How to cook ube and the back story of a comfort food

STEP 1: Dig for Ube.  If none available, source from the palengke.

No food reminds me more of the happy times of my youth than ube, specifically the ube jam that my Tia Lulu makes when we visit or take vacations in Pangasinan. 

I came across a mound of this root crop in our backyard the other day.  When I began digging for it, little did I know that it would be huge, or that it would send me on a sentimental journey as I try to recreate this favorite treat from my youth, using Tia Lulu's old school recipe.

STEP 2: Wash dirt away and boil in a vat till flesh is soft and flaky.

In the olden days, we would begin loitering around Tia Lulu as soon as she sets the wok filled with grated ube, milk and sugar over the blistering wood fire that would turn the goo into spoonfuls of heaven.  She would promptly shoo us away, admonishing us to instead do something worthwhile.  And by this she meant  go play, climb a tree or swing yourself to a stupor in the duyan.

STEP 3: Peel the skin then grate

Tia Lulu is my Nanay’s elder sister and she is, in many ways, our second mother.  She has no children of her own.  In fact, she didn’t marry, nor did she finish or even step into college unlike most of her siblings who became professionals and played the important role of providing for the food that we ate and the general upkeep of the house where we stayed, which, by Amagbagan, Pozorrubio standard was comfortably well-off.  For some reason, and certainly not lack of intellect or the willingness to immerse in learning for she is a very intelligent and perceptive woman, my grandparents decided that Tia Lulu was not higher education material. 

 

STEP 4: Mix in milk (Condensed and Evaporated) and sugar.  Sorry, the proportion is a closely guarded secret.

Whatever income Tia Lulu generates for herself she gets from making and selling tsokolate tablea, and bamboo poles and other products and fruits that grow in abundance in the land that she and her siblings inherited from their parents.  Because she does not have the financial means to bestow generous gifts, let alone buy simple ones, she often thinks that she has little of value to offer.  I don’t see it that way.  When I think of Pangasinan, I think of her and her selflessness.  And that’s more than anything that money can buy. And it is through her example, and that of my Nanay, that I try to live a life for others not with the material things that I may or may not have, but through the innate resources that I may have in abundance.

In my youth, I can climb trees because if I fall, she will be there to soothe the pain away.  I can roam around the fields all day, chase grasshoppers and hop on a carabao's back knowing that when I get home, a warm meal is guaranteed to be waiting.  I don’t mind getting sick because she will be there to take care of me.  I don’t care about prickly heat and the summer humidity of Pangasinan because she will scratch my back till I say, Sarap!  I don’t lose sleep about not knowing things I could use in school because she teaches me skills I can use in real life: How to skin a live frog, How to fry fish without the oil scalding your skin, How to crack roasted cocoa bean shells, How to hold a piglet while its baby teeth are being pruned.  And when I do sleep, I’m not afraid of getting nightmares because I sleep on the floor, on a banig in Tia Lulu’s room who, in her bed just an arm’s reach away, always prays at night that all will be well so that she can wake up early the next day so that when I open my eyes, breakfast is already served on the table.

STEP 5: Cook over wood fire while continuously stirring.  This make take more than 3 hours.

We would hover around Tia Lulu from time to time and she readily knows that we have a spoon in our hands.  She would allow us to scoop a little of the unfinished ube, which is by all means already good, then tell us to go away and do something worthwhile.

When the ube has thickened to the right consistency, she would call on us because she knows we are eager to scrape out the last of the congealed goo on the wooden ladle she just used to mix the ube as well as around the rim of the still hot wok.  These would be the best tasting morsel ever.

STEP 6: When mixture begins to thicken, add margarine then continue stiring.

There are several dishes that I consider comforting to my soul.  One is a vegetable stew of assorted leaves from the garden which my Tatay handpicked and liked to cook when he was sober.  Another is the macaroni salad with home-made mayonnaise that Nanay used to prepare, hand-mixing it for hours on end, during special occasions. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to replicate these recipes.  But this ube, I can.  And it reminds me of those blissful summers in Pangasinan and of my Tia Lulu.  And my heart sighs a deep, contented smile.

STEP 7: Happy eating!