DAYS after tropical storm ?Ondoy? hit the country, everyone had a tale to tell about the floods. For those who didn?t suffer that much, there was a tinge of guilt when they said nothing really happened to them.

Some people at the office volunteered to help in the packing of donated items. One of them told me there were so many people at one of the centers that she felt she wasn?t doing enough. So she decided to go home, look through her things, pack some of the clothes and gave them to the helpers whose homes were flooded. Charity should indeed begin at home.

But there are people who helped out by cooking hot meals in their own kitchens. One of them is Patty Mercado, who fanned the hot meals out through a network of volunteers. When asked what food she cooked, she texted ?boiled eggs, torta, and adobo.? She also packed bananas.

Binalot Fiesta Food, a local fastfood company, has accepted pledges for hot meals and the last count they had was at least 460 meals at P50 each.

Some associations have donated money for many of the soup kitchens that have sprouted. One of them is the Manila Ladies Branch of the International Wine and Food Society that sent hot meals to the barangay (villages) located near the Nangka River in Marikina.

Unusual menu

My parents were abroad when one of the strongest typhoons hit Metro Manila. I remember how my siblings and I gathered in my parents? room, huddled together on their bed while the winds howled and the rains lashed against the roof and windows. There was very little food left because market day was still two days away. We also knew that the market wouldn?t be open after all the devastation.

We didn?t really need to worry because my grandparents lived just beside our house and they wouldn?t let us go hungry. But there was so much santol that the winds shook from the trees in the backyard. So we had those, mainly, and enjoyed the fact that we weren?t eating a proper meal for two days. We still talk about it, giggling over our improper diet.

My husband, on the other hand, remembers how he welcomed storms in his Leyte hometown because that meant no classes and the food was always special. He remembers having roasted chicken, special food because on ordinary days, meals were mostly seafood. Meat, he told his sons, was only to be had during weekends.

Gilda Cordero Fernando in her book, ?Philippine Food and Life,? describes the scene in Camarines Sur after a typhoon as ?like a fiesta.? The unreachable fruits are suddenly at ground level for everyone to pick, there?s plenty of fish from ponds that have overflowed and washed down from the mountains are root crops such as cassava, gabi and kamote. Because of so many fallen banana plants, there?s so much of the fruit being sold as well as the pith (ubad) which is cooked with chicken and milk extracted from toasted grated coconut meat. Kurakding, special mushrooms that look like pencil shaving, makes its appearance during that time.

Fernando also writes that sometimes Bicolanos make do with ?pinakru, rice with gata (coconut milk) and a bit of salt? but in desperate times they can live on rice, salt and chili.

Everyone was unprepared when tropical storm ?Ondoy? hit so when it was reported that Typhoon ?Pepeng? was on the way to the country, there was panic buying and the shelves were emptied, especially of canned sardines. Candles and batteries had run out. I suppose instant noodles as well because there was a call to stop donating these since the shortage of this product would mean that most homes would be deprived of what seems like a necessary item on the menu of many households today.

Panic buying isn?t new. Every typhoon spawns one. Years ago it was reported that the first items to run out were toilet paper and pasta noodles.

But my panic buying experience was quite crazy. While going through the shelves, my friend and I discovered small bottles of caviar at P10 each. We took all of them and we held our breath when the prices were being punched because the cashier might notice the discrepancy. But no, she punched P10 for each and my friend and I looked at each other, stifling our laughter until we got to the car. We shared the loot and went our merry way but we told each other that we would open one bottle each to taste it. For all we know, it might be the cashier laughing after we left.

That evening, amid the torrential rain, we called each other and declared the caviar to be good. And we made sure those bottles would last until Christmas, a few weeks away.

E-mail pinoyfood04@yahoo.com.