by Jose Angelo Maniquis
For the past few years I have been barely cooking for myself. A lot of times, my fiancee's mother would be cooking Colombian food for lunch (at a cost, ofcourse) and dinner. And when I do not have lunch for the day, I eat out to the mall. At any given lunchtime, I may find myself eating Teriyaki Chicken, or Burger, or Chinese food. And that pretty much becomes my life: lazy, full of artificial colors and flavors, unhappy, and without a sense of self.
Last night, I came across Global Food; this international supermarket in Montgomery Village, Maryland. I was out buying grocery with my fiancee's mother which the both of us enjoy as an activity anyways.
While walking around the clean market filled with products from all over the world, I came across some really familiar vegetables that I haven't seen in a while. So as I walked around, I remembered my time with my Dad at the market in the Philippines when I was merely 6 years old. I enjoyed going to the market with him. I love watching him use his charisma to bargain with "Aling Evelyn" (translation: Miss Evelyn), this heavyset lady who runs one of the meat stalls; or bargain with the fish lady, or the vegetable lady. It's just overall a very fun experience that I am glad to have experienced with my Dad. I pretty much cooked with my Dad side by side growing up.
The selection of products in Global Food inspired me to cook the foods that are familiar to me. Filipino foods called gisado (derived from guisa, a Spanish method of sauteing tomatoes, onions, and garlic). Gisado is pretty much any vegetable that is sauteed with tomatoes, onions, garlic, fish sauce, and a protein. It's the easiest Filipino food to make and it is healthy because it is a painless way to feed vegetables to family members.
Bringing such vegetables as okra, bottle gourd (upo), egg plant, baby bokchoy (pechay Tagalog), Thai Okra (patola), eddo root (gabi), and others inspired me to plan a week of cooking Filipino food (for both lunch and dinner). Last night, I cooked ginisang upo (sauteed bottle gourd in tomatoes, onions, garlic, and pork belly). The cooking process is as magical to me as the eating process.
...I am reminded of who I am. I reminded of the legacy, the identity that my Dad has passed on to me through cooking. Suddenly, I don't feel insecure or afraid of the problems that I deal with in this country. At least for that brief moment, I know exactly who I am and why. At the end of the day, crappy coworkers, debilitating politics, stressful relationships, and loneliness became moot. I am suddenly at the presence of my Dad, my siblings, my house in the Philippines, and LIFE.
Therefore, I realized that cooking is not just a survival task to be done on a daily basis although it also is. Cooking is beyond that. Cooking relaxes the mind and body. Cooking gives anyone the power and authority to be a provider of sustenance. Cooking reminds you of who you are and why you are here. Most of all, cooking for your family is a delivery system of identity and legacy. It feeds your children your own legacy in life. Every one of us has the ability to summon our forefathers' legacy through cooking. It's just a matter of wanting to find the legacy and identity.
