Way before social media, hepa street food and dumbed-down politics, we would build our adventures from food. Back then, ang masarap, masarap talaga. And they didn’t have to cost a fortune. You could never fake, hype or plasticize sarap. While every palate is different, home is almost always where the ultimate sarap is, even if nothing stops us from discovering other homes where good food also reigns supreme.
My comfort food is the simplest piping-hot meaty soup dishes–like my top favorite chicken tinola soup–swimming in a huge bowl of fragrant steamed rice. One day, my cousin Ate Leila won my palate over to my first oven-fresh Kamuning pan de sal with a very liberal amount of Dari Creme butter melting slowly in it while dunked inside a mug of hot black coffee. We tried pairing the pan de sal with Lily’s peanut butter, Reno liver spread, and coco jam, but it was that date with our trusty ol’ Dari Creme that we both always looked forward to.
But we also loved our summer get-togethers with our Lolo Fred and Lola Ondeng . Along with other cousins, summer to us is reminiscent of a small barrio community transforming into one giant kitchen where neighbors would come together to share the season’s best harvests. Over the faint glow of the lone electric post and the full moon, one by one the manangs and tatangs would surprise us with their hearty versions of pinipig, unday-unday and other kakanins, the freshest catch for that day, salabat and kape, along with the sweetest corn, mangoes, sineguelas and other fruits of the season.
But the manangs’ sons and daughters loved it best and laughed the hardest when they could trick some of us cousins into eating field mice or frog meat and game hiding as chicken cuts. Or some bug served as crunchy snack. But my favorite remains the newly-caught plump river fish flavored with farm-to-table malunggay pods and other farm-fresh vegetables next to free-range native (sometimes accidental pet) chicken with freshly picked green papaya and turmeric.
It didn’t take long for me to discover street food when proceeding summers took us grown-ups away from the allure of small-town vacations and into our university days of drudgery. Taft, Mendiola and surrounding eskinitas became instant food courts as the student in me made the streets of Manila its bigger classroom. Their names escape me now, but I’m forever grateful for my Monday Kikoman-seasoned sweet ginilings, Tuesday tokneneng tempuras (ehem), Wednesdays at Ma-Anne’s carinderia before its rat-tail scandal, Thursday tusok-tusok with fish balls, and the occasional Friday isaw at Mang Larry’s in UP where I would meet fellow tibaks.
If for some stroke of luck or miracle that close friends Gorio, Jano and I would have extra cash, we would head straight either to Pizza Hut or Shakey’s in between attending a protest rally. Wendy’s french fries and iced tea meant instant celebrations for our dates. Last days of press work with fellow campus writers are causes for beer-spirited celebrations ala Oktoberfest–and more late nights!
On weekends, my tummy would yearn for real home-cooked meals to fortify it for the struggles ahead. And everything is right again in my small world.
TRAVEL LIGHT 