Market Manila

Childhood Food Memories is the selected topic for this month’s Lasang Pinoy 10 hosted by Chef Sam de Leoz at Buhay Cocinero, who will have a round-up in a few days of all the entries by Pinoy food bloggers and food enthusiasts from around the world. The topic is destined to be a classic. And I feared I had already exhausted all of my potential “entries.” If there is anything that I have learned from this blog, it is that food and childhood memories are inextricably linked. Over the past 18 months, I have received hundreds of comments and e-mails related to various posts that featured a recipe or fruit or place that readers recalled from their own childhoods…whether munching on duhat picked from a neighbor’s tree, eating pospas when down with the flu, or perhaps it was a special way a mom or aunt prepared a holiday dish, and the clarity of their memories is totally amazing. For the most part, the food-memory link results in an apparent rush of good endorphins that flood readers’ psyches wherever in the world they may be. The smell of frying daing, the stickiness of suman, and the smoke from a barbecue are all triggers for the mind. It has certainly made me think harder about my own childhood and what I recall as the “food highlights.”

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Few things are as delicious and easy to prepare as edamame (boiled or steamed fresh soybeans). These are the beans in pods that are brought to you as an appetizer at some of the better Japanese restaurants in town. They are sprinkled with some good sea salt and you place the whole bean pod in your mouth while holding the stem end and you gently extract the beans and chew on them while you discard the bean pod. The soy beans should have some pop to them if your beans are fresh and a nice flavor that is enhanced by the salt.

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If you read the previous post on Fruits de Mer, you may be interested in the recipe for cooking them. First, clean all of the shells you intend to include in the shell stew. Know your shells as some of them are definitely poisonous. Brush them thoroughly and rinse several times to remove the grit, sand and or any distasteful growths on the outer shells. In this case, the sea urchins were eliminated from the mix and I think the murex, small crabs, etc. got thrown back into the sea as well. Break the crown of the shells with a hammer to ensure the easy removal of meat later on. In a small covered pot, boil a little water, some sliced onion, lots of sliced ginger and add perhaps half a concentrated fish cube. Add all of the shells, some salt to taste, cover and boil for several minutes until they are all cooked. Stir occasionally to ensure that all the shells are cooked thoroughly. I am sure undercooking rather than overcooking might yield more tender meats but the crew like their shells seriously well done.

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This is a striking platter of just plucked Fruits de Mer (Bounty of the Sea). We were at the beach last weekend to try and recover from the wicked jet lag that we experienced coming back six time zones. For some reason, the jet lag was far worse than if we traveled 12 time zones… at any rate, it was a quiet weekend at the beach…simple meals, a little tennis, some long walks and lots of sleep. The crew was relaxed and had lots of time to go exploring on the beach. The recent storms, the flow of the tides this time of year and an unusually low low tide meant there was a lot of coral and rocks exposed late one afternoon. Geez, just caught up with the news that there were 4 large earthquakes in the region that day…the low, low tide could have been a sign a tsunami was coming and there everyone was, poking around the rocks instead! They poked around as you see coastal natives poking around all across the country and returned to the house with a huge bag full of these various fruits de mer!

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That’s “snotty,” not “snooty” coconuts. I am always intrigued when my crew selects fresh coconuts on roadside stops on the way to the beach. They are so certain that they seek specimens that are locally referred to as “malauhugin” or literally translated - “snot-like.” The vendors always acquiesce and search through their piles of nuts (or are they fruits?), using their bolos to tap the coconuts in search of the perfect “malauhugins.” The sound they hear after they tap the fruit is an indicator of just how mature the fruit is and different degrees of maturity are ideal for different uses. I suppose if the Eskimos can have 30+ words for/or types of snow then we should have at least 10 to describe the quality of our abundant coconuts… and “malauhugin” is perfect chilled and sipped with a straw straight out of the coconut shell. Then cracked open and the somewhat translucent sweet flesh is scooped up with a spoon for immediate consumption…

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I have received several requests to illustrate how to kill and clean a crab. I thought they were joking. But on second thought, if so many of my readers were amused, intrigued and possibly thrilled to see a post on how to slice a mango, which I did last year in response to a request from one of my earliest and most loyal American readers, then maybe it would be useful to do a “crab-cleaning” tutorial. After all, I have featured several recipes with crabs and they are one of my all-time favorite crustaceans. But let me assure you now that I will never ever illustrate how to kill a baby cow and make veal chops… too gory, if you ask me (and frankly, I doubt I will ever do it myself). Better yet, read carefully, do this once and teach your cook, if you have one, how to do it. Otherwise, it isn’t too bad to do yourself…very Conan the Barbarian or whatever the seaside equivalent is!

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A short break from the European Trip posts to highlight what’s in the market now and should consider savoring at the peak of the season… This will be followed by a few local posts, then my entry to Lasang Pinoy 10 on Wednesday…then back to more European trip posts. There is a lot of santol in the market and in backyards at the moment (we just harvested 20-30 kilos from our small backyard tree last Friday) from the small sour varieties to the largest sweet Bangkok varieties. I have written about the fruit before, even had a post on santol jam which is the closest local conserve we have to membrillo or Spanish quince paste, but the easiest way to enjoy the santol bounty is in santol juice. When you have the fruit up the wazoo, peel them, chop a few throw them into a pitcher with water and some simple sugar syrup. Let this steep in the fridge for at least 6-8 hours and enjoy with lots of ice. I haven’t tried this, but it just occurred to me this might be nice if you add some tanglad (lemongrass) to the sugar syrup to add another layer of flavor… this is really easy and surprisingly tasty and refreshing.

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Growing up in Manila meant breakfast juices were, shall we say, of limited quality and availability… I recall advertisements for Sunkist tetra-pak juices (remember those pyramidical thingees) boasting they were made from the juice of Valencia oranges (which of course had probably been dehydrated and rehydrated in between). Alternatively, we used to just scoop two tablespoons of TANG into a glass and add cold water…yikes. Mind you, I loved Sunkist and Tang, probably since I didn’t know any better… At any rate, when you get a whiff of the “real thing,” a lightning bolt flashes through your brain to permanently erase any pretenders to the original. In Barcelona, I came across a mountain of Valencia oranges grown in Valencia in netted bags that were on sale for about 3 Euro for 15 oranges and I bought some and lugged them back to the apartment…

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