Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Heaven Is a Place on Plate


Dining Out and Other Cafeteria Eathics

Any sensible urban worker who is given no choice but fetch food from sources made accessible in a civilized jungle called a city or a university must acquire some neighborly ethics if he is to properly feed himself and achieve something through the day. Eating in cafeterias or similar types of food sources requires that he learn a number of things on how to feed on properly and hopefully be nourished.

Dito Po ang Pila
Kun habo mong dai ka matunawan, magsunod ka sa linya kan mga nagkaerenot nang nag-oororder. Dawa halabaon na an pila, dawa huri ka na sa appointment, dai ka nanggad magsingit sa iba, o samantalahon na magpa-cute sa kabisto mong crew just to get ahead. Mayong maoogma sa bentahuso kundi si Taning sana. Magsala, sa kagagama-gama mong maenot kang makakua nin kakanon, mataon lugod saimo an tutong na torta, tipo kan sinapna, o tunok kan lapu-lapu.

Patience is virtue—gustong sabihon, saro ‘ning timeless na kostumbre o pag-uugali na nakakapamarhay sa siisay man na tawo. Dawa idtong barbarong ninuno ta mga perang oras naghalat bago nagluwas an usa sa ampas saka niya nasilô ‘ni. Ngonyan na mga panahon, sa kadlagan na inaapod tang siyudad o unibersidad, dai ka na masiod nin manok bago makanamit nin tinola. Mahalat ka na sanang ilapiga an paa o mailatag an pecho sa saimong plato kaya dai na kaipuhan magpalakpalak o magputakputak ta ngani sana makapanogok.

Just follow the crowd, toe the line, keep your cool, then ask for what you want, and dine.

Bawal An Dagdag
Kun bisto mo an crew, pwede ka gayod magpadagdag. But unless you badly need that extra spare rib or cabbage leaves [which are probably pesticides-grown anyway], do not ask for extra amount of anything from the one that dispenses your food. So you insist, okay, ask if you can order half.

But you hard worker certainly do not deserve half serving of anything, unless you give your company or your country half of what it deserves from you. Scrimp and scrape you do. Perhaps save in other things like marked-down CDs or cheaper thrills or retail cellphone loads or bargained 3 for P100 FHMs—but for your food, spare this idea of saving.
 
Better yet, order dishes in full, so the idea of dagdag is out of question. The more you are inclined to haggling, the more it will appear to the crew that you are hungry—and this does not help because the crew will never be concerned with your hunger. They are just there assigned to portion and dispense properly for the business. And nowadays, the crew does not dispense the reasonable amount of food you are charged. But it is okay that the food given to you appears “unreasonable.” Just think you will be dispensed more amounts next time.

The cafeteria business, just like fast-food giants, places importance on one marketing aspect called food portioning. Because the prices of raw materials and ingredients required for preparing food will never be saved from inflation, profits from this business are sensibly drawn from the quantity of food the business prepares and the quantity of food it can save to feed its own staff. Well, you know. But the advantage here is that the cafeteria food can be assured of the presence of freshness and the absence of trans-fats.

Dahil kadaklan na beses bawal an dagdag, mag-andam ka na sanang mag-order nin duwa tolong panira, bako sanang saro. Kun habo mo nanggad mabitin.

Logically, when you do, you are not just paying for the food, but essentially the service, services? rendered to you—which includes, among others, a clean washed plate [hopefully free of the smell of dishwashing liquid], a properly bussed table, despite its being in a mess hall; ventilation or air-conditioning, whether or not you personally require it; and of course the food itself that has probably undergone some quality control in the kitchen.

No need to argue
Talking about quality control, consider the next ethical principle in cafeteria dining. By all means, despite all tensions and stress pressed on by hunger, never ever argue with the service crew. Certainly in no instance should you get disappointed or intimidated by anyone who gives you your food even though you find it unpleasant or disagreeable.

While not all of them are likely to be trained to suit your dining ethics, it is important to treat them as if they treat their food like it’s their own. Even if they don’t. Even if you found some foreign matter in your soup, or the dish you were served tasted like Tide or Ariel, deem it important to “suspend disbelief.” In a more familiar term, always give them the benefit of the doubt.

