Korea and to many other places and countries, I'm sure.
When I look back now, I'd chuckle again at those funny memories, but at the same time, I now have a bar to enjoy, and I know that any time, I could always order and travel to Silay City for those yummy Tita Isa's dulce gatas.
How about you? What are your sweet memories of Tita Isa's dulce gatas?😍
