Nora Dazzles

MANILA, Philippines - Back in the ’60s, she was as much a household name as Liwayway Gawgaw, Tentay Patis, and Bataang Matamis. She cooked up a storm on her popular TV show and her cookbook was every new bride’s guide and every homemaker’s bible.

If you belong to that age range who knew Nora Daza, you must have many delicious memories of her cooking. And now, the younger generations who may not know Nora Daza — or even Nora Aunor — have a chance to get to know and taste her legendary recipes through the Nora Daza Food Festival which opens tomorrow, Nov. 26 at the all-day dining restaurant Basix in Dusit Thani Manila and runs until Dec. 3, coinciding with the birthday of this grand treasure of Filipino gastronomy.

Ever the gracious hostess with the mostest, Nora Daza meets up with food writers at this preview of the best recipes from her culinary life. We’re told that for this lunch, the dishes were all prepared under her strict and meticulous supervision in the kitchen and guests at the Nora Daza Food Fest can expect pretty much the same.

Much ado about adobo: The adobo was an important part of Nora Daza’s childhood in Batangas.

So, what’s Nora cooking up?

Peppered with dashes of stories shared by Nora from her rich culinary life, our lunch begins with a trio of appetizers: kilawing tanguigue, lumpiang ubod, shrimp rolls. Nora asks the waiter for a second helping of the shrimp rolls. I couldn’t help but ask for more of the shrimply delicious rolls, too.

The chicken binakol comes next. It’s a stew that Nora says she imagines the kings and princes of the pre-Spanish times enjoyed. As young coconuts and bamboo were thriving in our island (as they still do), it was only natural for our people to cook this dish. Hot tip from Nora: When cooking chicken binakol, the young coconut is best added last.”

And then the main event: the main course consisting of chicken relleno, kare-kare, Batangas adobo. As if there wasn’t enough food to go around, a waiter goes around to serve us spoonfuls of pancit luglog from a platter overflowing with noodles.

The real relleno: The chicken relleno is an old treasured family recipe.

Our collective verdict: Nora makes one of the best chicken rellenos! In her A Culinary Life, Nora writes, “One of the best chicken rellenos I have ever tasted was in the home of Dr. and Mrs. Agustin Liboro.” Nora relates that the Liboros had a family cook named Mang Bero, who was already bent with age but made the most scintillating relleno.

Care to know the secret to Nora’s kare-kare? Kare-kare itself is kinda bland so you have to have an accompaniment which is bagoong,” Nora shares. “I myself make an adobo first and then I mix with bagoong alamang, blend it together, and then I put coconut cream. That I think is the best kind of kare-kare. I add brisket because oxtail doesn’t have a lot of meat.”

Being a true-blue Batangueña herself, Nora is most passionate about her adobo. In her A Culinary Life, she laments, “This particular version of the adobo (with achuete or annatto seeds), I am afraid, will soon fade away because it has not been tried as often in the past years. When it does, then a significant part of my childhood will have also faded away.”

Nora learned how to make her first adobo from her mom, Encarnacion Guanzon Villanueva, from whom she also learned how to make her first sinigang, escabeche, cocido, butterscotch cream puff, and Pampango fruit salad.

And now comes the best part (at least for me): dessert! Our very sweet hostess prepared her most cherished sans rival.

As we gingerly dig into our sans rival, Nora recounts, “One of the desserts I’ve always had was sans rival. It came from France, but I guess the younger generation forgot all about it. So, we’d make it, freeze it, and as people ordered, we’d take parts of it and serve it in our restaurant Aux Iles Philippines in Paris. Oh, they loved it! The poor French guys didn’t realize that it originally came from them.”

“When we were growing up, Mom would bake a lot — sans rival, prune cake,” Nora’s son Bong Daza recalls. “Although she was busy hosting a TV show, she always made sure she made our baon and picked us up after school.”

Bong may well be his mom’s No. 1 fan. “My mom was very driven. She came from a family that was not really rich. She started in 1960 running a canteen at the ABS-CBN Building. Until she put put up Au Bon Vivant, the first French restaurant in Manila.”

