Taho/Salabat/Hot Ginger Ale

                   

I wasn't able to blog for the last few days because I literally got infected with spring fever. My respiratory passages were clogged up and I was limited to three, no make that four major activities: coughing, sniffling, sneezing and nursing a hammering head ache. Thank heavens I didn't get  the chills and a skyrocketing fever. What I dislike about this malady is that the sense of smell and the taste buds get affected  and all  one can mutter between sniffles on the dinner table are the words: bland, bland, bland.

Except for some occasional itch on the throat punctuated by a cough, I am okay now. I am back to my regular one hour walk/jog regimen. My taste buds are slowly coming back to life again.

What helped eased the discomfort in a way, was a constant presence of a hot glass of taho or salabat which  I sip once the coughing attacks starts up. The spiciness  warms  up the throat as the heat radiates to the chest area.  It somehow clears up the the nasal passages.

Taho is easy to prepare. Remove the skin of the ginger about the size of a thumb , crush it with back of a knife, throw it into about three cups of boiling water, let it simmer until the water has absorbed the spice and sweeten with brown sugar and you got it.

There was a phase while I was growing up when we were served taho daily-- during and after supper. There was always a pot  of taho on top of the stove. And I remember quite well that the house help uses crushed unpeeled ginger to make our daily doze of taho. Was she just being lazy or is it the traditional way of making taho ? Perhaps there might be a reason.

The Pilgrim's Pots and Pans  details another variation of making the comforting, sweat inducing salabat.

By the way, beats me why we call it taho in Iloilo. Taho in Luzon is a sweetish bean curd delicacy.

Comments

[jenny]

If I remember correctly you had advocated a spiking of brandy to the taho when I was having my bout of the sniffles/sore throat/coughing... :-)

[Kai]

Yeah, name game, I thought you were talking about the bean curd taho and I was wondering why I never knew it to ease a cough/cold.

[ces]

hi angelo..
sorry to hear that...i hope you're doing ok now though..
just blog hopping...just to ease this home sick blues..not yet up to posting...

[stef]

hope you're feeling better now. dito grabe pa rin mga allergies ng pamilya.

i was looking at the picture when i got here and thinking -- so where's the taho??? 'yun na pala 'yun. how exactly do you pronounce *this* taho? malumi, maragsa, mabilis?

[Eduardo]

If i remember correctly, taho, was a dessert
sold by street vendors who carried it on two large tin pails slung over a bamboo pole. The kids would line up with their veinte cinco centimos and buy a glass. The vendor would take thin slices of the white curd (bean or tofu), and ladle it to the bottom of our glasses and then scoop some hot sauce from the other pail. The vendor usually came at dusk in our neighborhood in Sampaloc, Manila.