Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Adobong Bisaya

Living in the city deprives me of a lot of things, especially food. (And real friends, too, who welcome you any time of the day even without an invitation, sometimes even inviting you to partake with what little food they have.)

I thought about food after watching Howie Severino’s “Amoy Pinoy” in “i-witness”. I thought about friends after being turned away by a friend who said I should have given a warning before coming over.

I thought about food and remembered the "Adobong Bisaya" my friends in my hometown used to share especially on the feast day of St. John the Baptist. My friends used to raid our kitchen – the bahaw in the kaldero, the three-day old adobo my Nana tries to save for the next meal, the ginamos in the Nescafe glass – despite the half-hearted protest of my mother.

My friends would bring everything, including the kaldero to the beach. The family has no choice but to follow and to hold an instant piknik with "Nonoy's barkada".

In our province, my friends are my parents’ friends, my friends' friends are also our friends and so on and so forth. We would always become a happy family of friends. That's why Mayo's home is my home, Marvin's bed is my bed, Meiko's mom is our mom, Divina's husband is our barkada and we eat together, sleep together and many of us, I know, would die together, nay, almost at the same time, like our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.

(By the way, wakes are a happy moment for our community. Although we shed tears, we also share happy moments together. When we were kids, we used to sleep under the coffin of a friend's dead grandfather or father or mother. November 1 is a grand reunion of the community in the cemetery. It's the only time when we account who were dead and who are still alive. The next time we buy candles for the tombs or submit a list of names of the dead for the priest to mention during the dedication of the mass, we would know how much to spend.)

Adobo is cooked in various ways. In my hometown, our adobo is dry and oily. I think it’s just appropriate because we don’t have a refrigerator. The oil preserves the meat for it to last weeks.

During fiestas, we cook a lot of adobo for friends and relatives to bring home. We call it “bring house.” We put the adobo with a lot of mantika inside cans of biscuits, milk, anything that we find in our kitchen or backyard. Sometimes, weeks after the fiesta, when we visit friends in their homes during mealtime, the nanay or the lola would proudly offer the adobo. “Gikan pa ni sa inyo. Lami kaayo mao nga gihinay-hinay namo,” the friend’s mother would say. "Kanus-a man mag-adobo og usob si nanay mo?” would always be the next question. "Sa piyesta tingali kung magpatay mi og baboy," I would answer.

It has been a long time since I’ve eaten our adobo. It has been a long time I have been with friends.

9 comments:

YupkiGirl said...

for lunch today, bumili ako ng what i thought would be adobo kahit alam ko na hindi siya kasing-lasa ng adobo. siyempre, di ko naubos. at dahil gutom pa din ako, bumili ako nung isa pang putahe na kamukha din ng adobo. pero siyempre, hindi kasing-lasa ng adobo. never learn my lessons pisti. kaya eto gutom pa din ako.

brodkaster43 said...

bay,

in our place, in the northeastern part of mindanao, our adobo is called "humba." lolas would cook almost the whole baboy in kerosine cans (also called "taru") days before the fiesta comes so that the pork softens well. it is cooked with a lot of "tausio" (black beans)springkled in it. it produces a lot of manteka which will be used for sauteing vegetables. "humbang lata-lata" is served with gunamos on the side.

naglaway ko sa kalami sa akong gidiskraeb.

terence

Joe Torres said...

bay terence,

naa pud mi humba sa amoa. lagi, sa taru man lutuon kung walay kawa. makaiyak man pod ta sa imong recollection. one of these days pagluto og humba diha dayon maniudto ta. unta naa poy tuba.

sa kanunay,

joe

brodkaster43 said...

abay joe,

adjaw na lamag pangandoy ug tuba kay wa na djamo diri's kapatagan.

didto's atuang bukid, daghan kaadjo.

one of these days, bay, we see each other to have a good chat and laughs.

we can probably let dennis, et al to join us.

just let me know when, para maka-andam pud ko ug kinilaw nga panit.

thanks and God bless.

terence

Anonymous said...

Joe!! uban ko sa kaon.. hahahaha.. musta?

Anonymous said...

kinsa man ka barb? sori ha, unsaon man nako pag-invite nimo sa kinilaw ug humba kung wa ko kaila nimo. email me sa joetorres2003@yahoo

Anonymous said...

kaon ka shot to kill... sugba tuwa ug kilaw. lami jamo na bay... busog jud ka kaayo ana

Anonymous said...

Lamia oy sa adobo, gigutom ko :-)
Makatilaw pod unta ko pohon ani. O kaha, makatuon sa pagluto sa adobo Bisaya sa imong Nanay. Unsay recipe niya?

Lubi
taga-Kalubihan
http://kalubihan.ning.com

Anonymous said...

mmmm, gi-blog nako ning Adobo Bay didto sa Kalubihan

http://kalubihan.ning.com/profiles/blogs/adobong-bisaya