Lamud

Lamud is farmers' fare, eaten in homes located in the fields of the island of Negros. I have to note here that I'm not sure what is planted in the fields, because it is usually rice, but Negros is known for its sugar cane fields.

Not a lot of people know what lamud is. I have asked, and I have a lot of friends from Negros. I have gathered that not even a lot of people eat it today. For it is not appealing to our generation, who grew up on white refined rice, and burgers and fries.

It was just my luck that one very generous Negrense reader shared his thoughts, and brought my attention to this very unique, traditional Negrense food, partaken by his father's generation. You can read his very lively discussion in the Tagalog language in the comments section of my post about batwan.

Lamud is rice mixed with beans common in the region - kadyos (pigeon pea, Cajanus cajan). Kadyos is popularly known in Metro Manila as one of the three main ingredients in the Ilonggo dish KBL, or kadyos, baboy (pork), langka (jackfruit), in broth soured by batwan.

I promised to make lamud as soon as I got my hands on kadyos, which is not commonly found in Metro Manila, more so in Cavite (and non-existent in Pangasinan). I even dared the reader, who I christened Yang Chow Guy for his affinity to yang chow fried rice, preferring it over lamud, and another Ilonggo friend who knew about lamud from his father, to eat lamud, or risk being outdone by me, a non-Negros native.

I haven't heard from them since. But the forces of the universe conspired for me to have kadyos. For two weekends ago, another dear friend toured me around Quiapo, and what should I see at the Quinta market but a heap of kadyos pods, green and a little furry, and still very fresh.

[kadyos pods]

Beside it is a small shallow plastic bin of peeled beans, ready to be cooked. In my mind a bulb blinked on, and shone like a spotlight that was difficult to ignore. So I bought three plastic cupfuls at Php15 each, and mixed half of it with a cup of rice as soon as I got home. The other half went to KBL that was soured with tamarind, since there was no batwan to be found.

The beans were soft, since they were freshly shelled, as soft as peas, and as big. They had a greenish, red violet/deep maroon hue, which proceeded to leach out to the rice when cooked. The cooked beans lost their sheen and vibrant color, and, frankly, looked like fat garapata (sorry, I'm not going to translate that).


Kadyos has no distinctive taste, and so the lamud didn't taste any different from ordinary steamed rice. The only distinguishing features were, first, the color, which was marbled violet, and second, the texture, which had soft bean-y punctuations.

But over-all these two didn't interfere, or make any more distinct, my enjoyment of my meal that dinner. It looked very similar to the red or brown mountain rice of Northern Luzon, though not as rough. I put a premium to it, more than how I value whole grain rice, knowing it is laden with fiber, and probably vitamins and minerals that fruits and vegetables naturally have.

It made me think of the government drive early this year, when there was a global shortage of rice and the prices were uncontrollably shooting up, for Filipinos to add cubes of kamote to our kanin as an extender. To which I had no qualms, since I know for a fact that kamote is beneficial for children.

But it's easy to deduct the reasons for this generation shying away from lamud - the main one being that it's associated with the hard life, being rural fare. And most probably kadyos, when in profusion, is added to the pricier rice as an extender.

But for me kadyos is an added premium to lamud. It makes rice special. So lamud translates to special rice.

I am posting this today in celebration of the ongoing rice harvest, and in memory of our ancestors, who knew the value of the food sprung from the earth.

And for you, Yang Chow Guy, and to my former blockmate and now kumpare Gene, this is for you both. May you honor your unique heritage.

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It had been a crazy two weeks - I was caught up in a whirlwind of frenzied activity involving the kids, plus an out of town trip for me. My presence at the office had been erratic, and obviously I haven't had the time to update here regularly. Which was unfortunate, since during these two weeks I have had great finds, and I had compiled enough food photos to last a couple of months.

Anyhow, I'm back, and I'll try to upload regularly from my already crowded thumb drive, which had received quite a few unloadings from my camera. I'm still trying to organize things in my spanking new notebook (thanks to my Flynn, who made off with my laptop but replaced it with the latest model as a gift ;-) ).

