food for the heart

I wasn’t at all a sickly child. Actually, I was quite brown and robust from playing patintero, sha-to, ta-ching, tex out in the sunshine the whole day with the six dusty little boys of our truck mechanic who lived in a shanty just a few blocks from our house. It was for this reason that being rendered bed-ridden always came as a big, unwelcome surprise for me and moldering in bed while imagining the boys shouting, running, having so much fun outside was the cruelest form of torture. I was a bad patient, and I screamed and sulked through most of the common childhood illnesses that came my way. The only things that made those days of internment bearable were the marvelous gastronomical treats my Tita Loleng always managed to whip up to hasten my recovery.

Tita Loleng is my mother’s older sister and the family maiden aunt. While I was growing up, she had custody over me and my cousins at my lola’s ancestral home in Zapote, Las Piñas during weekends. She had a wide, angular face where a pair of huge, round-framed glasses always sat and short hair that she coiled into numerous curlers every night so that it would poof up the next day. She was strict and very easy with the back of the tsinelas whenever one of us misbehaved. But my cousins and I, and the rest of the family, knew that we were much loved by Tita Loleng. Not the touchy-feely, demonstrative sort, she displayed her affection in a more subtle and satisfying way—through the delicious spread she constantly laid out on the ancestral house’s long narra table and the specially-prepared meals she sent our way when one of us got sick.

My family is a firm believer in the healing ability of good food. Be it the common cold to something as serious as pneumonia, they would immediately hasten to inform the most talented cook in the family so she can send the patient’s favorite food or something she knows will become a favorite once he or she has sampled it. The most delicious food I’d ever tasted always came at a time when I was ill. Chalk it up to Tita Loleng’s culinary talents that she could make a sick family member come up for seconds when it was a meal she had prepared.

When I contracted measles, I remember my Tita Loleng feeding me pospas, which is like the Chinese congee. But the pospas she served me then was custom-made for it had chicken ass in it instead of regular chicken parts like the leg or breast. Tita Loleng knew that this was my favorite part and had seen how often I had scrabbled to get that delectable piece on my plate before my dad, who also liked it, could do so. Tita Loleng’s pospas was flavorful and fragrant, unlike most pospas or lugaw I’ve tasted in carinderias or fast-food chains. The secret is in the garlic, I think. She would first sauté and brown mortar-pounded garlic. The oil, I remember her telling me, holds the imprint of the first thing you fry in it—so you toss in first whichever it is you’d want to be dominant in taste. Once light-toasted brown in color, the garlic is removed and set aside. Then the ginger and onions are sautéed until their smell starts filling your kitchen. For my special pospas, Tita Loleng minced the ginger so I wouldn’t have to maneuver my way around or end up biting large chunks of the bitter root. Then the chicken parts, in my case my beloved chicken ass, are tossed in. The patis comes soon after. The next step is another cooking tip Tita Loleng has passed on to me. This involves covering the pot and allowing the chicken juice (or langsa) to ooze out. She calls this process sangkutsa and this is done so that the gamy taste is removed from the chicken. Once done with sangkutsa, the juices should be allowed to dry out, but not completely or your chicken will burn and stick to the bottom of the pot. Add the malagkit or short-grain, sticky rice, water and chicken broth. Once the rice is cooked, season with salt and pepper and when the pospas has reached the preferred consistency, it is ready to serve. Most people like pospas with calamansi, toyo, and a bit more of patis but I like mine with nothing else but the set-aside toasted garlic and lots of chopped spring onions.

I remember one time when it was Tita Loleng’s turn to get sick. I was in high school then, and was not yet adept in the kitchen since I spent most of my spare time reading historical romances and watching TV. My cousins and I decided to make something for Tita Loleng and I suggested pospas, but made with halaan or clams. We had a grand time of it, even had a skirmish between two cousins that involved two sandoks being wielded as dangerous weapons. In the end, it was probably the proverbial “too many cooks spoiling the broth” but the clams were overcooked and tough, the lugaw had the faint taste of being burnt since someone forgot to stir, and someone else dumped in too much pepper. Shame-faced, we presented our group culinary effort to Tita Loleng who gamely ate a bowlful and asked for another helping. When she was done eating, she lay down on her propped-up pillows and gave us a smile. That smile made me understand why she has always found her happiness in serving us the best food though it meant slaving away for hours in a hot kitchen. It was a smile of appreciation for a good meal, and of joy in knowing that you are loved.