The Holy Week Diet

CEBU, Philippines - Among Catholic Christians, food is quite an issue during the Holy Week. Many of them, in the Philippines particularly, struggle to avoid eating meat from Ash Wednesday all the way until Easter Sunday.

Although priests explain that there are only certain days of Lent – two days, to be exact – when abstinence from meat is required, the tradition of waiving meat and poultry products altogether during the Lenten season seems to hold, generally. 

The ‘misinformed’ Holy Week practice is not a problem with Cebuanos, though. In fact, they have long since devised an alternative diet for the Holy Week, especially for the three days leading to Easter Sunday – Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Black Saturday. It’s a dish similar to “Ginataang Haluhalo” of the Tagalogs and yet different.

It’s the “Binignit,” a warm root crop and fruit stew consisting of a thick mixture of tubers such as taro, purple yam, sweet potato, as well as bananas, jackfruit, sago, tapioca pearls and sugar, cooked in coconut milk.

The website www.pinoyrecipe.net shares a “Binignit” recipe that takes approximately 30 minutes to prepare the ingredients and another 30 minutes to cook:

“Binignit”

Ingredients:

1 pc white gabi (taro root), cubed

½ cup sugar

2 pcs yellow camote (sweet potatoes), cubed

½ tsp salt

1 pc ube (purple yam), cubed

4 tbsps landang (tapioca pearls)

4 pcs ripe saba banana, sliced

6 pcs ripe langka (jackfruit) flesh

2 cups first-squeeze coconut milk

1 cup second-squeeze coconut milk (diluted with water)

Procedure:

1. Cook gabi, camote, ubi, and saba bananas in second-squeeze coconut milk.

2. Add sugar, salt, and landang (or tapioca).

3. Add langka flesh, and then simmer until all ingredients are tender and the mixture is thick.

4. Add first-squeeze coconut milk. Reduce heat to medium. Do not boil or the liquid will curdle.

5. Add water according to desired consistency of liquid.

Note: Gabi may be substituted with cassava, if preferred. This recipe serves five persons.

The “Binignit” is best enjoyed while hot or warm. Considering that it’s rich and filling, “Binignit” may not be a fasting diet at all. But, certainly, it’s vegetarian. (FREEMAN)