Honoring Doreen's legacy

Sunday, June 24, marks the 10th anniversary of a great loss: that of Doreen Gamboa Fernandez.

Starting at 5 p.m. on Thursday, June 21, the De La Salle University Museum on Taft Ave., Manila will conduct a ceremony that will open a special exhibit of the Willi and Doreen Fernandez art collection.

A book that honors her legacy is currently in production. It compiles the winning essays of the first 10 years of the DGF Food Writing Awards, which have been judged by a small group of food lovers and Doreen’s former friends and a relation: her niece Maya Besa Roxas, Michaela “Micky” Fenix who’s been the workhorse behind the awards, author Felice Prudente Sta. Maria, Karina Bolasco of Anvil Publishing, Cora Alvina, Manolo “Mol” Fernando, and this writer.  

The book’s title, Savor the Word, is taken from Doreen’s essay, “Writing about Food: Savor the Word, Swallow the World,” her introduction to her book Tikim: Essays on Philippine Food and Culture (Anvil Publishing, 1994).

Per the prologue written by Felice, the book “honors the winning writers and the woman, Doreen G. Fernandez, whose dedication to Philippine culinary culture inspired the competition.”

Designed by Tina Besa, a US-based graphic designer who’s a daughter of Doreen’s sister Della, Savor the Word will be launched in September as part of the commemoration of the founding of the Manila Ladies Branch of the International Wine and Food Society (in 2001), of which Doreen was a founding member and deputy vice president. The IWFS Manila Ladies Branch is the steward of the DGF Food Writing Awards.

The awarding of this year’s contest winners, whose essays form the concluding chapter of the book, will also take place at the September event.

Each of the 10 chapters is led off by an essay or excerpt from Doreen’s writings, corresponding to the particular theme featured in the annual contest. The first chapter, “2002 Year 1: Specialty of Home, Hometown, Home Province,” leads off with an excerpt from “Hometown Food” which is found in the collection Sarap: Essays on Philippine Food (Mr. & Ms. Publishing Company Inc., 1988).

Here’s sharing a couple of paragraphs from Doreen:

“All hometown food is special, of course. Not only is it born in and rooted to the place, and therefore authentic, but it is all of memory come alive. It is as genuine a product of the town as the son or daughter who grew up with it and calls the place a hometown. It comes from the culture, from the economy, from the resources and resourcefulness of place and people.

“… It is said that a person’s food tastes are shaped by the time he is ten. That may not be a hard and fast rule since in my and others’ experience there are many food tastes that one can acquire as an adult. But surely it is childhood food—in this case, hometown food — that shapes not only the taste but the person (‘Tell me what you eat, and I shall tell you what you are,’ says Brillat de Savarin’s third aphorism), and thus the culture. I suggest that it is through individual explorations into hometowns — large and small, seaside and mountainside, northern and southern, rich and poor, sugar-supported and rice-nurtured, barren and fertile — and their food cultures, that we will finally be able to limn the soul the Filipino shows through his food.

The winning essays for that first year were “A Father’s Legacy” by Maria Fatima O. Regala for what was then the “Teachers’ Category,” and for the “Students’ Category,” “Nutty and Nice” by Jenny Lou A. Orro and “My Bicol Express” by Eda Veniola Brojan. Bookending the chapter is a recipe from Mol Fernando, billed as “Beer Partner.”

“2003 Year 2: Comfort Food” has Doreen weighing in on “Rice: The Most Comforting of Comfort Food,” with the winning essays “Food is Comfort” by Philip Z. A. Nazareno; “Torta” by Gina R. Ylaya; “On Typhoons and Thermidor” by James Michael Gannon O. Deen; “Bliss in a Glass” by Nicholas Y. Lacson; “Ginataang Mais” by Ma. Pia F. Luque; “Adobo, I’m Home” by Paolo P. Mangahas; and “Pan de Sal Days” by C. Horatius Mosquera. Mol then offers a recipe intriguingly billed as “Jiggly Wiggly.”

“2004 Year 3: Traditional Filipino Cooking” has Doreen on “Slow Food,” with the winning essays “Remembering My Grandmother with Binuburan” by Joy Subido; “Labor of Love” by Christine Nunag; “The Bulaqueño Crab Mentality” by Dexter Osorio; “Courtship, Marriage, and Burong Talangka” by Mercedes “Didith” Tan Rodrigo; “My Mom’s Pinangat” by Marian Medina Umali; “Patola Shrimp Omelet” by Elizabeth R. Calero; “Duck Estofado At Iba Pa” by Clinia Franciselie G. Carandang; “From Lola with Love” by C. Horatius Mosquera; “Memory of Taste: The Cavite Chavacano Bacalao” by Guillermo G. Ramos Jr.; “The Original Bulacan Hot Chocolate: Neither Ah nor Eh” by Margaux Marie Vargas Salcedo; and in the Students’ Category, “Life in Sinigang” by Diana Andres and “Uncovering of the Plate” by Regina Isabelle Jaimee Ranada. The recipe offered by Mol is “Lovingly Burong Talangka.”

“2005 Year 4: Filipino Food Specialists” is led off by Doreen’s “Kinilaw Artistry in Old Sagay” followed by “Pampanga Memories: Essel and the Big House” by Yvette Fernandez; “Bocayo’s Sweet Success” by Joy Subido; “Goto to Go To” by C. Horatius Mosquera; “Pipian Perfect” by Carla M. Pacis; and “The Sweetness of Dumaguete” by Mercedes “Didith” Tan Rodrigo — with “Man Food” as the recipe.