Do not raise your voice to complain. Simply reach out to them to query in cool and composure. Clarify that the service rendered is not generally acceptable. Ranting and raving about “some soap in the soup” or plastic straws in the pinakbet will not help.  Just suppose you are given imagination to transcend reality. Or remember one Holocaust survivor named Viktor Frankl famously used his imagination to transcend the tragedy he was forced to witness. In his story it can be deduced that perhaps imagination is more powerful than knowledge. But here in your story, ignorance is indeed bliss. Not having known that there’s a fly on your soup makes a whole lot of difference from having known it.

Although, sabi nga nila, Kung malayo sa bituka, okay lang yan. Therefore, check your system, whether your food indeed passes through your stomach. If it doesn’t, you are one lucky organism—feeding on using your other organs.
 
But seriously, consider this. Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea is not about dining until the marlin is cooked by old Santiago [which he does not]—but it’s certainly about survival. There is a part there which says “a man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
 
The crew may poison you but it should not destroy your willingness to seek medication from the nearby doctor in case you get to swallow some plastic served with your pochero.
 
Ask For Receipt
Kun dai man kaipuhan na bayaran kan opisina mo an kinakakan mo dawa na ngani on official business ka, dai mo na gayod kaipuhan maghagad nin recibo. Dakula an karatula kan BIR na nakapaskil sa cashier na an sabi ASK FOR RECEIPT, alagad dai ka maglaom na tata’wan ka nin recibo pag bayad mo. Mag-andam ka na sanang sabihan kan cashier na hinahalat pa ninda an stub kan recibo hale sa BIR. Dai ka na magngalas dawa maaaraman mo ara-atyan na an kakanan na iyan since 1962 pa nagsisirbi sa mga employees alagad mayo pa nanggad recibo. If at all, you were taught in high school to be considerate. Think of good manners and right conduct. It is never good to intimidate people.

So unless it’s a matter of life and death, do not ask for a receipt. Mas orog na gayod kun cooperative an kinakakanan mo—such business involves benefiting a big number of underprivileged families and their sensibilities. Garo man sana naghulog ka na ka’yan nin pirang sensilyo sa lata kan Bantay Bata 163. Sabihan ka pa kaiyan, “an darakulang business ngani mga tax evaders, alagad mas concerned sindang magsingil sa mga small businesses na arog mi.”

Ano na sana an pulos kan nanu’dan mo sa social responsibility o sa moral philosophy? Think of social justice. It won’t hurt to give to small people. Dai ka ngani nag-aangal sa VAT kan bago mong Wrangler jeans. What right have you to question the purpose of this representative of the lesser evil? Sige lang, because the food you are about to eat is not evil. No food is evil. Unless it comes from one.

Hala ka.

Eating Utensils
A cafeteria is a public place, so don’t expect that the utensils you are using are germs-free. One pair of spoon and fork must have fed all types of mouths or more than you can count. Kaya Bawal an masiri pagkakan sa cafeteria. Wisikon mo na sana an kutsara sagkod tinidor na nakapalbag kairiba kan mga sanggatos na iba pa. Magpasalamat kang dakul kun an la’ganan kan mga utensils nabuhusan nin nagkakalakagang tubig, tapos napaso ka pa kan kapotan mo. Mainit-init pa pagkakan mo. Okun habo mong magkahelang ka, magkakan ka sa cafeteria nin aga pa, mantang an mga kakanon nag-aaralusuos pa. By the time, swerte ka ta pati an mga utensils tibaad maray an pagkakahurugas. Bagong karigos pa sana si naghugas.

Alagad dai ka maghadit dawa dai disinfected an kutsara sagkod tinidor mo. Kun may pag-alaman man na mag-abot, an magiging helang mo tibaad helang man kan iba, kaya mas makakaantos kamo—nin huli ta igwa siempre sindang maiimbentong bulong para sa helang kan kadaklan saindo. In principle, in order to sell, pharmaceuticals as business in themselves have ISO-certified R&D arms that know the needs of the common good. Here, think collective. Hindi ka nag-iisa.

