I say balo-balo, she says burong isda (both are sawsawan made of fermented rice, with shrimp in the former, and with fish in the latter). But that’s about all the two have in common. Balo-balo is mild and rather bland, while burong isda has a biting taste and a strong pungent smell. Its stench (aroma, she says) could be smelled a mile away. Our good friend Sandy Daza describes it as sukang pusa (cat’s vomit – yuk!) It’s like between cheddar and Roquefort cheese, my wife says. The former for the "uncultured" taste buds, like mine, while the latter for the sophisticated palate, she declares with such finality. Her grandma, Apung Pepang (bless her soul), used to make this highly-prized buro and gave it away to her dear neighbors. The much-awaited news that Apung Pepang’s buro was being given away always spread like wildfire. It inevitably was the talk of the town (Le buro est arrivé! Le buro est arrivé!)
I say medium rare, she says well done. Fine. But it’s not as simple as that. Steak at a fast-food joint SHOULD be served on a sizzling platter with gravy poured over it, but not at home or in a "proper" steak house wherein the gravy HAS to be served on the side. And not vice versa, mind you. So, where’s the beef, one may ask? Well, with all due apologies to cookbook author Marianne de Leon, the secret is not in the sauce. It’s just that having a steak-on-a-sizzling-platter-with-gravy-poured-on-it evokes many happy memories of college days playing hooky at the fast-food mall. (Yes, Virginia, Sizzling Plate still serves the best deals on a string budget!) While, on the other hand, steak in a formal setting should be eaten "properly," as befits the place. The gravy should be placed on the side in a sauceboat, together with the bottled Worcestershire and steak sauces (upon request, discretely, of course). Once the steak is served with gravy on it, it’s no dice: return to sender. Oh Venus!
She likes her grilled meats or fish well done. But her degree of "well-doneness" borders on being burnt, or as in forensic parlance, charred beyond recognition. Chicken or pork barbecue should be grilled dry, and not dripping with sauce when served. Otherwise, it’s back to the kitchen again! She shudders at the thought of Texas-style barbecue ribs oozing with a syrupy sauce. Yummy, I say!
On my way home from trips to the north, I am obliged to stop at Carmen, Rosales, Pangasinan to buy her tupig (the grilled banana leaf-wrapped coco-sticky rice cakes) being sold by these pesky ambulant vendors. (Don’t even think of coming home without buying me some! she says.) They’d waylay and swarm around your car as you are forced to slow down lest you’ll run over one of them. I always end up buying a handful – spreading the wealth, as she prefers to call it. But the most fun is the tupig ends up in our ref for months on end. Maybe they haven’t petrified enough, I wonder. The truth of the matter is she doesn’t even like them: it’s just the thought of bringing her pasalubong triggering childhood memories of trips to Baguio during summertime that thrills her to death. Oh brother!
I say KFC, she says Max’s. She squirms at the thought of anything breaded. And only white meat for her, please. No catsup, either. Well, maybe just a little, but only with French fries. It’s a good thing we both like our rice cooked loose and al dente (buhaghag). Speaking of which, the newly elected Makati Rep. Teddy Boy Locsin, a fellow foodie, likes his rice cooked the same way. He’s been known to walk out of a joint if the rice served is not to his liking. Of late, he’s found a solution to his dilemma: he brings his own rice, still steaming in the cooker, whenever he eats out. At first, his friends used to poke fun at his practice, now they’re the first ones to poke at his rice.
Have you ever wondered why certain foods are eaten only at certain times of the day? For breakfast, its sinangag (garlic-fried rice)-longganisa/tapa/dried fish-fried eggs for most Filipinos; bacon/ham-fried eggs-toast bread for the Americans; and for the French, its croissant/baguette with butter and jam and coffee. Though we could actually have these foods anytime of the day (or night), somehow it’s not as good if taken outside of their prescribed time. Our minds are programmed as such; we eat out of context. But who started such dictum in the first place? In the house where my wife grew up, it was (and still is) customary to have munggo soup and tuyo (dried fish) for lunch every Friday. I guess this is a carry-over of the Lenten practice of abstaining from meat. But the funny part is if it were served any other day, some members of the family get disoriented thinking it is a Friday. And it has to be sinangag for breakfasts and dinners, but newly-cooked steamed rice for lunch. It just couldn’t be any other way. And by the by, nobody, but nobody eats bangus belly in that house. But on my mother’s table, it’s world war if someone even dare encroach on the imaginary line apportioning a bangus crosswise (cut equitably).
In a scene in the movie Rainman, Dustin Hoffman plays an autistic character ordering a pancake in a diner. He throws a tantrum when his pancake was cut for him, as he prefers to do it himself.
Likewise, in the Mirror has Two Faces, Barbara Streisand has to eat a salad with much ceremony, turning around the plate to a certain angle to face her person, and eating the different ingredients in such particular sequence. It’s art imitating life, and quite accurately at that.
Much of what we eat is not dictated by our physiological need, but rather by our social, cultural, religious and economic background. We inherit a lot of the eating habits and food preferences of our parents and the environment we live in. It’s the food we grew up with, we were fed as kids, and comfort foods of our childhood deeply ingrained in our memory banks. Each morsel of food we take triggers a chip from our memories evoking a past gustatory experience (good or bad), the context of how we had it (happy or sad), explaining why we like or dislike certain foods. Eating is such a serious business, at least for those who live to eat. Imagine, one day you just may wake up finding your spouse filing for annulment – all due to gastronomic incompatibility! So, you kids out there, when dating, be careful whom you eat around with and watch what your date is eating. Bon appetit!