MANILA, Philippines – Coming home from a full day at the office, I always go to the kitchen first. My question has always been, “What’s for dinner?” Even with a menu planned, the food for the day always escapes me. On one particular cold rainy day when I asked that question, I was told monggo guisado and paksiw na isda. It was the first time I smiled that day because I really felt wonderful. Imagine, I hadn’t even eaten yet. Just the thought of those dishes was enough to warm me.
It’s not my comfort food, as people may think. Monggo guisado doesn’t make me recall heart-warming experiences. Fish paksiw we have almost weekly, only because there are so many kinds of fish that can be stewed in vinegar, making it a totally different dish every time. It was more a matter of having the right food at the right time.
On another particularly cold autumn day abroad, I craved for a huge cone of ice cream, and found one at a Washington D.C. sidewalk. I wasn’t alone though, because similar souls had also lined up for their comforting cool fix. Could it be my contrary nature (what people usually call contravida), or my belief that the best way to fight off a chill is to take in something cold, just as taking a warm bath on a hot day is the best way to cool off because it opens up one’s pores?
I didn’t start out that way. I remember looking for hot champorado when the rains kept us from going to school and there was more time to eat a leisurely breakfast. I suppose it was the thought again of something steaming to take, that would consequently warm one up when the skies are overcast and there is constant rain, such as on that August month years ago when the rains wouldn’t let up for about two weeks. It must also be the feel-good element of the chocolate mixed in with the rice. The better part is that the sweetness of the champorado is tempered and contrasted by its constant companions—the salty tuyo (dried salted fish) or the smoky flavor of tinapa (smoked fish).
For my Bicolano friends, rainy days especially during thunderstorms mean there will be kurakding to harvest. Kurakding are wild mushrooms that sprout on the bark of trees after the rains. It’s important to clean those mushrooms that look like pencil shavings, because they contain splinters from the tree. For those who know the scent of porcinii, the prized Italian mushroom, the kurakding closely matches the aroma. Bicolanos will cook the kurakding with coconut milk the way they do many of their dishes.
As I write this, my husband comes in from his Sunday market routine. He excitedly tells me that he has native chicken and that we’re having hinatukang manok for lunch, chicken cooked in coconut milk. Some prefer the soup with chicken blood, which is done by mixing the blood into the grated coconut before squeezing the cream out.
The hinatukang manok, the hubby says, brings him back to stormy days in Leyte. Its fish version is the smoked tulingan (mackerel) with green malunggay leaves contrasting with the white coconut milk soup. As he tells me that, he repeats the names of those two dishes like a mantra that will make him feel good on this rainy day, forgetting that he had just bought the ingredients that will have him remember more concretely those soaking days in his Leyte hometown.
While the goto of Batangas can be eaten daily, rain or shine, I suppose this soup of cow’s head and innards that is colored with achuete (annatto) is more appreciated during the rainy season. In the cattle market of Lemery on Saturdays, the carinderia cook will fish beef parts out of the pot and cut them into strips for easier eating, then add them into the broth, already creamy from the constant simmering. If I were to take my goto the way farmers do it in the market, I would bite into some siling labuyo (bird’s eye chili), sip the soup, then take some rice with the bits of beef. The heat from the chili will certainly warm the body as much as the broth. And it will clear the sinuses of a cold building up as well.
A friend, the editor of a culinary magazine, thought that her August issue ought to contain recipes of rainy day food. Her cover will have the arroz caldo, chicken cooked with rice smelling palpably of ginger. She believes that’s our chicken soup for the soul. My contrary nature kicks in and I tell her arroz caldo is for when you get sick.
The principle, however, is the same. You take soup because the broth and the warmth it brings lingers longer in your system. That then lifts up the spirits in a slow deliberate way, stretching that comforting feeling until it’s time to eat again.
