Six or Seven Meals a Day
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(Source: IstockPhoto)
But in either household, the number of meals I would have in any given summer day did not vary much, six or seven of them, depending on the time I would wake up and the time I would go to bed. This was extremely difficult for me initially as a young boy, for I had difficulty waking up early in the morning due to my incipient insomnia, not to mention my notoriety for being quite picky with food (“lisod pakan-on”). At the age of four or five, I would only eat ice cream and icebox cake for breakfast back in Iligan City, which my indulgent father was willing to provide, one of the many privileges I enjoyed as the firstborn. And Daddy Allan at the time was still loaded with cash, so spending money on alimentary luxuries was not really an issue at all.
Traditionally, Cebuanos had two breakfasts, the first being the painit, and the second one, the pamahaw, and these I would have to share with the old folks or with my paternal first cousins, since family meals back in the 1970s up to the mid-‘80s were taken together by the whole family, nuclear and extended. It was unthinkable to eat by one’s lonesome. As Cebu-born Filipino American fictionist Cecilia Manguerra Brainard had poignantly observed: “Eating is the time when the family gathers, when the community is one, and is something of a sacred time.”
As the word suggests, the Cebuano painit (pampainit sa tiyan) was intended to warm the stomach, so something hot would usually be served: sikwati (hot chocolate) with puto maya (malagkit, or glutinous rice, steamed in coconut cream and molded in small cups and then unmolded on banana leaf) or budbod (steamed glutinous rice cake rolled inside banana leaf, and better known as suman in the rest of the archipelago); coffee with pandesal (“the bread of salt”) newly purchased from a nearby panaderia; or even just a powdered drink, like Milo or Ovaltine —I was too young to drink coffee back then—diluted in a mug of simmered water and milk. The painit was served at break of day, usually between five and six in the morning, so oftentimes I would still be groggy from lack of sleep when partaking of this repast.
The pamahaw, on the other hand, would arrive three hours later, between nine and ten in the morning. As the term suggests, this heavier meal would typically consist of the leftover rice (bahaw) from the previous day, now transformed into sinangag (garlic fried rice), and whatever remaining viands were to be found inside the refrigerator, now reheated or recombined into a compound dish. If there was no bahaw available, then freshly cooked rice would be offered instead, which was usually best paired with danggit (salted dried rabbitfish) or the more generic bulad (salted dried fish of various species), or the bite-size, sweet-and spicy chorizo de Cebu. The breakfast meal of course would not be complete without some eggs, either scrambled, boiled, or fried sunny-side up.
It would only be later, when I had moved to Metro Manila, that I would encounter the silog (a viand paired with garlic fried rice and fried egg) in all its infinite combinations served as lunch or even dinner fare: tapsilog (tapa), tocilog (tocino), and longsilog (longganisa); hamsilog (ham), spamsilog (Spam luncheon meat), masilog or malingsilog (Ma-ling Chinese luncheon meat); hotsilog (hotdog), cornsilog (corned beef), and bacsilog (bacon); chosilog (chorizo), porksilog (pork chop), and chiksilog or noksilog (fried chicken); or even dangsilog (danggit) and bangsilog (bangus, or milkfish); and paresilog (braised beef stew), adosilog (adobo), bisteksilog (beef steak), and litsonsilog (lechon).
By then, I felt I was living in reduced circumstances, staying inside the boys’ residence hall on campus, and having to eat cafeteria food during the weekdays. But I was quite lucky that during my first year in Pisay, during the weekends, my Iligan-based but itinerant businessman Uncle Jun, the older brother of Daddy Allan, or my Manila guardian, Tito Tony, the manager of the Makati branch of Uncle Jun’s company, made sure that I would partake of better tasting lutong-bahay (home-cooked food) in Tito Tony’s domicile in Pasig; or more palatable restaurant dishes (as opposed to canteen fare) in the popular establishments that Uncle Jun would bring me to, whenever he would be in the Metro for his bi-monthly visits, like Barrio Fiesta, The Aristocrat, Sulô Restaurant, Ma Mon Luk, and Kamameshi House. Needless to say, Uncle Jun was as generous as Daddy Allan, and just as indulgent where gustatory pleasures were concerned.
