A lesson in hygiene

During the last stretch of summer a few weeks ago, I caught some programs on television featuring dirty ice cream. No, it wasn’t on the food channel and certainly those segments didn’t hail dirty ice cream as a delectable treat to combat the summer heat.

On the contrary, dirty ice cream was featured instead on public affairs/public service programs and was exposed as a street food that lives up to its name – dirty.

I remember seeing it first on Channel 13 – in the show of one of the Tulfo brothers (I forgot, which one because they confuse me, except for Mon and Erwin). In that program the hell-like condition of a dirty ice cream factory was shown and I swear I would rather die of starvation first before I eat anything that comes from there. The place teemed with cockroaches that were all over and they were there by the hundreds.

In another program – on Channel 7’s Reporter’s Notebook – the show featured another dirty ice cream factory and just thinking about the place as I write this now makes my stomach turn.

In the spirit of fairness, Reporter’s Notebook also went to another dirty ice cream factory that had a certificate (was it from the Bureau of Food and Drugs?) and the owner, an elderly man, proudly waved it before the camera.

I wanted to shout hurray, except that the owner was just wearing a white undershirt – a sando – and he was shown operating his ice cream machine in that attire. It got me into thinking: If that’s what he dons in front of a TV camera, I shudder to imagine what he wears – or doesn’t – when there is no TV crew around. Maybe he goes shirtless and only heaven knows what happens to his sweat.

And if that is what to him – as the owner – is the proper attire when it comes to handling food, you can just imagine what his workers wear when making dirty ice cream.

I don’t understand most Filipinos. They take a bath at least once a day and observe proper hygiene when it comes to their body. But when they prepare food that becomes another story.

Filipino cuisine, sadly, has yet to be recognized globally – and I’m not surprised that it’s not because let’s admit it, most of our dishes don’t look very appetizing. Adobo, which I love, is just brown and isn’t photogenic at all when you put it in a food book. (What our food lacks is color.)

And neither is Filipino food the healthiest in the world. Okay, you can substitute pork with bangus when you cook sinigang, but the fact remains that Thailand’s tom yum is still a lot more flavorful.

It’s really disheartening that our food can’t compete globally. Maybe we can assure foreigners who visit our country that, at least, our food is clean. Unfortunately, we can’t even guarantee them (or even ourselves) that.

Manunuri is now a National Artist

The Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino had always been a small group and we want to keep it that way. At the moment, its members are (aside from this writer) Dr. Grace Javier Alfonso, Dr. Nicanor Tiongson, Miguel Rapatan, Mario Hernando, Lito Zulueta, Dr. Roland Tolentino and – with pride – Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera, National Artist for Literature.

Previously, he also received the very prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award, the Gawad CCP para sa Sining (cultural research) and the CCP Centennial Honor for the Arts.

Dr. Lumbera finished his M.A. and Ph.D in Comparative Literature at the Indiana University and was a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence, SEASSI, Ann Arbor, Michigan in the early ’80s.

I met Bien (that’s how everyone calls him) when I joined the Manunuri practically straight from college. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to bond then because he left for Japan to become an exchange professor at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies.

It was when he returned to Manila in the late ’80s that I got to know him better and he turned out to be so nice and humble in spite of all his accomplishments in life. Oh, I swap jokes with him and he can take anything from me.

But even in my most playful mood, I always regard him with respect and, in fact, it is to him that the group runs to when there is a crisis within the organization. He is often referred to as a Manunuri elder and we benefit a lot from his wisdom.

To you Bien, my congratulations and as a fellow Manunuri, I am so proud of you!