Skip to main content

Polvoron

My sister and the Artist-in-Residence and I follow an heirloom recipe for polvoron so rich in butter that if you drop one from a height of 2-feet, it won't crumble. We arrived at this figure through repeated tests.

Shaping polvoron could well have been my first experience of entering a meditative state of mind. But I never enjoyed wrapping them individually. In our house the polvoron is stacked in a pyramid on a cheese plate and consumed on-the-spot. I also used to get blisters from packing the heavenly powder in so tightly.

We need a good pair of molds. Not the cheap, tinsel-like stuff you can get these days. When I was a kid we had an old pair of polvoron shapers made of copper. I wonder if we'll ever find polvoron molds like that again.

Wishful thinking on a Monday morning.
Labels:

Comments

Babeth Lolarga said…
the sister who comes after me was a nutrition major on her first year in college before she shifted to the family "business" of psychology (to understand family members' topak). she used to have a little polvoron business. it didn't thrive because assistants like me would pack the mold, then press that thingy & the contents fell directly in our mouths. my polvoron memories are pleasant, too.
14 March 2013 at 09:37
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cordillera Folktales and Story-telling

It was cold and wet outside on the day of the launching of The Golden Arrow of Mt. Makilkilang and other Cordillera Folktales . But inside Mt. Cloud Bookshop we were warmed by stories read and performed by the Aanak di Kabiligan community theater group. Storytelling on a stormy afternoon. Paco Paco. A Benguet story from the book, published by the Cordillera Green Network. Aanak di Kabiligan means children of the mountains. The theater group was born out of the Cordillera Green Network's eleven years of conducting workshops in which children transform their grandparents' stories into theater productions. Here they perform the title story of the Golden Arrow of Mt. Makilkilang and Other Cordillera Folktales.
Post a Comment
Read more

Lola of Maipon

It's all too easy to fall asleep under the blanket of everyday life and to smother dreams with the mundane things I surround myself with. But once in a while, along comes a sparkling vision that jolts me out of my daily sleep and reminds me of the existence of convictions and worlds so different from my own. "Our beloved LOLA of Guinubatan, Maipon, Albay is the last true messenger of God. So, let us follow her holy teachings so that we will gain TRUE SALVATION without sufferings and without death." In another story I, the intrepid heroine, the adventurer seduced by mysteries, the pilgrim in search of truth, would follow them back to Guinubatan from Session Road, thirsting to see and hear their Lola for myself. However, it's all too easy -- much safer! -- to fall back asleep under the blanket of everyday life, and to smother dreams with the mundane things I surround myself with. Then along comes 9 a.m., and really, it's time to down the dregs of coffee at the bott...
4 comments
Read more

Ritual for all Occasions

Attended a talk delivered by Dr. Albert Bacdayan, UP Baguio. Feb. 20, 2013. "Ritual for All Occasions: The significance and persistence of the 'Senga' in Northern Sagada." The senga is a ritual in which at least one chicken and one pig -- sometimes more -- are sacrificed. The senga is usually performed for milestones such as the completion of a house, the opening of a new business, a wedding, a funeral, when someone is ill, when someone is leaving on a journey. He spoke of how Cordillerans have a ritual for almost every occasion or ailment. Indeed, the word he used was not ritual but "remedy."Dr. Bacdayan described this as a "healthy agnosticism."He mused that the abundance or such remedies and rituals is the reason there are rarely feelings of helplessness among Cordillerans. He described ritual as a bundle of activities that assures people and anchors identity. When one calls the old men and is the principal of a senga, you are perceived t...
Post a Comment
Read more