I was born into a transnational extended family. My father, the eldest among his siblings, married before his brother (younger by only a year), was drafted into the US Navy. As a consequence, slowly, the brother and his parents and seven other siblings eventually came to live in the United States.
We, the family of the eldest, were left in Manila, the last vestige of our otherwise huge clan.
My father’s mother migrated to Manila from Batac, Ilocos Norte, in her teens to work as a server at a small neighborhood eatery in Manila. She was 18 when a Manileño convinced her to marry. Soon after my father was born, his father left to work overseas—an OFW long before the term was coined, and even longer than that misnomer “Bagong Bayani” was spun.
My grandfather was a welder who left for two years at a time to work in places like Guam, Saipan, Hawaii. Every time he came home from a contract, it was said, you could be sure that nine months later, my grandmother would give birth to a child (once, to twin girls!).
To help make ends meet, my grandmother would cook different dishes and sell them. She’d slow-cook beef for mechado or take care to shake (not stir) the clay pot to make authentic Ilocano pinakbet. My father’s favorite memory is coming home from school and enjoying a tall glass of her halo-halo.
Fiesta
Growing up, I remember that whenever my grandmother or grandfather or both were around, it felt like a big fiesta because relatives and friends would come to the house and, inevitably, we’d make trips to the beach or nearby Tagaytay. But her favorite outing was a trip to Antipolo, to pray at the church (now cathedral) and to meet with some relatives who had moved there.
Whenever distant relatives visited, I steeled myself for the inevitable sound of crying animals that they’d bring all the way from the Ilocos: live chickens, a pig, a goat. I remember the frantic clucking and chirping of chickens as someone (or several) chased them around the backyard. I didn’t like that sound, but I dreaded even more the silence that followed because I knew then that the chickens had been caught, their necks slit, the blood drained into an old plastic ice cream container. Also seared into my memory is the smell of burnt feathers.
I felt my hairs stand on end as men struggled to hold down a goat. I never forgot the first time, when I sat perched halfway up the staircase of our house, looking down at what they were doing—but mostly averting my eyes. I wished that the goat’s cries would stop, but I also knew it meant that the goat had been killed. I detested the smell of singed goat hairs: deep and seeping under my skin, making me feel uncomfortably warm and itchy.
Eventually my mother made sure I stayed in our bedroom with the door shut whenever there was butchering to be done. A few times after the ruckus someone would thrust goat’s horns in my direction—for what reason, I have no idea—but soon, my parents put an end to that, declaring that no one was going to put mutilated parts of any bloody animal near their daughter.
America
I first stepped on American soil in the 2000s—long after my grandparents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary there. Earlier, our family of four applied for US visas for the first time but were “denied,” so I pledged that I would never let myself be as vulnerable as that again—to lose hundreds of dollars in an instant at a consul’s whim.
Yet I relented because by the time I started graduate studies in Europe in 2011, my grandparents could no longer make their once-every-two-years trip home to the Philippines. Their many aches and pains kept them away—at least, physically—from us and the rest of their family. I was granted a US visa valid for 10 years by a consul in Bucharest who had just come from working in the US Embassy in Manila.
In that 10-year period, I went to the United States five or six times, and spent most of my month-long trips at my grandparents’ apartment in the Bay Area. The first time I spent Christmas with them was my first time to participate in a large holiday gathering where there was too much food and activities and many conversations all happening simultaneously—plus videoke. I also met most of my cousins in person for the very first time.
I heard my cousins recount their common experiences with our grandparents, particularly our Lola Aning. One cousin attributed becoming vegan to witnessing one too many times my grandmother butcher a chicken. They reminisced about special occasions when she painstakingly prepared Ilocano miki from scratch—they relished every spoonful. I was in my 40s the first time I ever tasted miki, when an aunt took me and a cousin to try it at a roadside stall in my grandmother’s hometown.
The best
After my grandfather passed away in 2013, only my grandmother and her caregiver lived in that apartment. My parents advised me to visit her more often and, since I also liked to cook, to learn from her as much as I could.
My father always said that his mother’s ube halaya was simply the best: a product of much time and effort, not only in preparing all the ingredients but, more so, slaving over a hot stove to get the consistency right. He described it as maligat–chewy, not hard, and not a thin paste.
Thankfully, in California, Asian stores and farmers’ markets that sell ube abound. Lola Aning would have none of that frozen stuff, so we had to find fresh root crops. She taught me how to determine when the yams were boiled perfectly, how to grate them using the mid-sized perforation size. In the process, I had to get rid of the parts that were too hard or imperfect—they were no good.
Then the hard part: the cooking. I had to get the heat going slowly, mix all the ingredients in the deep pan: some butter, evaporated milk, condensed milk, and grated ube. I had to stir slowly, barely stopping, to cook it evenly. I had to stir clockwise consistently, then observe as the clumpy mass transformed into a smoother mixture—but not stop! I had to continue stirring, until the mixture formed bubbles here then there.
At this point, it became more difficult to stir the heavy mass. But I had to continue stirring! As the resistance increased and brown parts formed, I learned to turn off the heat, and continue stirring a little more before removing the pan to cool. Nothing should stick to the pan! If I did it correctly, I’d be rewarded—when the mixture reached room temperature—with enough discernible bits of the yam and a chewy final product.
During our training sessions, my grandmother watched me carefully. She gave me instructions and I’d call her at certain points to check my progress. She’d get up from her cushioned chair, take her cane, and walk the five feet it took to get to the kitchen. She’d glance at the pan, then say if it needed more work or was approaching completion: “Kulang pa, matagal pa ‘yan” or “Sandali na lang, haluin mo nang mabuti.”
Lola Aning also taught me that, before transferring the ube halaya into clean glass jars, I should smear the inside of the jars generously with margarine to keep it from sticking. I also learned at what temperature it was cool enough to store. It is always more delicious when eaten cold, after a few hours in the refrigerator.
‘Sakto’
After a few years, because I’d make at least one batch every time I visited her, she judged my version as “perfect.”
Back home in Manila, I made the same and my father exclaimed that it was exactly how his mother had made it: “Sakto!” That was in August 2019.
Lola Aning passed away in December 2019, a few months before the entire world shut down because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Years later, being more health-conscious, I have adapted the recipe to use coconut-based ingredients, locally sourced and generally healthier: coconut oil, coconut sugar, and coconut milk. Of course, I do all the squeezing from freshly grated coconut. My grandmother would not have had it any other way.
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