Food tales and our Filipino culinary heritage

In her 18th-century Pangasinan house where we used to spend summer vacations, my grandmother told us stories at bedtime so that we could wind down from the day’s excitement and drift off to sleep.

Among those I still remember were the legends about things to eat. There was Piña, the girl who was too lazy to look for things so that she was turned into a pineapple with many eyes, or the tale of the crayfish that was cursed to have one enormous and misshapen claw. “Kinabil to’y ateng to (He hit his parents),” our grandmother would gravely say, reminding us that even if one did not physically strike anyone, to defy one’s parents, elders, or be hardheaded was a sure path to perdition and suffering.

My siblings, cousins, and I would be mute with terror as we lay on cushions on the floor of our grandmother’s room. We had defied our manangs and answered back when they interrupted our play. Did that mean that we would wake up one day with fat lips or a giant mouth? Would our tongues grow to become the length of snakes as punishment for sticking them out as we ran away from our caregivers? Chastened and scared, our bedtime prayers were quite sincere as we followed our grandmother’s lead and asked the Almighty to keep us safe while we slept.

I now laugh at the memory, but likewise realize the value of those storytelling sessions. Other than the fact that we were encouraged to imbibe the culture, be fluent in the dialects of our antecedents, and learn firsthand the oral history of our region without any detail being lost in translation, the tales were meant to reinforce accepted modes of behavior. What the noted American folklorist Dr. Michael Owen Jones calls “explicit and implicit activating beliefs” are cunningly woven into the stories so that they impart values and lessons and promote a mindset.

Three for the chow: Ateneo anthropology students Adriann Caldozo, Thea Sulangi, and Paola Lizares at the media launch of Mama Sita’s Mga Kwentong Pagkain

Even to this day, folk tales and storytelling continue to have value in our modern world. In the book Putting Folklore to Use, for example, folklorists suggest that folk tales have “applications in such areas as museums, aiding the homeless, environmental planning, art therapy, designing public spaces, organizing development, tourism, the public sector, aging, and creating an occupation’s image.”

Thus, Mama Sita’s latest campaign to encourage Filipinos to remember local food tales is laudable. “Food is one of the most accessible aspects of culture, after all,” says Dr. Fernando Zialcita, professor and head of the Cultural Heritage Studies Program at the Ateneo de Manila University, explaining why the subject of food is a good start in learning about culture. “It is anthropology that pioneered the study of culture; everything that makes a people unique — that is the charisma of anthropology,” he says. “We have to start local. We have to know what is there. We would like to produce students who are more aware of their cultural heritage and we can start with food.”

This is the rationale behind Mama Sita’s Mga Kuwentong Pagkain, a nationwide contest that is being launched to encourage everyone to share authentic, one-of-a-kind, little-known stories on Filipino cuisine and cooking.

“These stories correspond to Teresita “Mama Sita” Reyes’s own commitment to celebrate the cuisine and culinary heritage of the Philippines,” says Cecille Nepomuceno of Mama Sita. She relates that Reyes, the persona behind the iconic Filipino line of sauces and condiments, was “an ingenious storyteller and chronicler, valued the anecdotes and accounts on food and cooking handed down to her by her mother, friends, vendors, farmers, and the ordinary man on the street.” This, she says was the inspiration behind Mama Sita’s Mga Kuwentong Pagkain.

Saucy message: “Itaguyod ang pagkaing sariling atin,” Mama Sita encourages us with premium Filipino condiments and mixes.

The contest mechanics are as follows:

1. Mga Kwentong Pagkain is open to all interested participants who wish to share their food stories in any of these three media forms: written, visual, or audio-video essays.

2. To join, participants need to have an authentic and one-of-a-kind culinary story to tell, and the preferred media where the story can be best expressed following the given material length and format. 

3. The maximum entry length and format per category are as follows: Essay Writing (length: maximum of 2,000 words, format: hard copy, typed or handwritten, or soft copy, MS Word or PDF); Visual Essay (length: maximum of 2,000 words, format: hard copy, typed or handwritten, or soft copy, MS Word or PDF), and Audio-Visual Essay (length: maximum of 10 minutes, format: MP4 or WAV).

4. Entries may be written in English or Filipino. In the audio-visual format, while other native dialects are encouraged, they should be accompanied by comprehensible and appropriate subtitles to make the narrative easier to understand and evaluate. All entries will be judged according to the following criteria: content (40 percent), presentation (30 percent), originality (20 percent) and overall impact (10 percent).

5. Entries must be submitted to Mga Kuwentong Pagkain, Marigold Manufacturing Corporation, 538 North South Compound, Jenny’s Avenue, Maybunga, Pasig City, Philippines or e-mailed to mgakuwentongpagkain@gmail.com together with the entry form on or before Oct. 12, 2012, and not later than 5 p.m. In addition, all entries become the property of Marigold Manufacturing Corporation and may be displayed, exhibited, and used by the sponsor without compensating and/or notifying the owner.

6. The grand winner will receive P20,000 in cash and a medal from Kusina ni Mama Sita, or may choose to be enrolled in a culinary course worth P20,000 plus Mama Sita gift packs and an option to take Mama Sita’s culinary tour following in the footsteps of Mama Sita.

7. Runners-up in the different categories will also get some exciting prizes. First runner-up winners will get P10,000 in cash, a medal, and an option to take Mama Sita’s culinary tour plus Mama Sita’s gift packs. Second runner-up winners bring home P5,000 in cash, a medal, and the option to join Mama Sita’s culinary tour plus Mama Sita’s gift packs.

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Interested participants may download and fill up the entry form from Mama Sita’s website at  www.msita.com/whatsnew.html. For more details about the contest, visit www.facebook.com/mgakwentongpagkain.