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*Update, Nov. 3, 2008: A reaction last Saturday from a reader in Bacolod City indicated that the term lamud generally refers to a mix of anything.

The specific examples given were a "lamud of jackfruit or green papaya" for the cansi ingredients (Green papaya? Are you kidding me? I must have some!), or "the rice has a lamud of corn" for rice mixed with corn (I hope I got this right).

So I guess this specific lamud is rice with lamud of kadyos, kan-on nga may kadyos, or kan-on nga guinmikslahan kadyos, or something to that effect. Or KKK, for kan-on kag kadyos (rice and kadyos, or rice with kadyos).

I know I'm bound to get mixed up (pun intended), or commit unintended errors when dabbling in a culture not my own. So thank you for pointing things out, and for other corrections to come.


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Batwan

Durian

It's in the heat of the season, durian. Its uber-distinctive smell is everywhere, even in Manila, thousands and thousands of kilometers away from Davao where it is endemic.

The smell, the taste, is so forceful, as sharp as those spines sprouting from the skin of the fruit.

Ironically, the flesh - pulp - is pale, like butter, which is how it also tastes like, like garlic-infused butter, and the skin's color is also nondescript, relative to the bright-green skin and sunshiny-yellow pulp of the langka (jackfruit), to which it bears a semblance in taste and physical appearance.

When it comes to durian, people are segregated into opposing poles. They either adore it, or abhor it. It's part of the durian's mystique - such reverence, or disgust - can only be inspired by such a unique fruit.

*Blue plastic cord binds each durian for easier handling.

Pinaupong Manok sa Sabaw

It's been raining intermittently for weeks now. On some days when it's not wet, clouds blanket the sky from all points of the compass. There are rare days when the sun actually shines through, but the slant is not as vertical as what we are used to this close to the equator. I once ventured out at noontime on such a sunny day a few days ago, and only got a very mild sunburn.

And last weekend at the market I happened upon the last live native (free-range and organic) chicken being sold by a lone vendor. He told me he had fifteen live free-range chickens for sale that morning, but a buyer had purchased all but the one left. It was a hen, before having hatched eggs. And I thought, with the weather and all, everything conspired for a tinola (chicken in broth) on our table.

But not the tinolang native na manok I had as a child, during Sunday dinners with my paternal grandparents. Prior to last weekend I had been dying to try a new chicken soup, an Ilonggo tinola - supposedly how chicken soup is done by Ilonggos, or in the region where the Hiligaynon language is spoken, in southern Panay and northern Negros, in the Visayas region.

I didn't learn it from my numerous Ilonggo friends, though. I have a neighbor who came from Zamboanga, in the island of Mindanao, who told me about this chicken soup recipe she had picked up from the Ilonggos. So this is a cross-country chicken soup - recipe from Panay-Negros, taught by a Zamboanga native to a Pangasinense who cooked it in Cavite. Truly Filipino, spanning north and south and through the center.


Whereas tinolang manok uses cut-up chicken that is boiled in water with ginger and salt, this chicken soup - pinaupong manok - uses stuffed whole chicken boiled in just salted water. But both are best with free-range, organic chicken, because they are cooked with minimal seasoning - just enough, and specific enough, to bring out the chicken's full flavor and essence.

The emphasis is on live, free-range chicken, because anything native loses flavor when frozen. I had been on the look-out for them. There are frozen, dressed native chicken sold in groceries, but I might as well have used broiler or white-leghorn (the term for mass- and commercially-produced chicken), which is cheaper at Php130 per kilo. I bought the live native chicken for Php220, while frozen, dressed organic chicken is sold for Php500-600 per kilo. Frozen native chicken and broilers have the same bland taste.