“2006 Year 5: Kakanin” has Doreen on “Puto Bumbong, Bibingka, Salabat, atbp.” with “The Undiscovered, Divine Binallay” by Rodessa Dauigoy-Lachica; “Antala: A Vanishing Kakanin” by Nimfa Doroteo Camua; “Atching Curing’s Heavenly Tibok-Tibok” by Dely P. Fernandez; “The Disappearing Tradition of the Tinungbo” by Engracia Q. Bangaoil; “The Pudding Icon’s Lip-Licking Concoction” by Romel M. Oribe; and in the Students’ Category, “Suman: A Tapestry of Tastes” by Mary Bianca S. Consunji, with “I’m Thinking Inutak” as the recipe.

“2008 Year 6: Merienda” starts with Doreen’s “Guinataang Halo-Halo” followed by “Purboy: Merienda in the Time of Crisis” by Viol A. de Guzman; “The Practical Pudding” by Jenny B. Orillos; and “La Paz Batchoy: The Soup That Lives Up to Its Name” by Amy Uy; with “The Legacy of Pork and Beans” as the recipe.

“2009 Year 7: Biskwit” has the DGF essay “A Town Bejewelled: Philippine Food Art” followed by “In Search of the Perfect Uraro” by Viol A. de Guzman; “The Bread of Angels” by Herschel A. Tan; “Operation Sagip Biskwit” by Jennifer L. Peña; “Biscocho Pasuquin” by Elmer Nocheseda; and “Bar-ques” by Cheryl Chan Nolasco; with “Arrowroot Cookies” as the recipe.

“2010 Year 8: Almusal” leads off with “How Does the Filipino Breakfast?” followed by “Loaves and Fishes” by Liza Vida Cortes Paqueo; “Patil” by Datu Shariff Pendatun III; “Almusal Al Fresco” by Therese Desiree Perez-San Juan; “The Egg: A Simple Start” by Amapola J. Española; “A Poor Man’s Recipe” by Marianne P. Gayangos; and “Paksing Bangus: A Regional Obsession” by Christine Nunag, with “Baon Food” as the recipe.

“2011 Year 9: Pancit” has “The Noodles of Our (Long) Lives” by Doreen, followed by “Code Name: ‘Wet’ Pancit” by C. Horatius Mosquera; “A Pancit Puti Panata” by Jenny B. Orillos; “The Joy of Slurping a Simple Noodle” by Ofelia Niña Reyes Abay; and “The Mystery of the Late-Night Pancit of Golden Star” by Ferdinand M. Cortes, with “Fried Milk” as the recipe.

“2012 Year 10: Himagas” leads off with Doreen’s “Salty and Sour, Bitter and Sweet: Philippine Flavorings” followed by the winning essays titled “Haleyang Sampalok,” “A Hundred Mangoes in a Bottle,” “Perfecting Leche Flan,” “Ano’ng Panghimagas?,” and “The Day My Mother Learned to Make Leche Flan.” I can’t provide the winners’ names as these are supposed to be announced at the September awarding rites.

For his final recipe to round off this chapter, foodie and fellow single malt whisky devotee Mol Fernando offers “Mango Moments.” Of course we’re all hoping that we won’t have to wait till September to delight in a 10-course sampling of Mol’s creative concoctions.

The epilogue by Micky Fenix is titled “A Life of Savors.” The back of the book also contains a Glossary, which should prove fascinating for all foodies, what with all the compiled entries that are the regional terms and explications, most of which us judges were hardly familiar with. 

In her introduction titled “An Appetite for Life,” Doreen’s niece Maya Besa Roxas writes of her legendary aunt:

“Doreen Gamboa Fernandez was many things to many people, as the scores of articles, speeches, tributes and heartfelt messages that surfaced in the weeks after her passing on June 24, 2002 have shown. She wore many hats, her work straddled many fields of study, she influenced a great variety of people, and she inspired many lives. But being her niece has been a very special privilege.

“… It is more than thirty years now that Doreen G. Fernandez has been inviting us to eat along with her, at linen-clad table in a genteel English manor, or at food stalls in Divisoria, or from a pumpboat off an island fishing village savoring live crab kinilaw — coaxing us to taste, savor, ponder, understand, respect, remember and cherish. Her inquisitiveness, enthusiasm and integrity have established her as the standard by which all other journalists should be judged.

“The most vital role she plays, however, and what has remained the crux of her three-decade love affair with food writing, is to safeguard and preserve our culture and history as embodied in our cuisine.

“Her strength rests in this, the exploration and presentation of food not just as the stuff of lifestyle magazines and serial cookbooks, but as a significant and compelling index of who and what we are as a people.”

Also quoted in the book is a passage that speaks quintessentially of what Doreen advocated, as expressed in an interview with Marites D. Vitug that appeared in Newsweek’s issue of July 14, 1997: 

“We very strongly hope that the traditional will not be lost. One really worries, because our mothers all cooked but I doubt if our children will. Our grandchildren? Who knows? Maybe they’ll open packages for dinners. There is a real danger of cultural loss if you lose food, just like when you lose a language.”

We honor her memory in a special way this year, as we will continue to do in the long future.