Fourtyfied: An Eating Tournament

Every year at Christmas time we are invited by the Munoz Family of Angeles Pampanga for lunch to celebrate their matriarch's birthday. Today, she turned 97. And every year, the spread is always two dining rooms-full of native Filipino food, enough to feed Ethiopia with left overs to spare. I am told that the preparations and cooking begin two days before and involve battalions of cooks and prep assistants who do nothing but chop and dice until the cows come home.

The food is always the best to be had as far as I am concerned. Isn't it legendary--this Kapampangan cuisine? Why? Because during the second world war, when the Japanese and American invasions happened, the rich Manilenos who employed the best chefs trained by the Spaniards retreated to nearby Pampanga to go in hiding. So Manila court food was literally transplanted to Pampanga. Thus, this rich culinary traditions grew in that place and was handed down through generations of Kapampangan women who are practically born in the kitchen.

The Munoz house itself, a 54-year-old structure built by my children's Grandpa, the late Remigio, sits on a hectare of land. the place is a throw back to olden times when there were hand pumps in the backyard, when huge dirty kitchens were built behind the main house, when orchards where built for a family's private supply of food. Roaming the property is like a walk down memory lane, when as children in the province we knew and wanted nothing better than that bucolic lifestyle and uncomplicated surroundings.

There must have been over 200 guests who hardly made a dent in the food. There were lots to spare. Everything was delicious but the star of the spread was the binalu--a type of sinigang that is cooked inside bamboo cuttings (called Balu) and slow stewed over live coals in the backyard. They use kamias and sampaloc to sour up the broth and it is the best ever soup you will try in this country; I swear.

Notice how many sauces are served with the dishes? Kampampangans will die if they don't have one millions condiments to eat with their food that's why they have pretty jaded palates. So they pile on even more sauce--too rich for my taste, actually. I kind of prefer the organic taste of food, not wanting it layered with many different tastes brought on by sauces. But it's good to have rich, palate-electrocuting stuff once in a while.