Pinaupong manok literally translates as chicken that was made to sit down. This is because the whole chicken is made to "sit down" in the cooking pot. Actually it is on its hands and knees, or rather on its wings and knees. The chicken is rubbed all over, inside and out, with coarse (sea) salt, and a bunch of lemongrass is stuffed inside the chicken cavity. It is put inside a deep pot, wings and legs resting on the bottom. The pot is then filled with water half-way up the level of the chicken.

[Lemongrass in a tight bundle]

The chicken is cooked over medium heat for about two hours, or a little under an hour if using a pressure cooker, although slow-cooking brings out the flavor better. The cooking will take longer - about an hour more - if using cull, or chicken past its egg-laying stage.

When the chicken is tender, a bunch of young sili leaves is added to the pot, putting back the lid but turning off the fire. I added chopped sayote fruit to up the vegetable content. This is best eaten steaming hot on a rainy evening, with patis, kalamansi and sili on the side, to be mixed and added according to individual tastes.

Pinaupong manok, in soup, is wholly different from tinola, in that it doesn't have the taste of ginger that is the distinct characteristic of the latter. Pinaupong manok is peppery from the sili leaves, fully infused with the flavor of native chicken, with a slight tang from the lemongrass. A certain sweetness was provided by the sayote I put in the pot.

An invigorating soup to ease aching bones and enliven tired minds. Bring on the rains and the cold winds.

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The Heart of Cooking

Fresh banana heart and blossoms are full of sap, which leach out when they are cooked, transforming everything else cooked with them. Whereas the raw heart and blossoms are vividly-colored, when cooked they turn pasty.

The most common way of cooking banana heart (the innermost core) and blossoms (the young banana flowers that turn into fruit) is by adding them as vegetables to the Filipino special dish kare-kare, a stew of oxtail, beef skin and tripe in a peanut sauce, eaten with bagoong alamang (salted krill).

The blossoms are also dried, and traditionally added to pata tim - pork hock stewed in vinegar, soy sauce, garlic and bay leaf.

In Pangasinan, it is cooked into a vegetable dish where it is one of two main ingredients, the other one being saluyot. The chopped blossoms and heart core are boiled with the saluyot in water seasoned with ginger and bagoong (salted fermented anchovies). To contrast with the saltiness a souring agent is added, usually pias (kamias, Averrhoa bilimbi).

My in-laws substitute santol when their pias tree is bereft of fruit. I've quite taken to this concoction, so I always have puso'y ponti tan saluyot with santol when it is santol season, and it is what is in photo above.

The combination of banana blossoms and santol is a potent one - guaranteed to make knives and fingers sticky and marked with striations of indelible sap that turns black in a few minutes. Good thing, though, the cooked dish is not. The sap only turns the soup milky, the acidity of the santol mellowed down with the cooking process.


Another common use of chopped fresh banana blossoms and heart core is in inselar a bangus - sinigang na bangus, milkfish in soured broth. Here the souring agent used is again santol (the chopped fruit was not submerged in water after peeling it so it has "rusted" in color).

The number of ingredients is sparse - just the chopped banana blossoms and heart core, the souring agent, the milkfish and a thumb-sized piece of ginger. Choice of seasoning is also bagoong, but it can be just salt. All ingredients are showcased as main ones here - enjoying that thick belly fat and milky flesh means also enjoying - side by side - the sappy chopped fruits in the soup.

The pairing of the banana heart and santol is a traditional and classic one - I don't remember eating bangus and banana heart soured with any other acidic fruit. But I didn't like it growing up - it had been too sappy for me. It is only now that I've taken back to eating it, especially since banana hearts are so common in Cavite, where you can buy the entire heart, or just the heart core.

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Puso'y Ponti

[Puso ng saging/banana heart and blossoms]

The banana heart, just like the human heart, is so vibrantly blood-red when fresh. The blossoms - those that form into bananas - are yellow, already giving an indication of their transformed sweet selves.

