Wednesday, September 25, 2013

"I Miss The Philippines"

The statement of "I miss the Philippines" is not one that we hear come from Eli often.  He keeps most of his thoughts and feelings about his birth country under guard.  Partly because he didn't have a lot of positives, partly because he doesn't have as many solid memories as Lucas.

So when he unexpectedly announced this evening that he missed the Philippines we were surprised.  I asked him what he missed and he said the food.  Okay we have a couple Filipino recipes that I think come pretty close to original but none of those were the ones that he was remembering and missing.

He said it was chicken, with "stuff" on it and lots of sticky rice with "stuff" in it.  Yep I don't know exactly what the magic "stuff" is or was.  None of my Filipino recipe books showed a picture of what he is talking about or least not the way he remembers it.  

I feel like I failed him.  He gave a big sigh and said, "That's ok.  Forget about it."  I don't want to forget about it and I don't want him to forget those pieces he does have fond memories of....so the search is on.  Google don't fail me now.

1 comment:

  1. Hi, I'm from the Philippines and just want to try and guess what the chicken and rice with stuff in it is. haha.

    Common meals with chicken here are:
    Chicken Adobo
    Chicken Caldereta
    Chicken Inasal (a version of chicken barbecue which I think originated from provinces in Visayas)

    Try embutido too, it's actually made from pork but maybe it's possible that this is what he's looking for since it really has lots of stuff in it. And it's a common food here especially in a fiesta or Christmas.

    I'm not sure what he mean by lots of sticky rice. But if he refers to rice as rice for a meal, then maybe he's referring to mixed rice which is very common here to have especially for breakfast. It's typically made by sautéing garlic in oil (sometimes oil used previously for frying fish) then mixing the rice and adding a bit of salt. Java rice is also common here.

    or maybe he's referring to some food / desserts here which some are made from sticky rice like suman, puto, ube halaya, cassava cake, and others.

    http://www.squidoo.com/yummiest-philippine-desserts-ever

    Hope this helps. :)

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