Burnt Lumpia

Arroz By Any Other Name

When spending Christmas at my parents' house, we adhere to quite a few traditions:

• My brothers and I challenge each other's manhood via video games.  This past year it was Guitar Hero.  I'll admit that my brothers are better than me at virtually rocking.  But I rock literally. So there.

• My dad challenges everyone's religioushood (I just made that word up) by not attending Midnight Mass. While my mother, my brothers, my wife and I attend church late Christmas Eve, my father stays home and practices his finger jabs and throat punches on a wooden dummy in the garage.  He then practices his striking with the business end of his belt, jangling the metal buckle like a jingle bell (he's festive like that).

• My mom challenges my wife's stomach-hood (again, another awesome made-up word) by telling her to eat more and more at the dinner table. Any Pinoy who has ever brought a non-Pinoy home knows what I mean:

Mom: "Why don't you eat?"
Wife: "I am eating."

5 minutes later...

Mom: "Are you OK? Why don't you eat some more?"
Wife with mouth full: "Um, yes. Ok, I'll have more pancit."

2 minutes, 39 seconds later...

Mom: "You're not eating! Have some more rice! Rice! Eat! Eat! Eaaaaaaat!"
Wife with gastrointestinal pain and no other choices: "Ummm. Uh. Yes. Please."

And so it goes at my parents' house on Christmas Eve.

As fun as all of that sounds, and it really is, there is one other tradition that I look the most forward to: Arroz Caldo.  And seeing as the theme for the latest Lasang Pinoy event is rice, I see no better entry than my mother's Arroz Caldo.

A Trio of Sinigang

What little knowledge I have about Filipino American history dwarfs what I know about the history  of the Philippines.  Being born and raised in Southern California, and spending my entire scholastic career in the public schooling system doesn't exactly lend itself to learning about the historical accounts of a foreign nation--even if that foreign nation is where my ancestors are from.  I barely even know anything about American history.  I mean, the state of California is like, being ruled by the Terminator right now.  I'm serious, I just Googled it.

Anyhoo, because of this blatant and embarrassing lack of knowledge, I was especially pleased when I found out the theme for the latest go-around for Lasang Pinoy: Cooking for Heroes. For this latest installment of Lasang Pinoy, we were to choose a Philippine National Hero and then answer the age-old question that if this historical figure were invited over for dinner, what would you serve them?

For this Lasang Pinoy event, I decided I would choose a Filipino historical figure that I knew very little about.  Actually, I chose three historical figures: Fathers Mariano Gomez, Jose Apolonio Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora.  These three Filipino priests are better known under the acronym of GOMBURZA (Gomez, Burgos, Zamora) and fought for reform against the Spanish government.

GOMBURZA spearheaded a secularization movement to entrust Filipino parishes to the local Filipino clergy rather than being ruled by the corrupt Spanish friars.  Of course, the three priests were seen as hostile to the Spanish government and were eventually implicated in the Cavite Mutiny and were all executed on February 17, 1872.  The martyred priests became one of the calls to action among Filipinos to resist the Spanish and fight for Filipino independence.

For Fathers Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora, I decided to cook Sinigang--a Filipino sour soup somewhat similar to the Thai Tom Yum Soup or the Chinese Hot and Sour Soup. Except instead of using lemongrass and lime (tom yum) or vinegar (hot and sour soup) as the souring agent, Sinigang utilizes tamarind for its source of sour.  And since there were three priests, I decided to make three versions of Sinigang using three different sources of tamarind.

Bananas Foster in a Banana Leaf

My use of the term “binalot” has been limited to the answering of queries pertaining to my whereabouts. For example:

Buddy: Hey Marv, you ever been to Disneyland?
Me: Yeah, I’ve binalot.

College Professor: Hey Marv, you ever been to any of my lectures?
Me: Yes, I’ve binalot of your lectures.

Potential Employer: Hey Marv, you ever been to jail?
Me: Uh, no. I, uh, never bin to jail.

Well, it turns out that the term “binalot” also refers to the Filipino method of preparing foods in various types of wrappers—usually banana leaves, although other wrapper types may also fit in this category.  And with “Binalot” being the theme for the current Lasang Pinoy event, I had a couple of ideas to play around with.

Grilled Bitter Melon, Mango, and Tomato Salad

Lasang Pinoy, for those of you not in the know, is a group of Filipino food bloggers who get together every now and again to blog about Filipino food.  Each Lasang Pinoy event revolves around a certain theme to promote different aspects of Filipino food.  Think of it as an underground fight club--except no one gets punched in the face, it's not so underground, and everyone shares recipes (Ok, so maybe an underground fight club wasn't the best analogy. My comparative analysis is unforgiveably nonsensical!).

Ahem, uh, moving on.

Like I was saying, each Lasang Pinoy event revolves around a certain theme.  The theme for the Lasang Pinoy event that I took part in was "vegetables", or more specifically "Oh My Gulay!"

"Gulay" literally translates to "vegetable".  The term, "Oh my gulay!" is (according to Toni at Wifely Steps) a Pinoy expression commonly used to present a feeling of shock, frustration, excitement, or surprise.  Funny, that.  I don't think there has ever been a Filipino who met a play on words that he didn't like (remember my Grandpa's legendary coconut joke?).

With my first foray into a Lasang Pinoy event coinciding with the Memorial Day weekend here in the U.S., I knew I had to get a little creative.  I was initially going to make my most favorite Pinoy dish, Pinakbet, but I thought that would be too pedestrian a dish for this event.  The guidelines for this Lasang Pinoy event state that entries need not be a typical Filipino recipe, but it had to have Pinoy flavor.  So I attempted to incorporate that Pinoy flavor (flava in ya mouf!) into one of the biggest grilling weekends of the year.

My grill was calling out to me. Oh my gulay!