The packaging of the banana blossoms is quite interesting - already arranged in a bunch, but layered upon a red, triangular water-proof "skin." These "packets" of blossoms overlap one another in a round manner, forming the heart. The red triangular skins wrinkle and drop off to the ground in succession as the blossoms develop into fruits. The outermost packets develop first, the heart elongating as the innermost blossoms grow and become the bottom bunches.

[Floral bananas]

The red, water-proof skins are peeled off from the banana heart one by one. The banana blossoms underneath each skin are dewy, the skins thin and "frilled" at the bottom. Inside each blossom is a single "needle," with rounded tips like double-ended matchsticks. These are removed from the blossoms before cooking.

[Utel na puso/kaibuturan ng puso ng saging/heart core]

The innermost packets are so thin and tightly packed they don't have blossoms in them. They are also pale, making the heart core banana-yellow, with barely noticeable traces of red at the bottom. At this depth the skins are no longer peeled. For cooking, this core is sliced thinly and included with the harvested blossoms.

Sandwiches at Starbucks Philippines

It impressed me that the sandwiches carried by Starbucks in the United States have a loyal following. There was news a few months ago that the sandwiches were going to be pulled out, because their aroma gets in the way of a proper, unadulterated coffee smell that management wants pervading SB outlets. A reversal of the decision was welcomed by customers, including my blogging by mail benefactor, Mrs. L of Pages, Puck & Pantry.

I guess the sandwiches are made on Starbucks premises, to be considered destructive to the coffee smell. It was serendipitous that I was munching on an SB breakfast sandwich - my very first, a hungarian sausage and egg on ciabatta, and surprisingly a good one - when I read Mrs. L's reaction to the update that SB sandwiches were going to stay.

It made me take a second look at the sandwiches carried by Starbucks outlets here in the Philippines. I've had most of their pastries and cakes, and I've unhappily run out of anything good to eat there. So I welcomed the idea of exploring the sandwiches, promising to document them, as a sort of McDonalds index since SB is everywhere around the world, albeit of a higher end sort.

Starbucks Philippines does not its make its own sandwiches, though, nor any other food items it carries, aside from the beverages. The sandwiches, pastries and cakes - appearing uniformly across the country - are outsourced to several local suppliers, and just warmed (except the cakes) upon order. So no news here whatsoever about discontinuing the serving of any food, just the slowing down of the opening of new outlets.

Starbucks Deli on Baguette with 8 cold cuts (square ham, florentner, beef pastrami, mortadella, chicken ham, beef salami, lyoner, meat loaf), with cheese, lettuce, horseradish mayo and hot mustard. The signature lunch sandwich (Php140, about US$3).

This was the sandwich in that green box in top photo, along with a chicken (in teriyaki flavor) sesame roll (Php70, about US$1.50) on the right.

The following are photos of some breakfast sandwiches I like.

Multigrain bagel with tomato, basil and mozzarella
(Php90, about US$1.90)

Forest ham, egg whites (scrambled with chives) and cheese in ciabatta
(PHP90)

Other breakfast sandwiches include antipasto cheese on whole wheat bread, reduced fat roasted turkey chicken sandwich, tuna dill on multi-grain bread, chicken club asparagus on ciabatta (each at Php120 or about US$2.55), and bacon strips, egg and cheese (Php95).

Plain bagels (Php35 each, US$0.75) are also available, with optional cream cheese. There are two kinds of wraps - curried chicken and mango slices on tortilla, and egg, cheese and tomato in a multi-grain tortilla (Php90 each). The chicken mango wrap and the chicken sesame roll represent the Asian connection.

Corned beef-filled clover of pandesal (Php55, about US$1.17)

Filipino pastries include filled pandesals, an adobo roll (Php55, a baked bun filled with pulled pork stewed in soy sauce, vinegar, garlic and bay leaf) and a huge baked chicken empanada (Php70).

Adobo rolls (also in the asado variant - sweetened pork) and empanadas in the Philippines are not actually eaten at breakfast, but are snack items. Empanadas are small, about the size of half a small cookie, and are usually fried. The common filling is ground pork sauteed in soy sauce, diced potatoes and raisins.


