Jamon.

Last Thursday, we went to the place of our childhood, Sta. Ana.  On our way to Shaw Blvd., at Gen. Kalentong, I suddenly remembered the ham of our childhood, Adelina's.

I had to drive slow, ignoring the jeepneys at my tail so I could properly locate the tiny store. It was still there.

Years and years ago, when my father didn't get his usual Holiday gifts of raw Chinese ham (pata ng jamon), my mother used to buy the Chinese ham at Adelina's.  It was similar to the ham sold at Echague's and my mother bought it 

here because she didn't want to travel all the way to Quiapo.

If my father got ham as gift from his Chinese clients, my Ate cooked it 

on New Year's eve.  

She boiled it in a mixture of beer, pineapple juice, muscovado sugar, sometimes with Seven Up, until fat comes dripping out. During the Media Y Noche, that ham looked as yummy delicious as the Echague ham. We usually enjoyed ham until February because Father sometimes got more than one ham as gift. 

Ham reminds me of the Spanish film Jamon Jamon, which star Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, a 1992 Spanish drama/comedy film directed by Bigas Luna. " It centers around a young woman named Silvia played by Cruz. The film is bursting with sexual energy and twisted romantic relationships. The film is an allegory for Spain itself and the director engages in word play and pun. It rhapsodizes on the juxtaposition of old and new in Spain and many other emotional contrasts such as erotic desire and food."  Even the director's name, Bigas, (rice) connotes food. 

At Adelina's, the store clerk asked if we wanted the scraps or the sliced ham. We bought the sliced ham with the honey sauce that goes with it.  The following morning, breakfast consisted of raisin bread, ham, pancakes and coffee.

So the TV commercial I ranted about in a previous post,  the one about Christmas in December and fruit cocktail today, somehow stirred memories of the Holiday Season in my subconscious.  

Ham is an everyday staple in North America and Canadian ham/bacon is well known throughout the world.  But although ham is readily available in Toronto, there would be times when I longed for the jamon back home.

I remember some Christmases in Toronto when I bought cooked ham but cooked it again in maple syrup laced with pineapple juice to get the jamon taste I liked.  Of course, I was fooling myself.

After tasting the Adelina's ham, I now look forward to the Echague ham.

UPPER LEFT, Canadian bacon/ham.

Pre-Christmas Sale.

I saw this TV commercial raving about how we can have the Holiday spirit right now. How? By enjoying a fruit salad today.

True. Pinoy's Holiday food always includes fruit and buko salad.

In Toronto, if you visit Philippine stores around Christmas time, you'd see huge cans of fruit cocktails and Nestle's cream.

Somehow, although I've seen the TV commercials a few times, the Holiday mood could not kick in yet. It's still the monsoon season, for crying out loud. And being Canadian, my body clock is still feeling the summer that's going on in Toronto right now.

And that TV commercial is too lame. If you go to any restaurant or food court, you can always order a fruit salad. And the Noel chime would not suddenly ring in the ear.

I hate TV commercials that are too trite or obtrusive. Like a detergent commercial which pits one tablespoon of one brand vs. two of another brand for rinsing out grime out of a dirtied shirt collar. Or another detergent which supposedly brings out a brand-new-shirt-look. Or another wherein a popular TV host gets high sniffing the bath soap out of a detergent.

These commercials are all too coy and pilit na pilit, ika nga.

I love commercials that are witty and funny. They don't even have to show or talk too much about the product to be effective. Like the old Zazoo condom commercial.

I await the CLIO international award winning commercials. These commercials are the real prime time shows

Ham, Hot Cocoa and Halayang Ube

Christmas is so in the air that I could not help thinking and smelling in the subconscious the goodies I used to enjoy as a kid.

My mind is skipping Christmas dinner altogether because it consisted of ala-fiesta food savoured and attacked at my grandparents house in Nueva Ecija.

I'm thinking about New Year's Eve Media Noche as I sip hot Tim Horton's chocolate amidst a minus two degree celsius Saturday morning in Toronto.

I've never been a cocoa guy; I've always been a coffee guy. But come New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, I've always craved for a steaming cup of cocoa.

It's been the tradition in our family to have tsokolate on New Year's Day. My mother and aunt always bought the cacao (hard Spanish chocolate) and on Media Noche, they used a special batidor to stir the pot or carafe to produce a cup of bubbly tsokolate. Of course they'd already added ground peanuts on the pot, so we would be drinking tsokolate mixed with peanuts. Aaah.

Of course, our Media Noche, was not complete without the jamon. As far as I can remember, my father used to receive holiday gifts from his clients, and year in and year out, he got at least two pata ng jamon ( ham legs). As these were raw and wrapped, they'd be hanging by the kitchen wall until New Year's Eve when our Ate donned her chef hat and cooked the ham. She boiled the ham in a tall biscuit tin where she'd put her secret mix. I suspect it consisted of beer, Seven Up, pineapple juice added with chunks, and brown sugar.

Once the ham was cooked, it looked like the Excellente ham from Echague, complete with the sugary, salty syrup. Yummy. Sometimes, we had the ham for breakfast up until February.

While living with my aunt and uncle, my sister Jo and I were Uncle's little Santa's help. My Uncle was the official cook in the house and days before New Year, he'd devote an entire day preparing halayang ube, and we would help him carve designs out of the purple ube.

As my uncle was an all around guy- sastre, karpintero, artiste, cook, etc - he'd have halayang ube in various designs served in colorful platters. He'd give me and my sister tubed "cut rite" with holes at the bottom, and we would put the trimmings on his designs. So the halayang ube would come out like cakes with frosting.

In my parents' house it was the eldest sister who was the official halayang ube preparer. Years later when she migrated to the U.S. and had kids, she still made halayang ube the centerpiece of her many special dinners. Her kids called it purple cake.