Alagad. Sabi kan mga gurang, maraot man an grabeng pagkatubis o masirî (squeamish). Garo idtong nabasa mo sa Reader’s Digest kaidto na don’t be too clean; it impoverishes the blood. By being too squeamish and obsessive-compulsive (OC) about not catching dirt or germs, you do not develop immunities to germs. You don’t make your antibodies work. You reduce your own resistance to the world, which is one of dirt. But washing hands properly is enough. Proper is just enough. Over is more than enough.

Don’t Just Grab A Bite, Eat Your Food.
Any meal is the most important meal of the day—kaya dai paglingawing kakanon an inorder mong kakanon. Yeah, you cram to go somewhere: an appointment, a fieldwork, a meeting—yes, nourish your career, nourish your soul [araatyan masimba ka, makihilingan sa amiga, mayaba-yaba] alagad ngonyan nourish your body first—make your cells tissues organs systems work. Girisa an mahibog, daula an matagas, sapaa an malumhok, halona an saradit. Maaskad an adobo, malagtok an maluto o minsan parareho an namit kan tolo mong panira—kumakan ka sana. Mayo ngani kaiyan an iba. Sa pagkahapay ngani nagagadan an iba. At least ika igwa.

Eat, drink, with or without Mary—in other words, eat for the sake of eating, regardless of whether you like it or not. Pagkatapos mong magdighay, rumdumang marhay. Food alone can’t save you. It fills but it hardly nourishes. 

First finish or get done with your salivation; perhaps only after then can you start & think of your salvation.

Saturday, April 09, 2011

Aftertastes

Some years ago, I came to Iloilo for a number of reasons. Yet, none of them is the fact that I would have to enjoy, among others, the food in this part of our country.


Rather overrated for their many “firsts,” the Ilonggo are food-loving people; and may I say, they are food-eating people. The Ilonggo just don’t love the food; they also eat with gusto, which is not very much different from the culture of the people in Bicol where I grew up.


Through the years, I must say I have come to love Iloilo food. In fact, my palate has not craved for more, because some Ilonggo dishes only remind me of those I have also tasted savored & relished back home.


Bakareta

I first ate bakareta in 2005, when a fellow high school teacher suggested after our morning classes that we order it for our lunch from a lutong bahay in Magsaysay Village in La Paz. I found it was not different from our very own inadobong baka. After all, bakareta is the combined form of baka and kaldereta, both terms and dishes we also have in Bicol.


I always enjoy bakareta’s tender beef and gravy, which I suppose should not be too much. One day, when my father-in-law put just pepper into the tenderest beef he must have bought from Super (Iloilo’s largest public market), I could only utter ohhs ahhs & mouthfuls of praises. Holy cow. The treat was unforgettable.


Laswa

Around the same year, I was introduced to láswa (soft a in the second syllable), a sticky hodgepodge of okra, kalabasa, beans and some leafy vegetables like saluyot or (if budget permits, pasayan or shrimps and dayok, or small shrimps). While the viscous dish is because of the okra, I relish the soft squash and the nutritious tastelessness of the leaves that this dish offers. 


Every time I eat laswa, I think of my liver my heart & my lungs being able to breathe rejuvenate & renew after I have eaten tons of peanuts or indulged in lechon or fastfoodstuff (Stuff is the right word for all fast food since they just stuff you with salt sugar & spice and other hardly soluble ingredients). I am grateful with laswa because I become aware how the leaves roots & fiber would help absorb douse or wash down the oil salt & sweets accumulated in my system.


For the supply of greens, Bikolanos would put ugbos kamote (young camote leaves), okra, or other tender leafy vegetables over the simmering rice. Or we cook them in other ways. While Bikolanos have no laswa, with its exact ingredients and cooking procedure, we enjoy kettlefuls of vegetables which are best cooked with small fish or smaller chunks of meat in ohhsome coconut milk (gutâ) or else. Besides the regular sili or labuyo, I wonder where else we would get the gusto for everything without the gutâ?


Paksiw

In the 1980s, my mother used to ask me to buy paksiw from Tiya Deling who owned a nearby carinderia. A classic bestseller in those days, the Bikol paksiw is virtually sinigang na baboy with lubás leaves that flavor and douse off the porky smell of the pork. But one day in Iloilo, I was surprised when a friend ordered paksiw and was given some small fish onioned peppered & soaked in langgaw, their homemade vinegar. There, I found out that Iloilo’s paksiw is Bicol’sinón-on, where ginger or garlic is used to douse the fishy smell of the fish. I sip inon-on’s gravy that is langgaw that comes in any paksiw treat as long as it is not onioned. We hardly used onions for inon-on (these two words are almost anagrams); otherwise, it would really smell different. Or inonions.


