Do Filipino mothers still cook?

COLETTE ROSSANT, author of “Apricots on the Nile” (Washington Square Press, 1999) wrote about her relationship with her mother this way: “We always pretended that we loved each other, but I had built myself a world of memories where my mother is nowhere to be found. I want it to stay that way.”

Those memories include staying with her paternal grandparents in Egypt during World War II when she was 5 years old and then being returned to Paris where Rossant stayed with her maternal grandmother. She met her mother again when she turned 20.

The funny thing is the first chapter in the book is about her mother, her last days before dying of cancer.

Ruth Reichel, author and editor of “Gourmet,” had the funniest stories about her mother. In her book “Tender at the Bone” (Random House Inc., 1999), the funniest story is how her mother put together a lethal leftover soup and how Ruth and her brother steered everyone of their favorite relatives away from it. In one of the Gourmet issues, she also wrote that her mother steals magazines in her doctor’s office, even a Gourmet.

Mimi Sheraton, former restaurant critic of The New York Times, also began her autobiography “Eating My Words” (HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2004) writing about her mother.

Sheraton described her as “an ambitious and gifted cook who had open contempt for any woman who was not.” But her mother also regarded the work of a critic as not such a nice job because every bad review she makes means a restaurateur loses his business.

I remembered all those because the day I write this is my mother’s birthday. My siblings and I celebrated for two days, a picnic at La Mesa Dam Ecopark and then eating Korean food after a visit to her grave.

Unlike Rossant, my world of memories always had my mother in it until the day she died. And unlike Reichel and Sheraton’s mother, mine wasn’t aware of my work having suffered a stroke even before I wrote about food.

3 generations

Do mothers still cook? That’s the question some food companies who invite me to talk about how it is like in the Filipino home these days want to know. I guess it’s for their advertising and sales strategy.

I tell them about three generations, from my grandmother, my mother and my own stint as mother.

My grandmother stayed home most of the time, cooking three times a day, gardening in the morning and after her afternoon siesta. I never saw her go to market but I do remember her slaughtering the chicken and turkey right outside her kitchen door. She was a great cook and my appreciation of good food began with her dishes. I remember how those tasted, a good trait to have if one is to become a food writer.

My mother, on the other hand, had a job. Even if she had her own time because she was an architect but didn’t work for a firm, she somehow was always working. When she locked herself in her room, my siblings and I knew she was doing her “plans,” design of houses or churches, whatever project she was into.

She visited work sites, staying there the whole day. What I remember was going with her sometimes, especially when she was doing my grandmother’s house, and I always ate the carpenters’ merienda of guinataan with monggo.

I was always reminded to eat only one bowl or the workers will run out of their afternoon sustenance. My mother didn’t cook but instructed our house cook on what to prepare for the day. It was the cook’s job to go to the wet market but my mother loved her supermarket days.

The rare times she did the cooking, my siblings and I to this day remember her specialties—adobo that had deep flavor, bread pudding made from sandwich scraps (bread crusts), Christmas fish au gratin and leche flan.

And now my turn. Like my grandmother, I stayed home but only when the children were in grade school and high school. Being home involves a lot of work and even if you had an army of help, you’d still feel that the day is too short.

I brought my children to and from school, planned their baon and menu of the day; even did my stint at baking cookies. But I always had a cook so I didn’t have to do the nitty gritty of kitchen work.

When the children were older, I took on contractual jobs so I was like my mother doing it in my own time. Yet today, since a year ago, I have taken on a regular job, which keeps me out of the house the whole day and out of town every month.

But that only means there is a lot more planning involved with house management, especially the food to be cooked. What makes today different from my grandmother’s and mother’s time is that there’s no need to start everything from scratch. There are so many convenience food (instant sinigang) and cooked food to go.

And for those times when the traffic is so bad or when I need to eat out or we get tired of the food cooked at home, there are so many restaurants to go to. For ingredients, there are wet markets, well-stocked supermarkets and weekend markets.

By Micky Fenix/Philippine Daily Inquirer