Sometimes, when the pamahaw was a bit early and relatively light, and the lunch meal intentionally late, for one reason or another, there would also be some snacks available in the morning: more rice-based Cebuano delicacies, like biko (glutinous rice cooked in coconut cream and sweetened by red or brown sugar) or bibingka (oven-baked rice cake); cuchinta (small semi-translucent, brown-colored steamed rice cakes) or calamay (sweetened glutinous rice pudding flavored with coconut milk, molasses or brown sugar, and anise seeds). Or one of the two kinds of biscuits Cebu had become famous for: otap (the oblong-shaped, flaky biscuit coiled in thin crispy layers and lightly coated with granulated sugar); and rosquillos (flower-shaped, circular sweet biscuit with scalloped edges and a big round hole in the middle). The latter had an interesting etymology behind it. Originally concocted by Margarita “Titay” T. Frasco in 1907 in Liloan, it was reputedly named as such by the late Philippine President Sergio S. Osmeña, Sr., then Governor of Cebu Province, for its resemblance to ringlets (rosca).
Bibingka (Source: Team Beguette)
Similar to the Tagalog tanghalian, the Cebuano paniudto or lunch meal was ideally served at high noon (udtong tutok), right in the middle of the day, neatly dividing the morning from the afternoon hours. Traditionally, since it was the most important meal of the day, for middle-class households, it would consist of four or five or even six courses—a soup or soup-based dish, a salad or vegetable dish, a fish or seafood dish (this was almost a must, Cebu after all being an island province), a chicken dish, and one or two red meat dishes—with rice and some variety of noodles to satiate hungry stomachs, finally capped with a piece of fruit or pastry for dessert.
Soup-based Cebuano dishes I had savored in my childhood years—whether at the dinner table of my grandparents’ ramshackle home or in my paternal aunt’s stately domicile—ranged from the utan bisaya (Visayan vegetable soup, sinabawang gulay in the Tagalog-speaking provinces) with its clear broth to the thicker mungos ug kalamunggay (mung beans and moringa leaves) soup, from the healthier tinowang manok or isda (chicken or fish soup slightly soured with ripe tomatoes, ginger, and lemongrass) to the more sinful pochero (well-spiced stewed beef knee-bone, including part of the shank and shin-bone, served with big chunks of mais tilaobon (boiled sweet corn on the cob) and slivers of ubod sa kawayan (bamboo shoots).
Utan Bisaya (Source: Cebu Bulletin)
Memorable fish and seafood dishes included escabecheng lapulapu (fried grouper fish floating on sweet-and-sour sauce with julienned ginger and bell peppers), rellenong bangus or lambay (stuffed milkfish or crab), inun-onan (fish boiled in vinegar and spices, similar to the Tagalog paksiw na isda), ngohiong (deep-fried sautéed ubod sa lubi, or coconut pith, rolled in lumpia wrapper, a dish of Chinese origin), chopsuey (stir-fried vegetables with some bits of seafood and/or meat left to simmer in a thick sauce, and often seasoned with oyster sauce or patis (fermented fish sauce), and the succulent and briny ensaladang lato (sea grapes salad).
For pork and chicken, beef and ox dishes there were adobong baboy, adobong manok, and adobong manok ug baboy (slices of pork and/or chicken meat braised in a vinegar and soy sauce solution, and then spiced with garlic, bay leaf and peppercorn, among others, that gave the adobo its distinctive salty-and-sour flavor), kalderetang baka (beef caldereta) and apritadang baka (beef afritada), and the balbakwa (well-stewed oxtail, foot, shin, and earlap). And there was of course the humba (braised large chunks of fatty pork that had been stewed in vinegar, soy sauce, water, brown sugar and spices, crushed garlic, peppercorn, and laurel leaves and left to simmer for long hours until the meat and pork fat turned tender with jelly-like consistency). This was another Chinese-derived but Cebuano-identified dish, whose meat became more flavorful and tender with each reheating in low fire, a viand that was meant to last for a few days, hence large quantities of it would be prepared in a caldero (cauldron or stockpot).
