Eat Matters

Sunday's Pamahaw: Hinang-gop

So the weather forecast did not lie. Am not really surprised. Environment Canada,dats we call da weather bureau over here,is pretty accurate. Not like the one over der. The weather was true to form until today. The skies are still brooding and moody. The sunlight  is subdued by intermittent showers and the wind gusts makes one want to lull around in the house.No big deal. We needed to be caged sometimes.Never mind if the Sunday dim sum brunch at Yip Hong, our favorite Chinese dive, is skipped. That equals to thirty dollars saved.

So what's for breaking the fast today? A  simple  peasant affair of chopped tomatoes,white onions,scallions,toasted uga balingon or dilis and guinamos cooked as a dish called Hinang-gop. The  wordHinang-gop is archaic Hilagaynon. Don't really know what it means. All I know is that its super. Whoooosp.That's what you hear when I attack the "soup". I am not in the mood to dig up anthropological knowledge today.

                   

Simple really because all that is needed to finish the dish is to layer all the prepared ingredients in  a bowl and pour boiling water over them.Just enough to steep the ingredients and a little extra liquid to sip.Too much water though can spoil the dish. Let it sit for about two minutes.That, for the flavors to mix and mingle  and  then you have the best comfy meal for the day. Naks when drizzled over steaming hot rice.

                   

Umulan man at bumagyo busog na ako!

 

             

Rainy Day Comfort

Thunderstorm warnings, showers and dreary skies are what dominate the prairie landscape these past few days. This kind of weather  promises not to let up until the weekend. Somehow it reminds me of the monsoon season in the  archipelago where raging tropical depressions, brownouts, flash floods are the norms. When this happens, everyone cuddles around the transistor radio to hear the latest changes,inaccurate they may be, from PAGASA.Quite oddly, there is something comforting in the male announcer's voice as he dissects the anatomy bad weather.

As dinner time comes, the kitchen is lit with the glow of a solitary candle as this simple but comforting dish  is prepared.

   

It's nothing but a can or two of Ligo Sardines in Tomato sauce sauteed in lots of garlic, and white onions, miswa noodles simmered in  a well seasoned broth laden with chopped green sibuyas. Now isn't that enough to take away the rainy day blues? Not if you  forget  to eat it with freshly boiled rice.

Since  those  cheap miswa noodles are not available this side of the global village, I have to make do with vermicelli noodles. It does have some slight difference in texture and taste but who cares. When you're eating  it with eyes closed  you think you're home.

By the way, Is it true that miswa (meez wah) is the French word for noodle?
Don't ask me. Meantime, I'm dreaming of La Paz Batchwa.

Tagged

I'm back. The major reason for my erratic blogging  habit is that I am working on a personal goal placed on the back burner for a long time. I have decided to work on it now before it gets too late to do it. Clue? It's about FOOD, what else. The thing is I have to cut back on my blogging to optimally achieve this quixotic dream. But so far so good.

No. I won't abandon food blogging. Truth is I have a backlog of unfinished posts waiting to be done.

So I got tagged by Ces who measures her age inversely proportional to the amount of San Miguel Beer she drinks. Since she could only finish half a bottle of the amber brew. Her age must be halfway between the moon and New York City? He, he.  Is that right Ces? Otherwise, am just kidding. OK, let's just say she has mellowed like the wine she drinks.

So here goes my answers  to Ces questions.

Three recipes I have book marked from food blogs to try.

  Marketman's  ensaimada.
  Sha's  dinugu-an using blood sausage.
  Mae's  chorizo using a Mama Sita ready mix.

A food blog in my vicinity.

There is one that I regularly lurk on.I haven't linked her yet. Her blog is called Home for Dinner .  I gathered from her blog that she lives a good walking distance from where I live. She is a food columnist.

A food blog located far from where I am.

Basically I consider all food blogs sa Pinas and those across the Canadian border as  malayo. Distance whets the appetite so I read their blogs to have a taste of home and beyond.

A food blog you have discovered just recently.
 
Appon's  food blog. She features Thai recipes which I pine for.

Any people you want to tag with this meme.

Can't think of anyone right now. Hope you understand, Ces:)    Am so busy I can only drink SMB on weekends. I still can finish whole bottles though.

But thanks for tagging me. That made  me visit my almost dormant  blog site.

'sang platitong mani

                   

The Pinoy's love affair with  peanuts (arachis hypgaea L.)or mani,harks back to the time when the Spanish friars were dousing the pagan islands with holy water on one hand while treating the resistant  erehes  and political unbelievers with their lethal brand of fire and brimstone with the other. (Ah, "so many people have died in the name of Christ" as pareng Crosby, Stills and Nash would lament centuries later.)  I can imagine a  tableau of natives gassing up on boiled peanuts while listening and wincing  to catechism detailing the interior design of  purgatario and hell. I don't consider this a far fetched scene during those conversion times. It was a nutritious way  to digest the concept of an alien Christ.

Segue to the age of mass media.The phrase" isang platitong mani", popularized on the boob tube by the late comedian Bert "Tawa" Marcelo to sell a beer, has become an idiom of the Pinoy's propensity for everyday, after work happy hour(s). Beer and a side dish of fried salted  peanuts equals fun. As fleeting as  the setting sun, the binging is a fitting balm for a work weary soul. In a way, it serves as a transitional respite from work to the agony  of  being stuck for light years in an unending traffic jam on the way home.

The Pinoy's romance with the flavorful legume still lingers. It is popularly  enjoyed deep fried with tons of garlic. Walk the streets of  any regional metropolis. The scene is incomplete without the presence of peanut vendors. Before the era of box-type monolithic shopping malls, the esquinita-a small street corner-- near a movie house is one of  the favorite habitats of the lowly peanut entrepreneur.  Manug-mani is how we call them in my city. They would set-up with a bayong-- a circular  shallow native woven container --of  freshly fried peanuts propped up on big biscuit can. Eventually the container evolved into a stall  well equipped with a gas burner to fry the peanuts on.

The fried peanuts I prefer are the native variety. The kernel is smaller and the skin thinner compared to the popular variety sold all over.