Food is Everything

 My wife is from Taiwan. Yesterday, we were having breakfast and I prepared this bread stick. She took a bite and said, "It is too thick. Also, I do not like to eat it with sugar. In Taiwan, I would eat it with 'sao ping' ".

Of course, we did not stop the discussion there. We talked more about food and it gave me the idea to write this chapter.

As a child, our breakfast was always pan de sal. A dinner role like bread, fresh from the oven, no, not from our kitchen, but from the bakery just around the corner. As the eldest in the family, I would get to my father's shirt which is hanging behind the door in that one bedroom apartment. I would grab some pesos, go to the store and buy the bread. Mother would make the chocolate drink, Ovaltine or Milo, and there would be either Reno liver spread or Vienna sausage from the can.

When I explain to my wife that we eat six meals a day, she would usually look at me in disbelief, but it is true. At school, at around 9:45 am, during one of our recess, students would ran to the canteen where they would get a fried plantain coated with brown sugar on a stick with Pepsi or Coke. There are also sandwiches that we can buy. My other favorite is called turon, it is like an egg roll with banana inside.

Then for lunch, there is always rice. A meal without rice is not a meal but just a snack. It is always rice with one or two dishes to go with it. Vegetables and soup were optional. As long as we have something with deep flavor, does not have to be a lot, the meal is good! I remember for some of the hard working Filipino workers, their meal might be a big plate of rice with a small dried fish. The diet was definitely high in carbohydrates.

In the afternoon, at about 4:30 pm, we would a snack. A favorite place for me to go is Ha Yuan on Magdalena street. They have "Maki", a thick soup with pieces of soft meat. They also have "Machang", sticky rice cooked with meat or sometimes peanut wrapped in bamboo leaves and tied with a string. Sometimes they have "Ginataan", a desert made with coconut milk containing banana, jackfruit, yam and others.

Most Fridays, after my father came home from the province, we would all pile into a taxi and head for Chinatown. My father's favorite dishes and later became ours' were sweet and sour whole fish and "Pat Po Tao Hu Teng". The latter is a thick soup with tofu, carrots and green peas.

After dinner, we would watch two Chinese movies. And the there is one more meal before we head home. It would be a simple peanut soup, with or without egg. If I remember right, sometimes you can add a piece of chocolate.

Food is definitely everything. By telling you the kind of food I grew up with, you would now understand why I am called Chinoy. And I am.