He adds, “My mom put up the first Filipino restaurant in Paris and the first French restaurant in the Philippines.”

Nora relates, “ I went to school in Paris. I went to the Tourism Office and they directed me to a vocational school and my classmates were all boys, aged 10 to 17. At that time, I didn’t speak French, but when you’re cooking, you don’t have to speak. I was the darling of the group.”

She goes on, “When I was young, I used to feel, ‘Oh, if I could learn to speak French, then I could die!’ I went to Paris every year from 1965 till 1999, My life in Paris was one of the best parts of my life. Because right outside my apartment there was an outdoor market, which had all kinds of cheeses, fresh fish, and one of the things I loved was scallops with a coral that was colored orange. When I was starting Au Bon Vivant, people were selling scallops for P120/kilo in 1965.”

Pressed on to speak French, Nora says something in impeccable French. She translates it thus, “I am very happy to have all of you around me for lunch.”

Of course, we respond with, “Merci beacoup.”

Care for kare-kare?: Kare-kare, says Nora Daza, is the most Filipino of our popular dishes.

Nora spices our lunch with more vignettes from her culinary adventures in Paris. Kuhol is escargot in French. I make my chefs do kuhol Bicol with escargot, bagoong, luyang dilaw, coconut milk, and cook it in a whole caldero full of it. When it is cooked and properly done, I’d can it and ship it to Paris, it’s one of their favorite dishes. I get one escargot, put it on top of cooked kuhol Bicol, put cream on top, and broil it. They love it because their escargot is only with butter and garlic. I’d also get lambanog, and because it has no odor, I’d put langka. I’d sell one little cup for 10 francs ($2). That’s one of the things I used to do.”

Through the years she was in Paris — her Aux Iles Philippines was rated one of the top Asian restos in Paris by the 1977 Michelin Guide — she has played host to the rich and famous. She’d had members of the French royalty. Not just once did she have Brigitte Bardot who kept going back for the fresh lumpia. “She was there and she would look only at the man she was with,” says Nora of the sex goddess of the ’60s. “I remember she was wearing fur and my son Bong was arranging for her to come to the Philippines, but when she found out it was farther than Tahiti, she said, ‘Oh, no, the travel is not going to be good for me.’”

Another unforgettable guest was Simone de Beauvoir (French writer, existentialist, feminist, 1908-1986). Like Bardot, she went gaga over the lumpia.

Aux Iles Philippines lasted 11 years (1972-1983). Today, its chefs and waiters all live in Paris, they’re French citizens. Their families are all there, they have their own apartments. And they all speak French.

Nora’s icon is Paul Bocuse (great chef/cooking innovator who has shaken up French cuisine). Once, he treated Nora to his truffle soup with foie gras on top.

“When people find out I’m the daughter of Nora Daza, they say nakakahiya naman to invite you to our house, baka you eat gourmet food every day,” Nina Daza relates with a chuckle. “And you’re so critical of other people’s cooking. That’s the farthest from the truth. My mom is so easy to please. Sometimes, I take her out and ask where she wants to eat. She says, Pizza Hut. I remember she’d say, ‘I’m only critical when I eat in my restaurant.’ If the food is offered with love, she’d eat it and she’d enjoy, it doesn’t have to be anything fancy. I remember when somebody asks her what her favorite food was, I said alam ko yan. Pork and beans and corned beef!”

So, what else is Nora cooking up? She’s coming up with a cookbook titled Festive Dishes of Nora Daza and Friends with Michaela Fenix in January next year. “It took me 20 years to do that — it’s worse than having a baby. If I don’t stop I go on and on and on. In that cookbook, I have bouillabaisse, cassoulet, callos, leg of lamb, etc.”

As you can plainly see, Nora Daza never ceases to dazzle.

* * *

For reservations inquiries about the Nora Daza Food Festival, call Dusit Thani Manila’s restaurant reservations desk at 238-8888 local 8430.