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.