If I remember it correctly, there were many occasions in my younger years when my mother would search for any jobs in our neighbourhood just to earn some money for our daily meals, and sometimes we would eat only two times a day if no neighbour needed their house cleaned or their clothes washed. In some worse occasions, we would eat just once a day, at any time of the day, and sleep with our hunger at night if my father also earned nothing. We would usually rely only on the garden filled with trees and vegetables my great-grandmother tended when she was alive if my younger brothers cried for food.
There, my mother and I would climb a coconut or banana tree and bring those ripe ones to our house and eat to silence the sound of our empty stomachs.
In my childhood years, my house wasn’t capable of completing three meals a day because working was not always secure. We were always uncertain of tomorrow, so we would savor the food we had in the present. Some memorable foods I have from those years are bananas and coconuts. We had a lot of them bordering our house—sometimes coconuts would even fall onto our roof while we were sleeping at night. It might sound unfortunate to have those trees waking us up, but for us, we were fortunate to have those things we could eat whenever we ran out of food.
Fortunately, we are no longer living that kind of life. I would say we are now comfortably living with plenty of food every day, and my mother has a good job. It has been a long time since we left our old living and area, but sometimes, whenever I stumble upon vendors selling delicacies made from coconut or banana, the memories would just flow freely and harshly without my permission. Food carries some of our worst memories, and to eat those again, as a completely different person, always humbles me.
Today, I don’t often find myself in places that sell those foods and I, secretly, hope not to see them—unless necessary. But life has its own way of humbling us, and on random days this year, memories would greet me happily and extravagantly with those childhood foods. In fact, yesterday, I met a lot of them, and I could not help but give them a chair for a moment.
I was in school yesterday for a make-up class. It was just a short discussion, as I supposedly didn’t have a class that day. I left the room after dismissal and rushed to the ground floor to go home. Before I reached the very gate of my school, I saw some students in the quadrangle with others from the Hospitality and Management Department. They were selling local delicacies as part of their performance, and other students were supporting them by buying their offers.
I searched for a good booth and found one immediately. I approached the table only to find out they were selling local delicacies made from banana and coconut. Although I didn’t want them to meet me again, a large part of me still wanted to eat them. I bought some of their offers, and I enjoyed them so much. They tasted sweeter than in the past, but they were still as iconic as they had been.
These are the offers they displayed on their tables: Ginanggang, Pasung, Puto Maya with Mango, and lastly, Sapin-sapin. They are termed under Cebuano, so they might sound unfamiliar to you if you are not living in Cebu.
**Ginanggang**
One of the most memorable styles of cooking ripe banana for me. This local delicacy is a banana on a stick that is grilled while coated with margarine. We often use saba, a kind of banana, and when cooked, we sprinkle it with sugar. In the photo, you could see how perfect the burn is and honestly, that black part—though it looks overburned—gives a unique taste to the banana. It was my first time in a long while eating Ginanggang and, as always, it tasted heavenly. Much better than fried bananas. Since it is a simple recipe, it also has simple ingredients such as saba bananas, margarine, and white sugar.
**Pasung**
Made from glutinous rice, this is a type of steamed rice cake also wrapped with banana leaves. It is colored in different shades but the taste is not different. The variety is only for presentation. The glutinous rice is mixed with coconut milk (I prefer the fresh ones over processed milk), which gives it a chewy texture when eaten. I seldom ate this food in my childhood, so I didn’t buy one from the students. Common ingredients are glutinous rice flour, brown sugar, fresh or processed coconut milk, and food coloring. Just don’t forget the banana leaves for the signature presentation.
**Puto Maya with Mango Toppings**
Similar to Pasung, this one is also made from glutinous rice and coconut milk. Ginger is also added to create a subtle spicy taste. We often ate it for breakfast and paired it with sikwate, a hot chocolate drink made from fresh cocoa (tablea). I usually don’t encounter this kind of serving because we often bought ones without mango. But on the display, they filled it with mangoes, so I had to buy one. I was also amazed to find out it also had a topping of cauli petals, which is a flower my mom used for tea in those years of rock bottom. I’d say it was the healthiest delicacy among their offers.
**Sapin-sapin**
This one confused me because, as far as I know, Sapin-sapin is served with different colored layers—that’s why it is called Sapin, meaning layer. Each layer has an eye-catching color, which makes this food vibrant and festive to encounter. I think the students unfortunately missed some details while cooking; that’s why they coated it completely with grated coconut instead of just topping it. But anyway, for your information, Sapin-sapin is also made with glutinous rice and sweet coconut milk. It has different flavors—commonly langka, ube, and pandan. It is layered with different colors to make it unique from other delicacies, and even if it looks firm, it is chewy and light when eaten. Like puto, it is served during breakfast and could also be a snack. I often encountered this during fiestas in our town, and it was one of the foods that disappeared fastest from the display because everyone liked it. The main ingredients of this delicacy are sweet coconut milk, rice flour, sugar, flavor powders, food coloring, and even toasted coconut.
Those are the foods served in the booth, and I think each booth represented different origins of Filipino delicacies. In the booth I visited, there was also Patupat, another traditional rice cake, but it was sold out at that time. I didn’t visit another booth as I wanted to go home immediately to work on my backlogs.
I might feel sad encountering those foods again, but I still love the taste they give. It didn’t change—rather, it improved. More than that, I love the idea that it can humble me in life, reminding me gently of where I was before this kind of living. Life has cunning ways of presenting us our worst memories, but it also has gentle ways to humble us, which no one can replicate. I enjoyed eating the foods again despite what they contained. I just want to make sure that what I am telling in this blog is not out of disgust for the food but the memory I have with it.
If you have made it this far, I want to thank you for reading and giving some time for this narration. I appreciate you with all the love that I have. To end this, I would also want to know how food represents your life or why it is important to you. I would love to read your stories in the comment section.