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- Title:
- Sweeteners, 1609-1616
- Description:
- In these bitter times, we all need some sweetness. So far we have enumerated since 1521 sugarcane chewed for its sweet juice, honeys and coconut syrup (miel de coco also called polot tuba). There are others for which there is written evidence. They were explained as the native “miel de caña,” sugarcane syrup the Spanish knew. But local versions were: polot panilan (honey from beehive); polot sasa (nipa); polot buli (buri). The latter two are palms like the coconut; the process of making honey from their sap is identical to that of polot tuba. Another important word in “sweet history” from the years being studied is BALÁS. In Pampangan, Cebuano and Tagalog it means crystallised syrup, granulated syrup. Syrups could have been from palms. The progression from syrup to solidified sugar and granules is easily imagined. In 1613 an active Tagalog word was PACASCAS. It was “curds like sugar sold in small baskets by Indios at the Parian [market] of Manila.” To a Spaniard “like sugar” probably meant like sugarcane granules. Pacascas is palm sugars. BAGKAT in Pampangan and Tagalog was likewise active: syrup cooked into a soft candy. When defining Philippine cuisine, precolonial sweeteners have an important role. Cooking with them today is one way of providing an antique, insular Southeast Asian, “native” flavour.
- Subjects:
- Honey Syrups
- Exhibition:
- Diego Bob 1616
- Source:
- Pakaskas. Detail of a photograph by Johann Espiritu in WRAP, STORE, PEDDLE THEM THE FILIPINO WAY by Marilen Nolasco-Espiritu (ArtPostAsia, 2008). Edited by Krip Yuson, it is an informative and lovely addition to one’s library.
- Type:
- Image;Still Image
- Format:
- image/jpeg
Source
- Preferred Citation:
- "Sweeteners, 1609-1616", Philippine Food History, Felice P. Sta. Maria
- Reference Link:
- felicepstamaria.net/items/coll089.html