A taste of Mexico

Last Wednesday, Daniel Hernandez, the ambassador of Mexico to the Philippines, arranged a most memorable birthday for me aboard the Mexican training ship, Cuauhtémoc, that was in a Manila stop-over in a voyage around the world. Before boarding, I witnessed the Philippine flag hoisted and honored on the ship, then we were welcomed on board by Captain Victor Hugo Molina Perez before proceeding to the Captain’s table. Seated to my right on a long table was Commodore Vincent J. Sibala, commander of the Littoral Combat Force of the Philippine Navy, a keen student of history who, during the pandemic, downloaded and read much of the 55-volume “The Philippine Islands.” This compilation of primary source documents from 1493 to 1898 by Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson is a standard reference for historians. Table conversation slanted toward history because of the shared history between Mexico and the Philippines, connected through the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade that ran from 1565-1815.

Contrary to popular belief, the Spanish occupation of the Philippines did not begin with Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 because he was killed in Mactan. Miguel Lopez de Legazpi formally began the Spanish period in 1565 by taking the islands for the Crown of Spain. A graphic description of this can be found in the engraved frontispiece of “Conquistas de las islas Filipinas” by Gaspar de San Agustin (1698). On top, we see divine light shining on the colonial enterprise from the heavens. A group on the lower right shows: Philip II, pointing to the islands that now bear his name, behind him is Legazpi, first governor general of the Philippines. On the lower left side of the engraving is a group of monastics led by St. Augustine whose friar order was the first to arrive in the Philippines in 1565. Peering behind St. Augustine is friar with an astrolabe, Fray Andres de Urdaneta, who is often credited with finding the “tornaviaje” or the return route from the Philippines to Mexico. Current historiography now points to a wayward member of the Legazpi expedition who arrived before Urdaneta but was declared a deserter. Further proof, that history, to use a social media term describing relationships, it’s complicated.

One would wish Philippine history textbooks had more pictures than text because maps, engravings, and illustrations in old books can spark more engagement than text, even if these are complicated for what they include and exclude in a visual re-presentation of history.

In 1761, Lorenzo Atlas engraved the “Symbolic Aspect of the Spanish world” [“Aspecto symbolico del mundo hispánico …”]. An extremely charming map that depicts Hispania, the allegory of Spain, as a beautiful woman crowned by the Spanish provinces. Her necklace, composed of the Spanish galleons, organized around the four cardinal points: North, East, West, South. Spanish America is her cloak, she holds the flag of Spain on her left hand, the flagstaff indicating the demarcation line initially established by the 1493 papal bull “Inter caetera,” when Pope Alexander VI cut the world in half like an orange, and gave half of the unknown world to Spain and the other half to Portugal to maintain peace between the competitors in the so-called voyages of discovery.

Under the mantle, we see Hispania’s shapely legs formed from the ocean routes between the Philippines and Mexico that connected East and West through the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade, now considered the first globalization. Nowhere else has a maritime route been drawn so sensuously presented. Hispania’s “tsinelas” or slippers are made from the Philippines: Luzon on the right, Mindanao on the left. My immature anti-colonial reading once took this re-presentation as an insult to the islands and its people. My students have a more open-minded nationalism, they argue that without Filipinas at Hispania’s dainty feet—how will the Spanish empire stand?

As part of Mexican cultural diplomacy, we were served a typical Veracruz breakfast. I was familiar with empanaditas or mini-empanadas from the Spanish “empanar” to wrap in bread. We had “picaditas” also known as “sopes” that were fried masa corn cakes, like a mini-pizza that had a choice of two savory toppings. These were in the colors of the Mexican flag red (tomato-based) and green (avocado). Gorditas dulce was a sweet fried griddle cake. Gorditas de frijoles, “gorda” means fat so these were little fat griddle cakes made fat with beans inside. Huevos naturales was scrambled eggs. Arrachera was a Mexican skirt steak usually made for tacos, the sliced beef I thought was their version of our “tapa.” A revelation for me was chicharon en salsa verde that wasn’t crunchy but was soft and soaked in a tomatillo and green chili pepper sauce. It is often spicy but was made mild for the Filipino guests. I liked the frijoles refritos con queso or refried beans with cheese

To cap the meal, we had coffee and “pan re reposteria” that came with very descriptive names: croissant was called “cuerno” (horn), a sugar-dusted heart-shaped bread known in Spain as “palmera” (palm) was called “oreja” (ear), and a round sugar frosted bread with cross hatching was called “concha” (shell) making me ask, can’t it be called “tortuga” (turtle) instead? Breakfast gave me a literal taste of Mexican history and culture.

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