MANILA, Philippines?News of the death of Mila Santiago Enriquez reached me while I was in Bicol.

I knew many friends would be there at her wake because she always kept in touch with writers she knew especially when there was some new food festival that featured her beloved Bulacan.

The first time I met her was on my first food tour. It was held at the Enriquez ancestral home, a whole-day affair where participants learned how to cook, make and package the province?s specialties. Enriquez brought in those who could teach us.

I remember we began with how to make kesong puti. Carabao milk was solidified with vinegar and a small press was used to remove the liquid. The process was so simple that I thought it deserved a try.

That was years ago but I haven?t done it because it?s so easy to get superior kesong puti from my neighborhood grocery and at weekend markets.

We were taught as well the rudiments of cutting pastillas wrappers in the decorative style with flowers and birds or even nipa huts. Most of us ended up with shredded paper mainly because there was no drawn guide on papel de Hapon (Japanese paper).

In the afternoon, we went to the ground floor to learn how to wrap suman. Everyone proved to be a klutz trying to form suman with coconut frond. In case rice was placed inside what we had done, none of the grains would have stayed in.

But it was Mila who did the cooking for our lunch. It was part of the demonstration of several dishes with many asides on history, what our heroes liked to eat. Those were later included in her award-winning book, ?Kasaysayan ng Kaluto ng Bayan? (Zita Publishing Corp., 1993)

She demonstrated the bringhe Bulacan, a festive dish of glutinous rice boiled with coconut milk, colored yellow with turmeric and mixed in with chicken pieces, shrimp and crabs with cut bell pepper.

In her book, she said there have been speculations that the bringhe only copied the Spanish paella but she argued that all the ingredients are part of our cooking. I might add that the same kind of cooking is done by our Southeast Asian neighbors.

The most entertaining part was cooking fish that jumped up and down. In the garden, two metal drums held tilapia and mudfish or bulig. She called our next dish as pinaluksong isda and they were jumping, indeed.

Both fish were brought straight from the water on top of GI sheets that were laid on charcoal and right away, those would jump up and down as soon as they felt the heat.

After a while, the movement would stop and the fish were turned over to be sure both sides were cooked.

Crushed Jacob?s crackers

The one that amused most of us there was what she called pasensiya. It was crushed Jacob?s crackers, the crackers of choice during my grandmother?s time, mixed with milk, sugar, eggs, dayap juice then topped with sugar and broiled.

The name was given because those who offered it would excuse this too plain dessert by saying: ?Pasensiya na kayo, ito lang ang handa namin, (Excuse us but this is all we can offer).?

It was also in that tour that I learned about the alagaw leaf used in cooking, usually wrapped around grilled food giving it the aroma of licorice. It was growing in pots at the azotea, the balcony area in an old house.

Mila and I would meet whenever Bulacan cuisine was presented. At one of them she introduced me to dishes done by the cooks of friars such as Ba Pedro who became the cook of the Enriquezes.

During the revolution against Spain, Ba Pedro substituted beer or serbesa for the Spanish wine.

Still, the dishes retained their Spanish names such as aves del kumbento, duck that was braised in soy sauce and vinegar, very much an adobo and the solomillo del fraile, beef tenderloin, also braised.

For a book on Filipino cooking I was doing, she prepared hamon ng Bulakan that used pork belly and only required three days of curing. And then she used the same formula for prawns creating a very good hamong sugpo.

My favorite recipe from her and the easiest to do is the nilasing na mangga. It?s sliced green mangoes immersed in salt, mashed so the salt is distributed equally then a bit of beer and sugar mixed in.

In her book, Mila wrote how the Katipuneros loved green mangoes as their pulutan when they drank. They would dip the fruit in salt, sugar or beer. One day they decided to mix all those together and invented a dish.

Mila Enriquez will be remembered for her untiring promotion of Bulacan cooking and for her book that documented the cooking of her province through the various stages of Philippine history.

We hope to keep up her good work.

E-mail the author at pinoyfood04@yahoo.com