Starbucks' chicken empanada, as big as a hand, contains chicken a la king - chicken strips in cream, bell peppers, diced potatoes and peas.

Only the pandesal features prominently in Filipino breakfasts. I say, it is actually the quintessential Filipino breakfast, baked and sold and eaten from dawn from one end of the country to another, transcending ethno-linguistic, cultural and territorial borders. It is eaten dunked in the hot beverage of choice, or spread with mayonnaise, condensed milk, jams, preserves, butter and cheese, or filled with pastillas, fried meat cuts, ground meat, omelettes, hotdogs, stir-fried noodles (pancit), liver spread, sardines.

It is small, about three inches long and an inch and a half wide, so about five pieces for breakfast is normal. A piece on average costs Php2 (about 4 US cents), and is used as one of the indicators of the country's economic index. At Starbucks the pandesal is big, equivalent to about two to three pieces, and filled with chicken, tuna and corned beef.

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It's the Time of the Year....

[Virgie's Mango Tartlets/Panuelitos]

Oh, yes. Have you checked recently? How many days to go?

Though I'm not yet in that frenzied shopping mood, because I still have two family birthdays to go through, and I'm in the middle of preparing for a big one in about three weeks' time. I shop, but leisurely, and with a direction, limited to decor that has to be related to the party motif, party favors, and food for the party.

Which is opposed to Christmas shopping that's grabbing anything within your sight, and thinking later whom to give them to, to the point that those not in the list previously have to be included due to surplus of things bought.

I'm still in control, because the tiangges (flea markets) that are part and parcel of my Christmas shopping are still more than a month away.

But bazaars are starting to sprout in Metro Manila, and the one ongoing right now is the 23rd Negros Trade Fair at the Rockwell Tent. This is the same one I've been visiting for years now, and have become the third bazaar I go to every year (although it is the first one to be held in the year among the three).

I had new discoveries in the food section last year, as well as indulged in my all-time favorite Negrense delicacies. This year, though, there was nothing new - the same exhibitors - so I went there solely for a fix of familiar and favorite Negrense pastries.

And other food, of course. Had the venerated cansi and KBL (kadyos, baboy, langka) for lunch, both liltingly soured with batwan, from the outlet of Inasalan sa Dalan. Then bought packs of panuelitos - pinched little crackers holding hardened mango preserves, looking like cute, folded little hankies (thus the name). Also Quan's crispy, eggy rosquillos, and all the flavors of Clara's special homemade barquillos - strawberry, ube, pandan, coconut, chocolate and the specialty, goat's milk.

[Clara's Barquillos]

I discovered Clara's barquillos when an officemate went home to Bacolod City and brought as pasalubong Negrense pastries. She brought in particular a jar of Clara's Coconut Barquillos, and I couldn't stop dipping my hand into it - they were so delicious. Since then I have always been on the look-out for Clara's barquillos, and so they are always included in my stash from the yearly trade fair.

For me there is nothing like the flavored barquillos of Biscocho Hauz in Iloilo City - thin, flaky, and they actually taste like how they look and smell, the flavors intense. Clara's flavors are not as intense, but they are eye-candy, and there is nothing like the coconut and goat's milk barquillos in all the whole wide world.

The trade fair is worth going back to, especially since there is still two days left for the trade fair, and this weekend there is a scheduled fresh market where organic fresh produce from Negros will be sold. I hope to procure fresh batwan and kadyos, so I can cook cansi again, in all the variations I learned from a friend, and try that lamud that is a traditional farm staple in Negros.

My blog is starting to look like the emphasis is on food from Negros, aside from Pangasinan and Cavite.

Food as Poison

I am not going to rant about the milk contamintation in China. My outrage about that atrocity is beyond words.

And the anger I feel cripples me. I am angered by the fact that I have to work, alongside my husband, to be able to raise my family in the manner I want, leaving my babies subsisting on monstrously transformed milk, instead of nursing them the way God - or our evolution - intended.

