PASALUBONG
Homes: Modesto, CA, The Brown House, BAGUIO, 87 Gentle Street




Part of the pleasure of having visitors from the Philippines are the pasalubongs you get from home.

I am a simple girl with simple tastes. When it comes to pasalubongs, just give me gourmet tuyo and pastillas de leche and I'll be happy as a clam.

I got hooked on gourmet tuyo when a former fiancee gave me a small jar of the Kalipayan brand as pasalubong. I hoarded that jar for months, miserly picking at each bit of fish and savoring its sweet saltiness. When I finished it, I found use for the leftover olive oil too, drizzling it on steaming hot rice to give it some flavor.

I later discovered that they sold it duty-free on PAL flights. I used to buy jars of the stuff, even though I thought the six dollars they charged for each tiny jar was outrageous.

Alas, I didn't get any gourmet tuyo this year. I got gourmet bangus and gourmet tinapa instead. The tinapa wasn't bad but the bangus was a disappointment.

The pastillas de leche I got weren't too hot either. I like the ones coated with granulated sugar, but this particular brand (Sevilla's) was too sweet. I prefer the ones from Red Ribbon, or my childhood favorite, Merced Bake Shop. But, since I'm more than a hop, skip and jump away from the nearest Red Ribbon and oceans away from the Merced of old, I just settled down to enjoy my too-sweet-treats.




However, my Auntie Evelyn sent me something which more than made up for the disappointment: GIANT versions of the yemas I used to love when I was a child, made in that familiar pyramid shape and wrapped in the same colored cellophane.

It's almost impossible to come by these delicacies in this day and age. In fact, when I was a teenager, the yemas they were already selling were the round kind, with a hard coating of caramelized sugar. They were okay, but I didn't like them as much as the simple yemas of my younger days.




Auntie Evelyn also sent us a box of polvoron. Polvoron has certainly gone a long way from the days my Mom and yayas used to make it in our kitchen in Baguio. I remember them packing the flour-and-sugar powder into little oval molds, and pushing them out into the center of colorful little squares of papel de japon.

Through the years, I saw the lowly polvoron get dolled-up and fancified in commercial bake shops, the tiny oval shape giving way to bigger circles with fluted edges. The papel de japon has all but disappared from the stands too, giving way to the hardier colored cellophane.

Now, I happen to be one of those people who like their polvoron PLAIN. Whoever got the bright idea of adding pinipig into the mix just ruined the formula as far as I'm concerned. But I'm a purist, and not always in tune with the times, which was why I wasn't surprised that the fancy-schmanzy polvorons in my pasalubong sported snooty pedigrees of kasoy and cookies and cream.




Evolution or devolution?

Well, the jury's still out on that one.

I, for one, am happy with the way tuyo and tawilis evolved from poor man's fare to their present stature, their names elevated side-by-side with gastronomic giants such as olive oil and capers.

But I declare a downturn when it comes to my childhood favorites. Just like my Mom and mother-in-law lamented the disappearance of heko from the manggang hilaw of their younger days (now replaced by bagoong alamang), I decry the devolution of the yema, the polvoron and the pastillas de leche.

Is it just me who thinks all of these native delicacies tasted much better, way back when they were still produced in small homemade batches? Or sold in no-name bakeshops in nondescript cardboard boxes, sometimes wrapped in festive holiday paper around Christmas?

Have time and commerce corrupted the simple formulas of the past? I hope not. Indeed, the return of the simple yema has restored my faith in those small cottage industries and enterpreneurs who still cater to quality over commercialism.

If only I could speak to the owners of Sevilla's pastillas de leche right now, I would praise them for their packaging and chastise them for their formula. For what is the good of having a glossy, tourist-catching uniform box a la Hawaiian Holiday when your wares inside harden to rock sugar within days of opening?

I am a simple girl of simple tastes. And I speak for every Pinoy and Pinay, both at home and abroad, when I say that the quickest way to our hearts, (and to our WALLETS), are through our taste buds.

As to those old, original, time-tested recipes? It's simple, really.

Don't fix them if they ain't broke.


(PLUGGING: Another kind of "Pasalubong" in The Prada Mama Chronicles.)