by Telly Ocampo
Lunaw, Tabirak, Maruya ug Uban Pa
We relish certain kinds of food preparation from ube. We have the lunaw, tabirak, maruya ug uban pa that are best served especially during the harvest season we fondly call as tingpanglin.
Gen Z or generation Z is the newest generation to be named and these are the young people born between 1997 and 2012/15. They are currently between 8-23 years old. I don’t know if this group called gen Z is aware of what tingpanglin is all about.
Tingpanglin is the harvest season for ube and the season starts on the last days of October. Hence, we have ube on our table during the All Souls/Saints Day. This is the tasting period which we call as the panilaw. Immediately after the panilaw, the tingpanglin would follow and the tingpanglin would allow families to serve ube during the December 8 fiesta day, the pasko sa pagkatawo, until the Semana Santa or the Holy Week.
Out of the ube harvest, we are able to prepare lunaw. What is lunaw? Ube ra gud ni nga naay sabaw. Pero lamian nga putahe. A good friend of mine describes lunaw nga ube this way: Tam-is tam-is. Susama sa tabirak nga mura ug binignit.
Binignit is like lunaw. However, the former has lot of sahog like pilit gamay, nangka nga hinog gamay ug landang gamay.
Maruya nga ube, on the other hand, is grated ube nga kinampay mixed with sugar and pan fried.
There is another recipe for ube and this is called ube jam. It is only on special occasions that we make ube jam nga kinampay.
Moreover, there was another ube recipe of Nang Osang (Rosa Alarin Aya-ay) which was called the buracho. It was ube jam with wine.
The kinampay is a versatile kind of ubi as it has many uses in Boholano cooking. One can use this for the inatayan, nilaw-oy, adobo, ug menudo. The kabus-ok is also another good variety of ubi.
Last December 8, the celebration of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, my good friend, Carrie Tharan, brought me to the hills of Canggawa and Cambanac up to the road leading to Tunga, the last hillside barrio of Baclayon next to Albur. The roads up there are very wide and complete with solar lights. There are big houses built there and there is a mountain resort overlooking the valleys below. These barrios are the ube capital of our town of Baclayon. Our ube produce comes from these areas.
Today, only very few plant ube. The people who love the earth are gone. Most of their children have gone abroad as seamen. It’s evident on the kind of houses found on the hillside. A big subdivision is found on the valley below. This must be the reason we have wide roads along these barangays. The national road from Poblacion, Baclayon to Corella pales in comparison. I’m just hoping that budget for national road is not diverted to private interest.
Baclayon, Dauis, Panglao, Tagbilaran produce the best ube. If you go around Shoppers Mart, ube used to be displayed during the Christmas season. Today, we are experiencing ube scarcity.
How about going back to tilling the land? I am a plantita of another kind. I don’t go into the craze of the season: miliona, rain forest, cardboard, waves of love and many more. I collect old plants of my mother and my Oyang Tiva. Kalachuchi, Jasmine, Melendres (creep myrtle) and I have yet to get palmeras (manila palm) for that’s the plant gracing the sala of most ancestral homes.
I planted upat ka butok kinampay last June 2020 in my garden. We gathered only two big ones. Now I know nga kinahanglan diay dagkong butok ang itanom ug painitan gyud sa adlaw. You will know the size of your produce by the size of its leaves.
I am looking forward to planting ube this June 2021.