Inventory of times past

There are many superstitions that accompany wakes in the Philippines, the most popular being that relatives of the deceased should not see visitors off at the door, that you should not bring home any food or drink served at the wake. These traditions are supposed to keep death from following you home so most people do “pagpag,” literally dusting or shaking death off your tracks by either taking a circuitous route back or stopping along the way, usually at a convenience store, for a drink or snack leaving death in the establishment.

Added to this list is another superstition: You should not use the bathroom in a funeral parlor because regardless of whether you do Number 1 or Number 2, you are literally leaving something of yourself behind. Not good at all. So when I warned my friends at a recent wake about this, one of them laughed when he saw me signing the funeraria guest book saying I did worse by leaving my name and address behind. He refused to sign the book. Later, during the Mass, the priest warned, in jest, that after the burial God would go through the names in the guest book to choose a lucky person to die next. I didn’t check, but I’m sure some people erased their names from the guest book as they left. Historians analyzing funeral documents will complain that incomplete guest list data will skew their research and conclusions.

Lists comprise the dry bones of history and it is up to a historian to find patterns and conclusions that make the data relevant and make them come to life. Many years ago, I came across a list of the raw materials for prescription medicine that were in Rizal’s clinic in Dapitan during the visit of Pio Valenzuela. Nobody had taken the trouble to give these a second look so I showed the list to a medical doctor and he said these were mixed and prescribed for people afflicted with syphilis! Next question that has remained unanswered is who was this for? Another time, I looked at the list of the contents of Antonio Luna’s bags at the time of his assassination in 1899 and was amused that his toiletry kit included borax (for soap or tooth bleaching?) and a pair of small curling irons for his iconic moustache.

Lists can tell us a lot about the past if we investigate them well. I have gone over inventory and budget lists during the time of Emilio Aguinaldo to see not just how funds were spent but to discern why. Separating the common from uncommon expenses gives us an idea of their priorities and the challenges they faced. In the book “Flavors That Sail Across the Sea” published by Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation are many lists from the Archivo General de Indias in Seville that shed light not just on Philippine history but the development of our cuisine: What food ingredients were exchanged between the Philippines and Mexico in the 16th and 17th centuries, what ways of cooking were introduced, and how did tastes develop into what we now know as Philippine food?

One of the relevant lists was an inventory of the kitchen of the Colegio de San Jose in Manila made from Oct. 3-5, 1768, following the expulsion of the Jesuits. There is mention of stoves, furnaces and cauldrons, and even the different types of jars: a large Martaban with a lid for oil, dozens of earthenware jars made in San Pedro Macati, four Chinese jars, two large earthenware jars — one in red, the other in blue. The faculty and students used the following: 28 Flemish knives, 10 dining knives, 42 copper spoons, 30 forks, 84 mother-of-pearl spoons, assorted table clothes, napkins and rags, various sizes of serving trays and platters, more than 60 copper bowls, 24 medium-sized coarser bowls for food, over a hundred fine plates, 10 extravagant soup plates, 250 medium or ordinary plates of which 48 were blue for the use of the schoolboys, 800 coarse plates, 48 soup plates, 114 pozuelos, or small cups for chocolate, and much more.

Some of the food left in the pantry at the time of the inventory included: 13 large earthenware jars of coconut oil for light rather than cooking, two large earthenware jars of butter, five large jars and 12 loaves of Pampanga sugar, half a jar of barley, six gantas of anise, seven crates of Zamboanga cinnamon, 28 cans of tea, jars with beans and mongo, two bottles of Castilian oil. All these are trivial to most but together with other documents, such lists can recreate ways of life and lifestyles of times past.

Comments are welcome at aocampo @ateneo.edu