Writing about it is useless. Because I want China out of business. But that is never going to happen. Ever since it started manufacturing for the whole world atrocities have come, one after the other. But all we've had were - are, will be - recalls, because, at the end of the day, business doesn't care. The main point is the bottom line, and as long as China employs slave labor, the better it is for business worldwide.

What I want to focus my energy on, instead, is a related issue, but closer to home.

I had expressly forbidden instant noodles to be cooked and eaten at home. Even the househelp cannot cook instant noodles for themselves as long as the kids are around. If you are a parent who safeguards the health and well-being of your children, or someone who is conscious of what he eats, I'm sure you know why.

About a few months ago Monde Nissin debuted an ad on television for their instant noodles line, with no less than who is called the megastar of Philippine movies (and TV ads) saying this opening line -

Bawal magsinungaling. Hindi masama ang noodles.
(It is forbidden to lie. Noodles is not bad for you. Or something to that effect. Conspicuously, though, that ad line is missing from their website.)

To say that I was irked is an understatement. A few days after, my five-year old son pointed out the ad to me, and inside my mind I was screaming. How do you explain to a child what magsinungaling is? And why, why, is she saying noodles is not bad for you?

Outwardly I was calm, and reminded him in return that you do not believe everything you see and hear on television.

This is actually a difficult position to take, because we let the kids watch documentaries, National Geographic, Animal Planet. I hope they acquire the ability to distinguish which is true from what is false as they grow up.

I was willing to let it go at that. But I am writing this now because we went home to Pangasinan recently, and there I saw, in colored, blown up tarpaulin posters hanging on the fence of every public elementary school we passed by as we traveled around the province and La Union plus Baguio City, the megastar Sharon Cuneta in a pictorial progression of the poses of the three wise monkeys (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil).

{monkey acts}

Cuneta may have just seen the ad as monkey acts. But she is the wife of a senator (not that senators are highly respected, anyway). She knows her influence in the country. And she has enough advertising contracts - all big ticket acounts - plus the kickbacks her husband receives that she can afford to choose the products she endorses.

Or maybe I overestimated her. Maybe she's soul-less.

Encouraging our children to eat noodles every day, because parents have no money and it's all they can afford, and because instant noodles is not bad, and because Lucky Me instant noodles is NAPA - no artificial flavors and preservatives added, that is what Cuneta wants us to believe.

I deplore Cuneta. I deplore the creative minds behind this advertising campaign. I deplore the DepEd for allowing this. I deplore the DSWD for partnering with Monde Nissin in its Family Week campaign.

What does instant noodles contain?

Just check the labels. It's just sodium (that's salt for you), some carbohydrates, which are reputedly coated in wax that's not digestible. The effects are potentially harmful if that's what all kids eat, with nothing nutritionally substantive to counteract it.

Compare that with two bunches of kamote tops, simply boiled, at Php10. It has long been considered poor man's fare, but it is so rich in nutrients, and organically grown, sodium-free, available everywhere, anytime. It is not genetically modified, not chemically processed, with no saturated fats. Eaten with steamed rice it is filling and substantive, fully loaded with fiber.

And so is the case with kangkong tops (swamp cabbage), or okra, or a slice of kalabasa (squash). Or even a cup of clams. All for the same price of two packs of instant noodles, maybe even cheaper. Even free, because these can be grown, easily and at minimal or no cost at all, in backyards.

We are not a poor nation. We choose to be poor. We are endowed with resources we don't give a second glance to. And we let people like Sharon Cuneta bully us into believing noodles is not bad, that it's all we can afford.

When what we cannot really afford is letting a generation of ignorant kids grow up on instant noodles, NAPA or not.

And I am just talking about the campaign here. Imagine how much food - substantive, nutritional food - could have been bought for the elementary public school pupils with the money spent for those colored tarpaulin posters instead?

Or, for that matter, those life-size colored posters of every politician in every barangay and municipality? Who says the government doesn't have money?

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