My paternal grandmother, Lola Goding, being of Chinese descent, would also prepare more exotic dishes, like the papaitan, a bitter-tasting broth of sliced goat entrails, goat meat, and goat liver boiled in hot water until tender, and the paklay, a stew of goat’s blood and intestines braised and soured with balingbing (star fruit), iba (kamias in Tagalog), and unripe pineapple. Having a sensitive and often queasy stomach even back then, I refused to eat any form of goat meat due to its nauseating smell, not to mention that the goat in question was an animal that I used to feed before it was butchered, and therefore more of a pet than foodstuff. Thus, the most unusual fare that I partook of in my childhood years was turtle soup, but just a couple of spoonfuls of the briny broth and not the meat, and only after a lot of coaxing and cajoling from Lola Goding, with some tears being shed in the process.
But, still having a sweet tooth in those days, the flavors and textures I would remember best and cherish the most were the sweets. My paternal aunt, Auntie Fe, who was still running the bakeshop named after her only daughter, Barbara, my eldest first cousin on either side of the family—whom I still call Achi Bamba, both in abiding deference and utmost fondness, to this day—would produce from her large and well-equipped home kitchen the most mouth-watering desserts and snacks that I had ever tasted: chocolate cakes and apple pies (“cakes have no crusts, pies have,” I learned from Auntie Fe), tarts and tortes, cookies and biscuits, pastries and pasties, breads and shortbreads, ensaymadas and empanadas. My personal favorites back then (and even up to now) were her moist chocolate cake, fruitcake, and silvanas in ascending order.
Fruitcake
As chocolate cakes go, Auntie Fe’s version of this dessert, popular to kids all over the world, was perfect: neither too dry nor too soggy, just the right kind of moist; texture-wise, it was not grainy but soft to the palate; and taste-wise, it was neither too sweet nor too bitter, just darkly and sinfully delicious. Her fruitcake, on the other hand, had the perfect blend of sweetness and sourness with a hint of rum and spice. It was neither too hard nor too spongy, so that it would actually crumble in your mouth, with bits of glacé (candied or dried fruits) and nuts adding texture and flavor to the tongue. This was the dessert that I would always look forward to savoring again and again during the summer months when I was staying with her in Maria Luisa Park, as well as during the Yuletide Season back in Iligan City.
But the silvana was the pièce de résistance of her entire repertoire of sweets! Unlike commercially-produced versions of this popular Filipino dessert, Auntie Fe’s frozen concoction, consisting of a core of buttercream enclosed in a cashew-meringue outer layer and slightly crusted with the finest cookie crumbs, was impeccable. Her silvanas were flesh-colored and ovoid in shape, not the typical yellowish, flattened ones that one could mistake for jackfruit-flavored or jaundiced pieces of polvoron. They looked quite solid on the plate, but melted on your tongue, the buttery sweetness reaching your palate, so that you would never mistake them for their pretentious-sounding cousin, the sans rival, which for me was not impressive at all.
Montenegro Silvanas (Photo by Liana Smith Bautista/Yummy.ph)
Since I was Auntie Fe’s favorite nephew (Daddy Allan being her favorite brother), I could consume as many silvanas as I wanted, which I often did with her youngest son, my paternal first cousin Bennet, who was a couple of years my junior. In fact, she would persuade me to eat more whenever she felt that I was being prevented by embarrassment to savor another piece of confectionery heaven. Because I was a scrawny kid, she would constantly encourage me to devour more food, and I obliged, at least in the dessert department.
