How do you cope with the hard times?

Answer: Hardly! Short of taking turns to eat, cash-strapped families are stretching not just their meager budget but also their imagination to ward off pangs of hunger. Remember Dr. Ned Roberto’s nationwide consumer coping and buying behavior survey in July 2002? Well, the survey says that the Class E market is subsisting on "surrogate ulam." Coffee and soy sauce top the list of surrogate ulam.

A small bottle of Silver Swan soy sauce sells for P10 – vis-a-vis P7.50 a few years back – at the sari-sari store of Mrs. Ningning Santiago. It’s one of the first items to disappear from the shelves. Next to the toyo come the Lucky Me noodles that go for as cheap as P5 per filling pack, that’s enough to tide you over till the next meal. Top sellers, too, are tuyo at P1 apiece, dilis at P10 per pack, and eggs at P3.50 per.

While wondering where their next meal is coming from, marginalized Pinoys are more and more discovering the wonders of one-dish meals. The creative housewife that she is, Mrs. Santiago dishes out nutritious ways to beat inflation with a vengeance. For one, you can buy fresh dilis for only P15 per kilo, roll it in flour (P10) and fry it. This is good for a family of six.

"For frying, you can use Baguio Oil, which costs P35 per small bottle, or if you find that expensive, try a cheaper brand that costs only P25," says Ningning. "Of course, it’s even cheaper if you don’t use mantika and simply boil your food."

For another, you can sauté eggplant with a little hibe (dried shrimp) or bitsuelas with some shrimp and toyo. Or sauté pechay (P10 per bundle) with hibe or tokwa (for a tasty extender). You can also sauté puso ng saging in garlic, adding a little gata ng niyog.

Of course, there’s the very versatile sardine. How do you cook it? Let us count the ways. Here’s one meaty idea: Sauté a can of sardines (the cheaper brands cost from P10 up) with misua (P2 per bundle). This serves a family of five.

Then, too, there’s tuna (P20 for a small can and P40 plus for a bigger one), which you can cook in a thousand and one ways. Here’s one recipe courtesy of Century Tuna:

Century Tuna Sinigang Sa Miso

2 184 g. cans of Century Tuna Chunks in Oil
2 tsps. ginger, sliced
1 tbsp. garlic, minced
1/2 cup onions, sliced
1 cup tomatoes, cut into quarters
1/2 cup miso
6 cups water
1 packet instant sinigang mix
2 bunches mustasa leaves
2 tbsps. patis

Using oil from the tuna, sauté ginger, garlic, onions and tomatoes. When soft, add the miso and mix well. Pour water and sinigang mix. Let boil. Add tuna, mustasa leaves and patis. Cook for another minute. Makes six servings.

By all means, give peas a chance, too. "The seeds of the patani (P10 per kilo) make good nilaga," says Mrs. Santiago.

Your best bet, too, is pinakbet. Put okra, kangkong, ampalaya in your veggie mix and throw in some bagoong.

Okra is a-okay, too. "A bundle costs only P10," says Ningning. "You can cut it up, put a little toyo and fry. Masarap!"

Eat your veggies, especially during summer. "Cabbage costs only P40 per kilo in summer," Ningning points out, "but the price goes up to P60 per kilo during the rainy season."

Or you can beef up your meal with corned beef (P45 per can) and make mechado by adding some potatoes.

Mrs. Santiago makes her own tocino at home. "I just put garlic and soy sauce on the meat and add a little sugar. I don’t use salitre because I think it has an ingredient that’s used for embalming."

What about chicken soup for the aching stomach and starving soul? "Yes, you can do a lot with chicken," says Ningning. "You can use native chicken (P90 per kilo) – or Magnolia chicken, which is cheaper – and make it into tinola with a little papaya. You can also make sinampalukan and afritada chicken dishes.

For rice lovers, add life to your rice by frying it in a little oil and garlic for a homecooked sinangang.

For merienda, try pritong saging or bananacue, fried camote or camotecue. "If you have a little more money, buy grated coconut meat (niyog) and make yourself some ginatan," Mrs. Santiago suggests.

What about the so-called junk food? According to supermarket retailers, consumers are downtrading from expensive imported junk foods to locally manufactured ones.

Mrs. Santiago sighs and adds, "If you’re going to the supermarket or palengke with P500 in your purse, don’t bring a big basket because you can only buy enough to fill a plastic bag."

The Pinoy’s market basket has been shrinking so fast that we dread the day when we will end up not even with a plastic bag but a supot.

Small may well be in. People are buying smaller versions of products because they’re cheaper. Never mind if they have to make more trips to the supermarket. Fact is, wise housewives see the wisdom in buying less, not in bulk, each time they go to the supermarket. Not too many go into panic-buying anymore – they just panic, they don’t buy! Says one housewife: "Buying in smaller quantities has proven to be more economical for my family. For instance, when the maid sees there’s only so much cooking oil or whatnot to last a week, she will do her best not to waste it, as compared to when there’s an abundant supply which she thinks will never run out."

The peso may continue to sink but the unsinkable Pinoys will never run out of creativity to pull them out of the deepest quagmire.