A Food Memory

I have been watching Master Chef Australia lately. The latest challenge which would catapult the candidates to the top 5 finalists was quite a fascinating one, an idea that each one of us could relate to. The candidates had to go back to their earliest memories of food and use them as inspiration for the food they must create.


That sent me into trying to remember the kind of food that would inspire me to cook something that would comfort me whenever I felt down and out. So look back I did. Sadly it did not come from my parental home. During my early childhood I hardly remember my mother cooking for us, as she was mostly away in the big city doing post graduate studies. My Dad cooked, but I do not remember fondly eating the results of his efforts (sorry Dad). His cooking prowess was mostly limited to ‘inun-on’ when it was a fish dish, consisting of boiling the fish in salted water. He would treat the eggplant and okra in exactly the same way, too. Ditto with ‘upo’ and ‘patola’, ‘ganas’ and ‘sigadilyas’.
Being the eldest, I was trained early on to cook rice in a sooty ‘caldero’ on wood fire. I went through many stages of failed and successful results, invariably serving rice that was raw on top but burnt at the bottom. It is because of this early training that my rice cooking has been elevated into its highest position which is perfection… even if I do not own a rice cooker.
There was the occasional sea-shell, shrimp and crab meals which did not really take a lot of effort on my Dad’s part to turn into delicious meals. The sea-shells were cleaned and clipped when necessary, then deposited into a coconut milk broth with salt, onions and ginger. Yum. The unpeeled shrimp would be fried in oil and nothing else. Yum. The crab would be immersed in boiling water and when it turned red it was ready. Yum.
So food at home was a no-fuss business. Thinking about home does not inspire me to cook the comfort food of my choice. But thinking about my fraternal grandparents’ home did! Just thinking about it makes my mouth water.
Ordinary dinners would consist of ‘tinolang manok’ (chicken in broth) with slices of papaya and Chinese cabbage or ‘sinigang na isda’ (fish in salty-sour broth) with whatever vegetable was in season . These dishes are actually straight forward to prepare but it was those little things that grandma put in that made these seemingly simple dishes smell and taste delicious. Also, grandma had those shiny cooking pots that did not have sooty bottoms. She paired the main dishes with pearly shiny unbroken rice. And there would always be fruit or dessert afterwards.
When there’s a feast, then I would witness dish after dish of insanely lovely food. Lechon, dinuguan, escabeche, adobo, caldereta, menudo, humba, embutido, pancit, mechado, pinangat… and the list goes on. But no matter how amazing those party food were, I still tend to go back to the basics which are the broth-based food. They are my idea of comfort food. They are the food I would love to eat when I feel sick, or hurt, or in pain. They are the kind of food I would love to eat whenever, wherever, and for whatever reason.
So that was what cropped up in my mind as I watched the Master Chef contestants squeeze their brains for inspiration. These dishes may not get the approval of the judges in the Master Chef but it would get my approval every time.