In Bicol, ginger or lâya best douses the smell of any fish, except perhaps pági or patíng, with which bigger aromatic leaves like lubas (libas) or ibâ (kamias) are cooked. Whenever I am treated to paksiw or whenever I cook inón-on myself, I make sure there is more gravy or vinegar. If not, I set aside something from the dish which I could fry later. Sure, once I cook it in little oil, the small fish soaked cooked & intimated in langgaw would become crunchy mouthful of stories to tell.


Aftertastes

Some years ago, I came to Iloilo for a number of reasons. Yet, none of them is the fact that I would have to enjoy, among others, the food in this part of our country.

The Ilonggo are food-loving people, which is not very much different from the culture of the people in Bicol where I grew up. Through the years, I must say I have come to love Iloilo food. In fact, my palate has not craved for more, probably because some Ilonggo dishes only remind me of those I have also tasted savored & relished back home.

Bakareta
I first ate bakareta in 2005, when a fellow high school teacher suggested after our morning classes that we order it for our lunch from a lutong bahay in Magsaysay Village in La Paz. I found it was not different from our very own inadobong baka. After all, bakareta is the combined form of baka and kaldereta, both terms and dishes we also have in Bicol.

I always enjoy bakareta’s tender beef and gravy, which I suppose should not be too much. One day, when my father-in-law put just pepper into the tenderest beef he must have bought from Super (Iloilo’s largest public market), I could only utter ohhs ahhs & mouthfuls of praises. Holy cow. The treat was unforgettable.

Laswa
Around the same year, I was introduced to láswa (soft a in the second syllable), a sticky hodgepodge of okra, kalabasa, beans and some leafy vegetables like saluyot or (if budget permits, pasayan or shrimps and dayok, or small shrimps). While the viscous dish is because of the okra, I relish the soft squash and the nutritious tastelessness of the leaves that this dish offers. 


Every time I eat laswa, I think of my liver my heart & my lungs being able to breathe rejuvenate & renew after I have eaten tons of peanuts or indulged in lechon or fastfoodstuff (Stuff is the right word for all fast food since they just stuff you with salt sugar & spice and other hardly soluble ingredients). I am grateful with laswa because I become aware how the leaves roots & fiber would help absorb douse or wash down the oil salt & sweets accumulated in my system.

For the supply of greens, Bikolanos would put ugbos kamote (young camote leaves), okra, or other tender leafy vegetables over the simmering rice. Or we cook them in other ways. While Bikolanos have no laswa, with its exact ingredients and cooking procedure, we enjoy kettlefuls of vegetables which are best cooked with small fish or smaller chunks of meat in ohhsome coconut milk (gutâ) or else. Besides the regular sili or labuyo, I wonder where else we would get the gusto for everything without the gutâ?

Paksiw
In the 1980s, my mother would ask me to buy paksiw from Tiya Deling who owned a nearby carinderia. A classic bestseller in those days, the Bikol paksiw is virtually sinigang na baboy with lubás leaves that flavor and douse off the porky smell of the pork. But one day in Iloilo, I was surprised when a friend ordered paksiw and was given some small fish onioned peppered & soaked in langgaw, their homemade vinegar. There, I found out that Iloilo’s paksiw is Bicol’sinón-on, where ginger or garlic is used to douse the fishy smell of the fish. I sip inon-on’s gravy that is langgaw that comes in any paksiw treat as long as it is not onioned. We hardly used onions for inon-on (these two words are almost anagrams); otherwise, it would really smell different. Or inonions.

In Bicol, ginger or lâya best douses the smell of any fish, except perhaps pági or patíng, with which bigger aromatic leaves like lubas (libas) or ibâ (kamias) are cooked. Whenever I am treated to paksiw or whenever I cook inón-on myself, I make sure there is more vinegar. If not, I set aside something from the dish which I could fry later. Sure, once I cook it in little oil, the small fish soaked cooked & intimated in langgaw would become crunchy mouthfuls of stories to tell.

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