I grew up in Manila. My mom was from Zamboanga . We all spend summers there. Our property had every fruit tree imaginable. I remember the green mangoes would drop from the tree and I would just bite on it peel and all with some bagoong. I loved picking sampaloc and my mom would make the best dried sampaloc candies.
Like you I love the round chewy once with lots of rock salt and sugar around. I still buy fresh once here in L.A at the oriental market and make the thick candied jam.
Zamboanga was noted for it’s fresh sea food. My favorite was always the fries Hasa Hasa with the pickled small red onions and the adobong kangkong.

While in Cebu this year we went to a restaurant whose name I cannot remember now but they had this adobong kangkong and it was so delicious.

Writing, talking about food is amazing . It not only makes me hungry but it gives me the chance to reminice about all the wonderful times I had growing up in the P.I. and how lucky I was to have had the opportunity to experience all these great foods and thereby acquiring my love of cooking.

Maricar

As an adult, I still adore them. When I was still in the Philippines, in the recent years, I was glad that these used-to-be-elusive Chinese candies have become accessible and available even in the malls via Aji Ichiban. Every time I was at Glorietta in Makati, I never forgot to drop by Park Square just to buy kiamoy et al.

Actually, I’m here now in Manitoba, Canada, and I and my girlfriend are at the moment eating gray kiamoy. We call these now dried salted plums.

My other favorite was the tamarind candy. Specifically the ones wrapped in that yellow cellophane. Because every now and then the package would only unroll so far and you could not get the cellophane off, so I just would eat it rather than spend time picking the plastic off.

And let’s not forget the corner vendor with the boiled peanuts. I always had to have them if we were going to Johnny’s supermarket.

And those green mangoes with rock salt. Which I discovered are not really green mangoes but a different type of mango.

I’ll stop, because I am making myself hungry.

thanks again for another nostalgic posting. :)