Fables of Agoo: Now I write me down to sleep…

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Fables of Agoo: Now I write me down to sleep…: "There have been a lot of things happening lately that have prevented me from laying my thoughts down to paper. Ironically, the things that ..."

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Food and Oral History: Balut

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My sister shows off her contribution to the Merienda.      This edible surprise will scare you if you are not familiar with this Filipino appetizer.  I know of many Filipinos who dare not touch this unless they are drunk.  It is exotic and it is strange.  It even looks a little disgusting.  My father said something to me growing up about the etiquette of eating this culinary freak of nature.  He said "you must eat it in a movie theatre so you do not have to look at it."             The mysterious delicacy I build up here is the legendary balut.  According to Wikipedia, a  balut  is a fertilized  duck  (or chicken) egg with a nearly-developed  embryo  inside that is boiled alive and eaten in the shell.      Popularly believed to be an  aphrodisiac  and considered a high-protein, hearty snack, balut are mostly sold by street vendors in ...
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Food and Oral History: Pancit "Long-Life"

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This recipe blog entry is dedicated to my Tito Filimar Blanco  who passed away on Tuesday, April 12, 2011.  May he rest in peace. My cousin Frances shows off the dish his dad, my Uncle Leo, cooked      On your birthday, you must have someone make this dish for you.  The dish is called pancit or pansit, which is the term for noodles in Filipino cuisine. Noodles were introduced into the Philippines by the Chinese and have since been adopted into local cuisine. The term pancit is derived from the Hokkien pian i sit (Chinese: 便ê食) which means "something conveniently cooked fast".      If you have ever been to a Filipino party anywhere in the world, this dish will be there 99% of the time.  If it is not on the table, the host ran out of time to prepare it.  I think this dish best appeals to Americans because it is not too strange and exotic looking on the table.  The taste also does not have a distinct single s...
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Food and Oral History: Garlic Rice

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Garlic rice photo by Hamilton from Evart Michigan Simplicity sometimes makes things so much better.  I have been describing simple recipes with complicated nuances of in between twists and turns.  The truth of cooking as well as anything in life is that less is more.  I can not think of anything more basic and simple than rice. Rice is the fundamental staple of Filipino food.  It is the foundation upon which we pour our soups over.  It is the centerpiece of our sweets to make our gelatinous desserts.  My grandmother even made her own libation, saki, out of fermented rice.   I confess that I am probably the only Filipino who does not own a rice cooker. You can imagine how panicked I was when I decided to have a Filipino party.  I could not make enough rice to feed twenty-five people in a little pot, in my tiny kitchen, on my limited counter space stove top.  So I put a text out to family members who owned a rice cooker.  I text messa...
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