Stories about Food

He couldn’t remember the last time he had chocolate!  My father stared at the shiny bar as the soldier opened the package for him, revealing the rich brown color.  It really was chocolate! He took the bar and greedily took a bite. Yuck. It's disgusting was the first thought to enter my my father's head.

Angkong was from China. He came to the Philippines in the late 1910s when he was barely a teenager to help out with his uncles who were Chinese merchants. He worked various jobs in the Philippines for about ten years, sacrificing study to be able to earn enough of a capital to eventually strike out on his own.

When he reached the age of reason—that age elders deemed proper to marry—he wrote to his family in Xiamen, inquiring if they could look for or “kai shaw” (matchmake) someone who would be a good match.

There was a boy, my grandmother said. She and her classmates were celebrating the end of a school year at the beach, not unusual given they lived near the seaside. There were girls and boys, some eating, some dancing, some swimming in the water.

No matter where we went, the eating continued throughout the day. Halo-halo from the restaurant by the bay, or peanuts that had been freshly steamed, the shells still caked with dirt that would get stuck beneath our fingernails. When we’d get home, it was typical for Mama Lola to open her giant refrigerator, asking us what we wanted for dinner. 

“Every Pista Minatay, our dearly departed come back to visit us, the living. It is during Tigkalalag,  All Souls’ Day, that the spirits of our ancestors come back and roam the earth,” she said, her hands busy with the spatula, stirring the rice constantly.