An All Souls’ Day food trip

Trick or treat: the common perception is that this is a purely Western custom, which is alien to Filipino culture. Pangasinenses, however, know it isn’t so. As families troop to the camposanto to visit the tombs of the dead, they lock their homes to ensure that nothing valuable is carted away by the managcamareroa, human mischief-makers who pretend to be wandering souls.

Although more uncommon nowadays, another All Souls’ Day rite practiced in Pangasinan is the pantaotaoag day camareruad purgatorio, or "call to the souls in purgatory." This consists of nine days of novena prayers dedicated to helping free the souls from purgatory. More interestingly, it also involves a lengthy prayer that comes in the form of a chant. The words are a dialogue between the living and the spirits, and like carolers, old women go from house to house in the late afternoon or early evening to sing it. The money that they raise is used for mass offerings. This is because believers in this ritual believe that prayer is necessary to alleviate the suffering of the spirits who may have been forgotten by their descendants. The language of Pangasinan has been described by many as difficult to learn and read. Sadly, as more Pangasinenses forget the language of their ancestors, the tradition of singing the pantaotaoag is fast becoming a dying or vanishing tradition.

However, what most associate with All Souls’ Day is the food. Traditional treats prepared during this time consist mainly of cacanen or rice cakes. After going to the cemetery in the late afternoons, the usual practice is to go to the house of relatives or friends to partake of inlubi (sweetened black glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk,) kiniler (known to Tagalogs as ginataang bilo-bilo), unda-unday (small, oval-shaped patties of smooth malagkit smothered with tender slivers of young coconut cooked in a thick syrup), nilatian (bibingka), suman, and colambo, which is a softer and sweeter version of tikoy. Also a common favorite is masecoy, where the same oval-shaped patties of ground malagkit used in unda-unday are topped instead with a mixture of blackened and toasted linga (sesame seeds) and sugar.

Why are rice cakes the usual All Souls’ Day fare? In olden times when there were only two harvests per year, farmers planted traditional glutinous rice varieties, such as macaroyo and batolinew ("clear stone"), so that these were ready for harvest before All Souls’ Day. Also, in those days when refrigerators were uncommon, preparing rice cakes was a safer alternative as these did not spoil easily. The food tradition persists to this day.

Like most Ilocanos and Pangasinenses, my family believes in the practice of atang: giving food offerings to departed family members who are believed to visit their families on All Souls’ Day. The general belief is that the food loses its flavor as the spirits partake of it. In my family, we practiced atang for a long time after my father died. My dad was cremated and, many months after his death, we brought his urn with us every time we left home for family vacations. Perhaps we were a bit extreme, but my father’s urn had its own chair and plateful of food before it when we ate out in restaurants. We had to keep an eye on the urn’s carrying case, and the running joke was, "Baka ma-kidnap si Dad." Of course, no one discovered that the nice bag on the seat contained my dad’s urn. Definitely, many wondered why a plateful of food was left untouched on the table.

There is a tradition in Pangasinan where candles are lit in front yards on the evening of All Souls’ Day to guide the spirits to their former homes. As we drive home from visiting our grandparents’ graves, the flickering lights seem magical and mystical.

As we reach home, however, the smells of igado, dinakdakan, pinapaitan (Ilocano specialties made with sweetbreads and other organ meats,) fish kilawen, incalot ya sira tan baboy (grilled fish and pork,) and inadobong talaba (oysters cooked in vinegar) engulf us, and we know that the spirit of our dad is home. On the dessert table are the various cacanen, leche flan, pastillas and dulces that our late grandmother enjoyed, and we know that she is there as well.

We know that our dearly departed do not need the candles to find their way home to us. Conversely, it does not require much for us to remember them. In a family like ours, All Souls’ Day is for remembering the good times with departed family members with food.