Two or three hours later was merienda time, which Doreen G. Fernandez described in her book Palayok: Philippine Food Through Time, on Site, and in the Pot as the “pangtawid gutom,” literally “something to bridge hungers,” that would be served “in mid-afternoon… which is often not just a snack but something hefty: dinuguan at puto, pansit, lumpia, ginataan, suman, bibingka.” Again, there would be more rice-based cakes and puddings, or other rice-based food, like nilugaw nga bugas-humay (rice porridge in chicken or beef broth with ginger, often garnished with chopped spring onion or leeks, toasted garlic flakes, and a slice of calamansi), and binignit (sweet porridge of boiled glutinous rice with root crops, sugar and coconut milk, mung beans, slices of ripe saba banana and strips of ripe jackfruit)
The Cebuano panihapon (dinner or supper), like the Tagalog hapunan, was served between six and seven in the evening, which would suggest that precolonial Filipinos had their last meal of the day very early in the evening, during the twilight hours when light and darkness were still battling for supremacy in the wide expanse of sky. The Cebuano evening meal would be less heavy than its noontime counterpart, though still substantial, with perhaps only two or three dishes previously mentioned being offered on the dinner table, though the ubiquitous rice and/or noodle staple would still be there, especially the bam-i or pancit bisaya (a combination of miki and bihon noodles served with slivers of meat, bits of innards, assorted seafood, and vegetables), which was of Chinese origin too.
But during special occasions, like the noche buena and the media noche, and parties celebrating birthdays or anniversaries, or the town fiesta, more delectable dishes would be displayed on the buffet tables and sideboards. It was considered bad form for middle-class Cebuano families not to serve a whole lechon or inasal nga baboy (roasted pig) to their guests as the centerpiece of the gustatory part—a huge part—of the celebrations. I would therefore end up associating the lechon with birthdays, feast days, and the Yuletide Season. The first time I celebrated my own birthday without one on the dinner table, at the age of ten or eleven, I actually asked Daddy Allan, “Di, napobre na ta?” (“Dad, have we become poor?”).
Lechon
The world-famous lechon de Cebu is tastier and crunchier than the other lechon baboy varieties found in other parts of the Philippines, except perhaps for the Bayug lechon of Iligan City, which is equally mouthwatering but a tad spicier. The secret to the lechon de Cebu’s flavorful meat and crispy skin is the way it is prepared: the inside of the eviscerated pig is stuffed with tanglad (lemongrass), kalabo (oregano), and other herbs and spices, and salt; while the outside is constantly basted with a mixture of soy sauce, salt, garlic, onion, pepper, and other seasonings, as the pig is being roasted slowly by being rotated on a spit above an open fire of charcoal and wood.
And of course, if we were sleeping late, there would be midnight snacks too—this time something light and easy to eat, like preserved dried mangoes, dilis (dried anchovies), or masareal (bars of finely-ground boiled peanuts sweetened with sugar)—especially on those nights when my cousins and I would be having an all-night Betamax video marathon in their large house in Banilad.
References:
Brainard, Cecilia Manguerra and Marily Ysip Orosa (eds.) A La Carte: Food & Fiction (Mandaluyong City: Anvil Publishing, 2007.
Fenix, Michaela, Maya Besa Roxas, and Felice Prudente Sta. Maria (eds.). Savor the Word: Ten
Years of the Doreen Gamboa Fernandez Food Writing Award. Mandaluyong City: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2012.
Fernandez, Doreen G. Palayok: Philippine Food Through Time, on Site, and in the Pot. Makati
City: Bookmark, 2000.
Fernandez, Doreen G. Tikim: Essays on Philippine Food and Culture (Revised and Updated).
Mandaluyong City: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2020.
Polistico, Edgie. Philippine Food, Cooking, & Dining Dictionary. Mandaluyong City: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2016.
Ralph Semino Galán, poet, literary and cultural critic, translator and editor, is the Assistant Director of the UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies. He is an Associate Professor of Literature, the Humanities and Creative Writing in the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters and the UST Graduate School. He is the author of the following books: The Southern Cross and Other Poems (UBOD New Authors Series, NCCA, 2005), Discernments: Literary Essays, Cultural Critiques and Book Reviews (USTP, 2013), From the Major Arcana [poems] (USTPH, 2014), and Sa mga Pagitan ng Buhay at Iba pang Pagtutulay [translations] (USTPH, 2018). He is currently working on a research project sponsored by the UST Research Center for Culture, Arts and Humanities titled “Labaw sa Bulawan: Translating 300 Mindanao Poems from Cebuano into English,” as well as a book of poetry written in Cebuano.
