P U B L I S H E R ’ S CO R N E R
Guilty Pleasures:
Pinoy Breakfasts
by RICHMOND BLANDO
If breakfast is the most important meal of the day, shouldn’t it be delicious?”
T
he alarm clock rang at 5:30 am; I woke up with my hair standing up as I slept with it slightly damp from the shower the night before. Staggering into the living room and into the kitchen, I got my coffee, after which I opened the fridge to look for my first meal of the day, I saw the bread, eggs, ovomaltine and some cheese, I was ready to settle for a simple breakfast, but something stopped me. Maybe because it was Saturday or maybe because it was so early in the morning, I felt like starting my day cooking something for the family or maybe it was after the fact that I just finished the Manila articles for Venture and I found myself craving for something a little closer to home or maybe a little bit of all of the above. I have been saving some longganisa (Filipino sausages) and tocino (cured pork) in the freezer for future cravings for a Filipino breakfast so I broke out the frying pans and knife and soon enough the aroma of garlic and other aromatics filled the kitchen and the rest of the house. My family
members have often teased me of being a “coconut”, brown on the outside but white on the inside, because I had more of an affinity to western breakfasts like bacon, eggs, toast and cereal. But every so often, latent genes kick in and the memories of hearty rice breakfasts turn into cravings that are a bit hard to resist. My parents have lived here since the late 70s and while I was growing up here, and I never thought of it as a point of fascination then as I do today, my mom was able to learn how to create these processed meats at home and later on made a modest business out of it is something, to her, I
would tip my proverbial hat and thank her for my current stash of these staple Pinoy breakfast items. Like most people in South East Asia, rice is part of every meal of the day, and most of the rice used for breakfast (other than porridge) actually comes from leftover rice from the night before and many a breakfast items in the Philippines were cured meats recipes that were passed on by the Spaniards and later on tweaked by the locals. The theory behind the curing of such meats was so that they would have a deeper flavor profile but more especially so they have a longer shelf life Filipino longganisa refers to sausages flavored with indigenous spices, with each region or province having its own variation. Lucban is known for