Food in our history

WHEN people enter my study and ask whether I have read all the books on the shelves, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. The question can be taken two ways: as a compliment (you read a lot and are probably smart) or an insult (did you really read all these books or merely buy them for display?). To be frank, there are many books on my shelves that I have not read and will probably never read, some remain half read or at least browsed or consulted, others join a long list of books to read when I am forced to stay indoors by inclement weather.

Some time in the past, I was foolish enough to contemplate reading every single book Jose Rizal read, if only to understand what made him tick. If books provide the mind with its furniture, I thought that reading Rizal's books would help me navigate inside his head.

Unfortunately, Rizal's taste in literature was vastly different from mine. When he credited "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "Wandering Jew" and "Ruins of Palmyra" for the inspiration to write "Noli Me Tangere," I don't quite understand what he meant. The "Noli" is so much fun compared with these arid novels. I did try reading them but couldn't get beyond Page 10, no matter how hard I pushed myself.

On my own list is Marcel Proust. I have long planned to read him but have not done so. The little I have read of Proust is a selection from "Remembrance of Things Past" that the late Doreen Fernandez usually assigned to her Freshman English class.

Proust narrates how a small crumb of madeleine (the closest thing to it we have in the Philippines is mamon) on the tip of the narrator's tongue triggers a flood of warm childhood memories. Certain foods affect us in a very emotional way, making me conclude that food is more than nourishment for the body and part of our memories. In a larger sense, food is history.

Unfortunately, food doesn't figure prominently in our history books, which more often than not focus on the lives of great men or contain summaries of political history. Like many everyday things that fill our lives, what we see, smell, touch, taste, and even hear (like the crunchiness of chicharon) we rarely notice. Few historical figures were idle or moved enough to make a record of, say, morning coffee in their diaries and journals that later become the stuff professional historians call primary sources. And even if food is mentioned, most historians gloss over it.

For example, we know that Rizal's favorite breakfast was not churros con chocolate eh (or chocolate ah) but rather something exotic: sardinas secas. When translated into English as "dried sardines" or better still into Filipino as "tuyo," then ordinary mortals like you and me acquire something in common with the national hero.

Rizal's letters to his family contain requests for different types of food from home, including pancit and burong mangga. There really is something in food that brings us all down to earth.

Emilio Aguinaldo endured a breakfast diet of camote and butter in Banawe while he was escaping a dragnet thrown by the enemy who spent months in hot pursuit before they captured him in Palanan, Isabela. We know what Andres Bonifacio read, but we don't know what he ate, leaving a great gap in our knowledge of him and the Revolution. Marcelo H. del Pilar and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo dined in the Paris home of Juliana Gorricho, who would later be shot dead by her son-in-law Juan Luna though not for her cooking. Del Pilar, Rizal and Resurreccion Hidalgo were in Paris for the Universal Expo of 1889 and none of them mentioned the Eiffel Tower in their journals and correspondence, but they recorded feasting on Filipino food (adobo actually) and even eating with their hands, a century before Kamayan restaurant made it respectable.

There is so much food in our history that Nick Joaquin even commented that the great Malolos Banquet of September 1898 should be considered as important a historical artifact as the Malolos Constitution! This fabulous luncheon with its seven appetizers and seven courses, all eaten with wines and liqueur, is something that will be hard to replicate in our times.

All these historical reflections on food came to mind as I browsed through the recently launched "Comfort Food," an anthology of essays edited by Erlinda Enriquez Panlilio. From expatriate Filipinos of the 19th century to our day, we have all craved for particular dishes that remind us of country and, on a more personal level, home. "Comfort Food" is history on the tip of the tongue that triggers many sensations and memories that, brought together, form part of that elusive thing we call national identity. Being Filipino is very much like words and food on the tip of our tongue. We know and yet we cannot find the right words to express what we feel or what we want to say. This anthology has done just that, capturing the tastes and memories that form comfort food --mama mia food -- to many of us between the pages of a book. I really wish I had written more than a blurb for this wonderfully exploratory book.

Compilations by one author on various subjects are out, anthologies of essays by various authors on one subject are in. For those with other comforts, it would be rewarding to browse through "Lola's Aparador," edited by Emmie Velarde and, "Consuming Passions: Philippine Collectibles," edited by Jaime C. Laya.

Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu