Food in my mouth, memories in my mind, gratitude in my heart

(Part 2)

This I’ve learned: where you eat matters about as much as what you are eating, and who you eat with matters even more.

Tita Carmel’s French Coconut Pie is something else. Hers is a pedigreed coconut pie – the queen of all coconut pies up north and down south combined, even if you take out the word "French." It tastes as exquisite as it sounds, each sensuous, slippery spoonful seducing you to take yet another. A good pie is a good pie, no matter how much you take the ingredients apart in your mind and glue them back together in your mouth, regardless of where you eat it, or how. But when faced with coconut pie as exquisite as this, the pleasure is doubled when you enjoy it properly from a plate, with a little teaspoon or fork, warmed or chilled, or à la mode – your choice.

That would be perfect with coffee. Speaking of which, it wasn’t until I was 19 that I tasted/enjoyed a full cup of coffee. Prior to that I had coffee camouflaging as dessert, like coffee jelly or ice cream, or even cake, but never just coffee as a drink on its own. It was an absolute no-no while we were growing up, mainly because it was said to be as addicting as cigarettes, and too many cups of it would make the nerves twitch. And we were either too obedient or much too frightened of twitchy eyes and shaky fingers to even dare sneak a cup or two, instead contenting ourselves with its aroma and wistful air of mystery.

But the summer after I turned 19 I finally had my first full cup, unadulterated almost, if not for a splash of milk and an extra spoonful of sugar. It was no special blend, just one of those instant things spilled hastily into a disposable cup. But it tasted delicious, maybe because it was always so mysterious, so forbidden, and… I promptly fell in love. Many cups and years later, I solemnly discovered that coffee always tastes better in a real mug or cup, as opposed to a nondescript paper cup, more so with good company over bad. It is the only drink, for me at least, that allows a woman to be acceptably and purposefully alone in a public place otherwise filled with couples and groups of three or more. Enjoying coffee while staring out into the world as it goes by – it blissfully makes doing nothing look like something. What a ruse. With a cup of this fragrant drink, lonely is never too lonely, nor will it ever look so good. As I write this, I know I will always love coffee and all its many disguises and trimmings. From Blend 45 to Starbucks, Nescafé to Dean and DeLuca – name it, I love them all. Especially, as I said, in a nice, heavy mug. Or in a paper cup, but with happy company.

Next to coffee, I love tea, and with both I must have milk. Earl Grey and Chamomile are my favorites, and I can drink them endlessly all day if I must. It was Jack, an elderly Englishman who was our guest in Ormoc for many months in the mid ’90s, who turned me on to that. I loved watching him at mealtime, he of the perfect manners and the gentle spirit. He ate the way he spoke – clearly, slowly and properly. For breakfast his toast was always spread with cold butter and orange marmalade, his favorite dish for lunch or dinner was tenderloin tips bunched up with bacon and cooked with butter on a sizzling plate ("rissols" he called them, although in our household we simply called it tenderloin steak with bacon), and milk tea was his favorite drink. His other favorite thing was a cigarette, and he was always puffing away. His cigarettes were as ready and steady as his gentle demeanor. Jack has since passed away but it was during his long stay, watching him eat, watching him linger at the dinner table for conversation after, that I learned food is best enjoyed bite after slow bite, as opposed to wolfing it all down in one go. I learned, too, that stories are as wonderful delivered softly as they are boisterously, and that on both occasions, the lessons lying beneath them will always live on.

I could never imagine Jack rushing through a meal, the way takeout food invites you to. And as far as those are takeout is concerned, it tastes better when eaten out of the box it came in. It brings forth modern images of haste, which is a sign of our times if you really think about it: rushing to meet people, to be at places, to get endless things done. There is nothing languid about food in a takeout package; nothing about it invites you to linger. But there is nothing sad about it either, because, far too often, it is necessary.

Speaking of sad, I remember a sad time in my life when I would just bake, and bake, and bake some more. Deep into the night, quietly in the afternoon, I played with flavors, flour and eggs. My best gooey chocolate chip cookies were made during that time in my life. I did not know then why I was baking, that much and that well, and it is only now in hindsight that I realize I probably enjoyed it because I was working with my hands (my favorite thing to do), touching different textures and working within a structure that was easy enough to allow my mind to drift far away to a place where I could process my thoughts and come to terms with all that was happening inside me. I baked until I could bake no more, until the sadness became nothing more than a tired feeling, just one more thing to deal with until the sun shone again. And when it finally did, I had the best chocolate chip cookies on the block.

I know the first time I tasted peaches it was from a can, with heavy syrup, and served with milk poured into it. I believed then, as I still do now, that peaches could never be eaten in a more delightful way. I do not know who fed me this, but I am grateful to him or her for this one dessert which I will never have the heart to turn down.

I really wish I had paid more attention to how certain dishes were prepared. It all seems so much more important to me now, for both sentimental and practical reasons, but I know I took it for granted so many times when it was staring me in the face.

Chopsticks, utensils and hands – I can use them all and use them well. I like Chinese and Japanese food eaten with chopsticks but there are certain treats best eaten with the hands – fried chicken, barbecue, shrimps and crabs among them. And, more than the thirty-and-one delicious ways these dishes were prepared, what I remember most is how everyone gathered around the table fed one another – nonchalantly, naturally, happily; wives peeling shrimps for husbands who had neither the desire nor patience for that particular step in the eating process; mothers wiping the barbecue sauce from the mouths of their kids; older siblings teaching the younger ones to enjoy chicken parts and navigate their lips around and about it, from the juicy meat down to the flavor stuck on the surface of the bone; husbands cracking crab claws for their wives; lovers dipping soft, juicy meat in garlicky vinegar and pushing the morsel into each other’s mouths – everyone willingly and unsuspectingly melting into good food and warm conversation, making their own rituals, creating their own personal memories, all the way to dessert, and even until much, much later than that.

Eating, like praying and loving, is a constant. Happy people eat to celebrate; the sad ones likewise eat, if only to hopefully feel better. There are stories that write themselves, and as far as I’m concerned, food in my life is one of them. The taste and the memories just come pouring out with the words, unfiltered, unmasked. Food brings people together – shaping relationships, subliminally strengthening bonds, repairing even just a little bit of whatever is broken in us. If only for those very reasons, I know that succumbing to its pleasures and enjoying every morsel to the hilt is never for naught.