Michaelangelo’s grocery list

At a recent blockbuster exhibition on Michaelangelo in the Tokyo National Museum of Western Art, I avoided the crowds in front of major works and concentrated on two works dismissed as minor or unimportant: a marble relief depicting the Virgin and the Child Jesus, said to be Michaelangelo’s first work of sculpture; and a piece of paper with what appears to be Michaelangelo’s grocery list. Michaelangelo’s relief sculpture “Madonna of the Steps” reminded me of a copy presently in Manila where it is being passed off as—hold your breath—a work by National Artist Bencab!

Michaelangelo’s grocery list was written on the back of a short note, dated March 1518, from Bernardo Niccolini who forwarded letters from someone in the office of Cardinal Giulo di Medici. Michaelangelo, like those who keep used envelopes for scratch paper, filled these with notes and reminders. It’s a pity that these scraps with drawings, sketches and notes are often overlooked because these actually provide clues into Michaelangelo’s creative process. His short list of 15 food items was divided into three neat groups, supplemented with drawings: the first: two breads, a pitcher of wine, a herring, filled pastas; the second: a salad, four breads, a pitcher of sweet wine and a quarter of dry wine, a little plate of spinach, four anchovies, filled pastas; the third: six breads, two fennel soups, a herring, a pitcher of sweet wine.

These are not recipes and probably suggest a meal or meals he was planning for guests, friends, or his assistants. The drawings of bread and pitchers of wine differ in size. Not much you can squeeze out of a stray piece of paper with notes and doodles, but they reminded me of references to food in our history, particularly in the lives of our heroes.

If Gregoria de Jesus Nakpil had written down her recipes in the same way that she designed her own utensils and measuring spoons, her recipe book would provide us a taste of the food she served Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto and the other Katipuneros. Juliana Gorricho, the ill-fated mother-in-law of Juan Luna, kept a recipe book now in the Rizal Library of Ateneo. She listed not only recipes but also the names of guests to her table in Paris, among them Jose Rizal, Marcelo del Pilar and Felix Resurreccion Hidalg

Emilio Aguinaldo did not keep a recipe book either, but what he ate during his escape from Malolos to Palanan, Isabela, was recorded in the diaries of his companions Col. Simeon Villa (father of poet Jose Garcia Villa), and his physician Dr. Santiago Barcelona. They recorded Aguinaldo’s breakfast as follows:

“The so-called Banaue Breakfast is enjoyed every morning by the President and [his] family during their stay in this rancheria (barrio). It is tasty, light and digestible, cheap and easy to prepare. It has been preferred by all who have tasted it and by the President himself whenever he comes to these mountains. It consists of milk and coffee, fried camote (sweet potato), and five to seven millimeters thick of butter. It was named thus by the President.”

On the other hand, Rizal left us with 25 volumes of writing with many references to food but no recipes. If you read through the “Noli me tangere” and “El Filibusterismo,” you will come across many references to food, like Kapitan Tiago’s sinigang na dalag in a broth soured by alibangbang leaves, or Fr. Salvi’s breakfast chocolate with hojaldres de Cebu. The late E. Aguilar Cruz and his son Larry have made “chocolate eh” part of restaurant fare, and in the old Café Adriatico was a small sign with a text from the Noli that explained the difference:

“Are you going to the convent to visit that little dead fly of a priest? Careful! If he offers you chocolate which I doubt he will… but if he finally offers, be on guard. If he calls the servant and tells him: ‘Fulanito, make a cup of chocolate, eh? Then you can stay and not worry; but if he says  ‘Fulanito, make a cup of chocolate, ah?’ then pick up your hat and exit running… Chocolate eh means espeso thick; and chocolate ah means aguado, watered down.”

When I re-read the Derbyshire translation of the Noli recently, I realized that he skipped many of the food details. Fortunately, he translated the parts about the chicken tinola in the opening of the novel, but there was much more he left out in the chapter on the picnic where Maria Clara’s Tia Isabel sorts out fish as follows: “The ayungin is good for sinigang; leave the bia for escabeche; the dalag and buan-buan for pesa;  the dalag can live long, put them in the net so they stay in water. The lobsters to the frying pan, the banak is for roasting covered with banana leaves and stuffed with tomatoes.” Assisting her with the cooking is Maria Clara’s foster sister Andeng, who makes the sinigang broth from rice washing soured with tomatoes and kamias. Helping her out are the other youths who clean the calabaza flowers, guisantes, and cut the paayap short into pieces like cigarettes.

There even is a discussion on the virtues of different breakfast beverages: Kapitana Tica says salabat with puto is best for early morning Mass. Sinang advised coffee to stimulate happy thoughts, while Tia Isabel recommended tea with galletas to calm the mind, and Victoria asked about chocolate? It is obvious from the above that Rizal could cook; or if he didn’t, he knew exactly how he wanted his Filipino food done.

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Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu