{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-article-tsx","path":"/primepaulinerecipesforremembering","result":{"data":{"primeArticle":{"slug":"prime.pauline.recipesforremembering","excerpt":"Glimpses into the evolution of one writer's understanding of food as it fosters a sense of  belonging, identity, and remembrance.","headline":"Recipes for Remembering","author":"Pauline Ordonez","authorbio":"Pauline Ordonez is a third-year English major and is currently the Graphics editor at the Daily Bruin. She was formerly an assistant graphics editor.","authoremail":"pordonez@dailybruin.com","authortwitter":"@PTOrdonez","coverimg":"https://assets.dailybruin.com/images/prime.pauline.recipesforremembering/web.prime.rfr_1.NAP-3e0c90850e2561322cbe82057d27c715.jpg","covercred":"Nicole Anisgard Parra","coveralt":"An illustration of food laid out on a counter. Clockwise starting from left corner: atchara pickles, rafute pork, goya, green onions, Okinawan sweet potato, rice, banana leaves, and calamansi.","articleType":"article","updated":null,"content":[{"type":"italics","value":"{\"content\":\"UCLA’s renowned dining halls dish up diverse and adventurous plates, but even its various and inviting menus don’t satiate the hunger I have for the food I grew up eating at home. I knew that with just one swipe, I was lucky to be eating a diverse amount of food, but I still felt I was missing something. In fact, when I chose to move out to the apartments in my second year, this lack of choice over the food I once ate was one of the main factors that pushed me to leave the dorms and my meal plan behind. Dish after dish, I eventually learned the inconvenience of cooking for myself, but it was much more fulfilling to struggle through one of my mother’s recipes than it was to wait in line for something spooned onto a plate by a server.\"}"},{"type":"subheading","value":"{\"name\":\"Learned food\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"It was prime time in the dining halls, and Feast at Rieber bustled with hungry Bruins. I squeezed past a throng of students lined up for the featured dish at the Bruin Wok station, eager to get to another station with less waiting. I glanced at the vegetarian option displayed on the screen, which listed peanut butter stew. Squinting at the bowls filled with a thick golden-brown sauce, I edged closer. I suspected this “peanut butter stew” was Feast’s vegetarian version of the Filipino dish kare-kare, a savory, peanut-based stew typically boiled with oxtail, beef, tripe, eggplants, bok choy and string beans. My initial surprise subsided, and I quickly grabbed a bowl."},{"type":"text","value":"Once I returned to my table and tasted the stew, my confusion only deepened. It certainly emulated kare-kare but lacked the richness from the missing odd cuts of meat that usually dominate the otherwise plain peanut sauce. As one of the few Filipino dishes that are neutral in flavor, kare-kare is typically served with a spoonful of bagoong, a pink, salty shrimp paste, to brighten the taste."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"No one wants to admit that they miss Mom’s cooking. Yet, here I was, yearning for dinner with my family.\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"That night, the essential bagoong was missing. It made sense, I thought, remembering its notorious strong smell – no one wants that. I similarly justified the absence of the chewy intestine and bone-bound meat. Although I appreciated the surprise of this take on kare-kare, I knew that the Filipino food I longed for was back in the Filipino diners, served in plastic foam containers by an aproned tita – not in the dining halls. I was unsettled, as the missing ingredients in the kare-kare reminded me what I was missing in my college diet."},{"type":"text","value":"Admittedly, I felt a little silly and a little young missing the food I grew up eating. No one wants to admit that they miss Mom’s cooking. Yet, here I was, yearning for dinner with my family."},{"type":"text","value":"That night, I imagined the jar of bagoong sitting at the table before my dad even sat down. If he had been at Feast with me, he would have certainly clicked his tongue in disapproval at the kare-kare sans bagoong. He would have shook his head, equally disappointed in the lack of soft oxtail."},{"type":"text","value":"But my dad wasn’t here. And although I imagined his reaction, I realized my own was not much different. I was fooling myself. Far too early, at the age of 18, I had become my dad."},{"type":"text","value":"Well, at least in my taste buds."},{"type":"text","value":"It made sense, considering the steady diet of Filipino food I was fed growing up. We made regular trips to the Filipino markets with cafeterias inside, feasting on greasy breakfasts before stocking up for the week’s dinners. Other weekends we visited my grandparents’ house, where my lola would stuff us full with her famous fish head sinigang, always the perfect level of sour."},{"type":"text","value":"At almost all these meals, my dad was the teacher, demonstrating to his children how to eat like a Filipino. We learned that the softest flesh of the fish were in the cheeks and that treasured marrow hid in the bones. We watched my dad eat adobo with atchara and construct halo-halo with all the proper fixings. We learned which condiments went with what and eventually could fetch them before he would ask."},{"type":"text","value":"I knew only because I was taught, and I owed it all to my parents – to my mom, laboring in the kitchen over a cuisine that was not hers, and to my dad, encouraging us at the dinner table to try everything at least once. That’s why I sat there in Feast, unsettled by the imitation kare-kare. My parents had fed me Filipino food, not because they wanted to fill my diet with concerning amounts of oil but because they thought it was important that I grew up eating the same food my dad did."},{"type":"text","value":"And they succeeded. I was stirred to longing that night because I knew what was missing. So, I sat alone, yearning for what I considered the food of my childhood."},{"type":"text","value":"But that was wrong – Filipino food wasn’t just the food of my youth. It was unbound by a single stage of my life, a part of my past, present and future. I ate as my dad learned from his parents and them from theirs. Now, I eat as I was taught, and in the future I will eat to teach."},{"type":"text","value":"I was not less mature for longing for my food. If anything, Filipino cuisine is what grounds me in these years of change and difference."},{"type":"text","value":"My parents fed, fed, fed me until the food became an inseparable part of me. Now that I am on my own, I recognize what they taught me, and I am happy to miss it. I may be growing up, but I will never outgrow Filipino food."},{"type":"text","value":"--"},{"type":"subheading","value":"{\"name\":\"Gifted food\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"A rule: If you are flying over to family, either returning or visiting, you must bring gifts with you. This is immutable, unspoken. Suitcases, carefully packed after several rounds of weighing and rearranging to stay within the allotted weight limit, should be stuffed with gifts for each family. Only then are you ready to visit."},{"type":"text","value":"In my family, the gifts I receive from my relatives have two names depending on which side of the family they come from. My Filipino family gives me pasalubong; my Japanese family gives me omiyage. They have different names but are usually the same thing: food."},{"type":"text","value":"Although Los Angeles has large enough pockets of Filipino and Japanese populations to sustain whole grocery stores specific to each culture’s cuisines, there are still some things that are not available, so the food that comes as pasalubong and omiyage are invaluable currency."},{"type":"text","value":"My Filipino cousins visited in the spring, ready to celebrate Easter with us. Of course, they brought with them the standard haul of plastic cylinders containing pastries, such as elephant ears, or jars of tuyo, dried herring swimming in olive oil. At the family reunion, my relatives distributed the much-anticipated pasalubong – cans of fragile barquillos to my tita, banana leaf-wrapped suman in zip-lock bags to my dad and so on. On the ride home, my little brother cradled the homeland treats we received as a family while I returned to my dorm, empty-handed."},{"type":"text","value":"To me, consuming the pasalubong was a rite of being Filipino-American. For a Fil-Am who had not gone back to the Philippines in over eight years, I considered pasalubong the only Filipino fare directly from the Philippines that I could eat. It wasn’t shipped here packed tight in large commercial crates but instead thoughtfully tucked into my titas’ suitcases. Pasalubong was the Philippines brought to America."},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"An illustration of a pair of hands holding up a stack of Japanese and Filipino foods. From top to bottom: A Jagariko potato snack, a jar of tuyo, a banana leaf wrapped suman, a bag of amanatto and a box of beni imo tarts\",\"url\":\"https://assets.dailybruin.com/images/prime.pauline.recipesforremembering/web.prime.rfr_2.NAP-6ba2d8471a6a8b102d038fa52e6a1e0b.png\",\"credit\":\"Nicole Anisgard Parra\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"Once I entered college, I no longer had access to the pantry overflowing with jars, cans, packets all mingling with the prized omiyage and pasalubong. In my dorm, I only had a basketful of snacks bought from the local market to stave off hunger in between my 14R meal plan swipe times. The basket was void of any gifts – that was all at home. I was a satellite unit, separate from my family."},{"type":"text","value":"A year later, I was in my own apartment, and my basket of food upgraded to a fridge and a cabinet shelf. I considered this a blessing – before the inconvenience overwhelmed me as life got busy – that I could now eat and cook as I wanted."},{"type":"text","value":"Gifts came in other ways, too. My dad returned from Japan for a business trip with omiyage from my aunt living in Tokyo. Among the omiyage were packets of goma-ae, sesame seed topping for vegetables, and chinsuko, a shortbread-like cookie of lard and flour that is made in the Okinawa prefecture.  As my dad unpacked the omiyage, I looked to my mom in surprise when I saw several packages labeled with stickers addressed to me. My mom explained that my aunt knew I was cooking for myself now, so she wanted me to be able to make food with ingredients she used in her own kitchen."},{"type":"text","value":"My Japanese is poor, so when I see my aunt, conversations are sparse, but food fills the gaps in which language fails us. With these omiyage, I understand what she is telling me, and I am thankful."},{"type":"text","value":"I may be separate from my immediate family, and even farther removed from those overseas, but the omiyage and pasalubong comforted my worries. I was still a part of the family."},{"type":"text","value":"The pantry and fridge are a reflection of where you belong. The instant noodles in my pantry are indicative of a college student, but in the fridge there is a box of pastillas from my grandparents’ latest trip to the Philippines, a roll of hopia from my tita and a bottle of soba broth, an Okinawan gift from my aunt. Not only are they a reflection of the Philippines and Okinawa but also of my family, with their traditions of pasalubong and omiyage. I am apart from my family, separated by miles of road or, for some, an ocean, but with just one peek in the pantry, I am reminded I am still a part of the family."},{"type":"text","value":"--"},{"type":"subheading","value":"{\"name\":\"Offered food\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"In the winter of my first year at college, my family finally visited Okinawa for the first time in eight years. Entering my grandma’s one-story, concrete house through the sliding door, I looked to the tatami room adjacent to the dining room where my siblings and I had slept on futons as kids. Now, a butsudan, the shrine to honor passed relatives and ancestors, took up a third of the room, with a bunch of bananas sitting in front of a framed photo of my smiling grandma, Baba."},{"type":"text","value":"“Go say hi to Baba,” my mom had said."},{"type":"text","value":"And we did, of course, greeting her at the altar, then later setting down a small bowl of rice, simmered vegetables and a bright orange. I was told Baba would eat well in the afterlife as long as we were here to offer her these dishes. It was surreal because the last time I was in the room I was 10, and it did not cross my mind that the next time I would enter Baba’s house would be without her."},{"type":"text","value":"In fact, most of my memory of Baba is blurry. I faintly remember one humid day, Baba had asked me to join her on a trip to the market to buy everyone more food. She was a bar owner, a great hostess who would never let the house run out of food, would never let a stomach grumble. I was invited to go join her ordinary but important custom of love. Looking back, I would have plead with my younger self to say, “Yes.” But I was young, intimidated by the language barrier and oblivious to the implications of Baba having to suddenly use a wheelchair on longer trips. I didn’t go."},{"type":"text","value":"I think regret preserves this memory in my mind, even though I know Baba wouldn’t have minded. It could also be the food, as almost every clear memory of Baba is related to food."},{"type":"text","value":"When my mom was gone for a month in Okinawa, visiting Baba in the hospital, I barely remember the circumstances. I remember the food had changed in my mom's absence. With my mom across the Pacific, feeding the family fell to my dad, who had spent most of his single life heating up chicken patties. I remember weeks of frozen dinners, but I barely remember the weekly check-in calls from my mom."},{"type":"text","value":"My mom returned eventually, smuggling frozen bags of of miso and pork belly, simmered together with sugar and ginger to create a savory, chunky paste, made by Baba when she had gathered enough strength."},{"type":"text","value":"“Abura miso,” my mom told me. “Your Baba's specialty.”"},{"type":"text","value":"Baba lived three years longer than the doctors had predicted, but the next batch of abura miso we ate was made by my mom, in homage to Baba. My mom used Baba’s recipe, stirring the rich mixture silently in the pot, remembering."},{"type":"text","value":"Aside from cooking, eating also became a way to remember Baba. When my mom made Okinawan soba with rafute, braised pork belly, sitting atop thick noodles, we would pull out the bottle of koregusu, a rich sauce made from alcohol infused with Okinawan red chilis to enhance the flavor. Strong in taste, the bottles last a long time. At the time we were still using the bottle Baba had steeped herself using the chilis that grew underneath her bedroom window. Pouring that bottle became an act of reverence."},{"type":"text","value":"In my own apartment, I soothe my harbored regret in the kitchen, where I can remember Baba. When I call my mom, asking her for Baba’s recipes, I remember Baba with her. Cooking is a compromise: I will need to trade some ingredients or leave them out now that I am in the States. I tell myself that even though I don’t have an altar, my cooking can be an offering to her. And although I can never take back my refusal to accompany Baba on the market trip, I can take a ride to Nijiya Market to buy Japanese ingredients that she would have used, like the quintessential goya, or bitter melon."},{"type":"text","value":"I can try, I have tried. Back in my cramped kitchen I gathered all the ingredient: eggs, tofu, bean sprouts, a bottle of Okinawan broth from our last trip, along with the goya. I improvised, as is the nature of goya chanpuru – a dish meaning “mix” – referring to blog posts, recalling my mom’s instructions and ultimately deferring to instinct. The final dish was imperfect; it lacked rich pork or salty Spam, the bonito flakes to give it umami. The goya slices were cut too thick and were undercooked, so the bitterness lingered longer than it should, while the eggs were overcooked."},{"type":"text","value":"Between bites, I thought about the bowls of chanpuru I ate in Okinawa and how superior each of those meals was to mine. Still, I was happy with those memories, quickly devoured meals, some shared with Baba, prompted by my inferior chanpuru. I sifted through the bowl, languid and unhurried, partly because frankly, it wasn’t great, but also because I wanted to remember for longer."},{"type":"text","value":"In many ways, cooking is an exercise in remembering – remembering how many spoons of sugar go in the chanpuru, remembering Baba cooking the same recipe in her strength and remembering to forgive yourself for botching the recipe or that market trip, and other things long past."},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"An illustration of the story’s author, Pauline, sharing a meal with her family members.\",\"url\":\"https://assets.dailybruin.com/images/prime.pauline.recipesforremembering/web.prime.rfr_3.NAP-924123f1e3c670f84cfbd1dc880c7da6.jpeg\",\"credit\":\"Nicole Anisgard Parra\",\"caption\":\"\"}"}]}},"pageContext":{"term":"winter19","slug":"prime.pauline.recipesforremembering"}},"staticQueryHashes":[]}