Random Ramblings

Well, it's uncanny the way intuition works. There are times when I feel I could make a living as a fortune-teller, or at least predict events in my life, or win at cards or dice just by this weird feeling; a mix of apprehension and elation, it vivifies the moments of life and lets you recover them when you need to. The end has come; The Poisonwood Bible is resting(both figuratively and literally) on my shelf at the moment. What do you know, Adah and I are more alike than I imagined at first. She became a doctor(!), decided not to marry(!) and learned to speak and walk normally. So it all went well for her in the end. Ruth May died, because she wouldn't take her malaria pills. Leah and Anatole got married and had children, with Leah leaving her father's shadow behind; Orleanna worked for a relief organization, and Rachel married thrice and finally set up a hotel at the border of Zaire. Oh, and Nathan went mad and got burned in a tower, as described in the last verse of the Apocrypha. (What an oddity, a right-wing Baptist preacher who advocated the Apocrypha. That's Life for you.) So the family saga ends. The thing is, "I do not want to discuss it" is the phrase that comes to mind, so I won't. (I recently disovered that I like a lot of the novels on the Oprah's Book Club List. Gave me quite a shock, when I viewed the list for the first time. I own six of the books and read two others that I've borrowed. I had no idea.)
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I don't know if you've noticed that some of the most delicious food items and condiments are brown--or at least with a brownish tinge. Adobo, bagoong, chocolate, patis, dark vinegar, coffee, black(?) tea, beef, soy sauce, sesame oil, chico, cooking wine( sherry, xiao xing), spice mixes, natto, beans, kalamay, tamarinds, lechon, gula melaka, muscovado, etc. (My love of salty food will be the death of my kidneys someday; I can't help it though. I love patis,soy sauce, adobo and bagoong!) Brown is such a fabulous shade, even though that means it can camouflage any discrepancies in the food. But most of the brown ingredients bring out the best dimensions of food. For instance, just this night I made a paste out of tamarinds and paired that with the tilapia we were having for dinner. The result: yummy with double knobs. I usually don't like the fishy taste of tilapia, but the combination worked due to the refreshing sourness of the tamnarinds paired with the sweetness of the fish. And speaking of fish: just found the heartiest fish head stew in a small restaurant in Binondo. I just devoured half of the food set on the table.The waiters were probably a-gossiping, but they can stuff themselves for all I care. The bastards. I was hungry; Binondo usually makes people hungry and that's why it's chock-full of food establishments.

What I don't get is the scarcity of Filipino food in other countries, which contributes to Filipino homesickness; other cultures are so well-represented. It's a pity because Filipino culture is nothing if not 60% food. You give food to guests, you bring food from trips as pasalubong, you take home food from festivities, you make special food for birthdays and holidays. The food in our culture has such an influence on us: it shapes our memories and consciousness of our diversity. We should really be more proud of it instead of taking all this fandangled French way of cooking too seriously. Desosser, rechauffer, flambe-- all very well and good; you can cook for all these exacting palates, you are established as a chef, but what have you to show for your country? Another form of colonial triumph. I know that for Filipino food to succeed abroad it needs to be certified safe to eat so that you won't go out of business, because some people are so finicky and lily-livered when it comes to food. They'll eat escargot and raw oysters, but not kare-kare. Really, though, when it all unravels, overeating is what kills you, not the food. We should aim to minimize this effacement of our culture by keeping our food traditions intact. It's such a waste to relinquish so willingly a part of our culture so vital to us, so representative of us as Filipinos, so distinctive from any other kind of cuisine. Perhaps the way to our hearts is through our stomachs, after all.