Memories of mothers

For many of us, memories of our mothers are inexorably tied with food. My own mother wasn’t much of a kitchen drone, except during the Christmas season when she made frozen fruit salad, which she concocted, with much ceremony, in a huge white enamel vat. I remember standing on a kitchen chair “helping” her with her salad preparations, breathing in the sweet cloying aroma of raisins, fruit cocktail and condensed milk, which for many years later would define for me the scent of Christmas.

Another dish I associate with her is called “Soup of the Future,” the recipe for which she snipped from a newspaper. I don’t know what so attracted her to the recipe, but we remember it mainly because its main ingredient was cow’s brains—which made it at once repulsive and attractive to us. For months afterward, every family occasion was marked by “Soup of the Future,” until I suppose either she got tired of having to source cow’s brains from the market, or we simply tired of it. Whatever, no one bothered to learn the recipe for “Soup of the Future,” so its culinary legacy has been lost to us.

My husband learned many recipes from his mother, our Mommy Marty. He was stricken with rheumatic heart disease as a young boy, and so, barred from active sports, he spent a lot of time with Mommy Marty in the kitchen, learning at her elbow her signature dishes. One memorable recipe is chicken macaroni soup, which she prepared each Christmas and which remains a tradition with our own family to this day. But it was a recipe he learned from his father that has become the “star” of our holiday table. It is  morcon: sheets of beef seasoned with soy sauce and  kalamansi  and stuffed with pickles, sausages,  queso  de  bola  and scrambled egg and rolled into roulade, then cooked in tomato sauce. He prepares this for New Year’s Eve because its shape represents prosperity for the coming year.

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We celebrate Mother’s Day next Sunday, but don’t expect us to serve the classics of our holiday table. About the only concession to the occasion we’re planning is to go to our favorite brunch place then pay a visit to Mama’s graveside. Later in the day, we’ll pay tribute to another mother, our Mama Mary, as part of the annual Jimenez tradition of “Flores de Mayo.”

But over at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza, food will be the star in its observance of Mother’s Day. “Culinary traditions are showcased as Spiral’s female chefs whip up local favorites and master chefs share secret recipes that have echoed through three generations of mothers in their families,” says a press release.

Among the culinary heirloom recipes to be served are: braised oxtail  parmentier  from the recipe of executive chef Eric Costille’s mother; Chinese chef Mok Chee Wah’s Double Boiled Eight Treasure Ginseng Soup, also learned from his mother; Filipino chef Bettina Arguelles’  cuchinillo  (young pig) derived from her mother’s recipe; and Romeo Malate’s mother’s recipe for  maruya  or banana fritters.

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Because the provincial government of Ilocos Norte is also cosponsoring a mini trade fair and fashion show featuring the traditional woven “abel Iloko,” many of the featured dishes will be of Ilocano origin. So be prepared to partake of sinugba, pinakbet (the Ilocano vegetable stew livened up by  bagoong), longganisa,  lechon  and  empanada.

The last is different from the more civilized baked meat patties we’re familiar with in Manila. The “Vigan empanada,” even if it is available in both Ilocos Sur and Norte, consists of a deep-fried and crisp tortilla (usually colored a bright orange) and stuffed with shredded papaya, bean sprouts and Ilocano sausage, topped with either a fried egg or slices of hard-boiled egg. The whole package is bathed with sukang  Iloko, dark and redolent, and the whole thing, says an Ilocano friend, is best eaten on the street “with  sukang  Iloko  falling in small streams down your arm.”

This early, I’m resolving to pay a visit to Spiral for the Ilocano dishes because this was food I grew up with, our family cooks hailing from the Ilocano-speaking barangays of our hometown of Alaminos in Pangasinan. There has been of late a culinary renaissance of sorts in the Ilocos, with innovative chefs and creative restaurateurs introducing “fusion” cuisine that blends the utter simplicity of Ilocano cooking with continental flair. During one visit to Laoag, I remember partaking of the “pinakbet  pizza,” which is a rather odd concoction that nevertheless delights and surprises. Will Spiral be serving this for its Mother’s Day promotion?

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At the same time, traditional crafts will also be showcased, notably the craft of weaving abel Iloko, demonstrated by a weaver “womanning” a loom from Paoay; an embroiderer embellishing  barong  from Taal, Batangas; and basket weavers from around Manila.

On May 13, women artisans will be honored with a fashion show featuring the artistic weaves of craftswomen working from their homes in outfits designed by Ryan Madamba.

On that same evening, Sofitel also honors eight women achievers representing diverse fields like business, retail, insurance, banking, and advertising. They are being recognized “for their remarkable industry contributions and admirable fulfillment of their role as mom.”

In the end, after all, shorn of our accoutrements as career women and civic figures, our lives as women boil down to how well we fulfilled our roles and duties as daughters, sisters, friends, wives, mothers and grandmothers.

I for one am hoping my own children (and future grandchildren) will remember me not so much for my grilled cheese sandwich (my sole claim to culinary “fame”), as for my other qualities, including my scintillating personality!