Title:
YERBAS
Date Created:
2021-06-30
Description:
Also spelled hierbas, the term was applied to greens that were used as vegetables. In the 1700s Pampanga cooked the hierbas called CANCUNG (kangkong in Tagalog today) with venison to good results. It was also made into salad. The smooth vine trailed on mud or floated on stagnant pools. Also eaten was LIBATO (alugbati in Tagalog). Other herbs eaten were LUCAY (its flowers were called TUNAS, its roots TUCAL), SÁLAY and LUPA. Too much of the latter was injurious. Although this series is to help us get a sense of what Philippine cuisine was like in the second colonial century, 1665-1764, here are some wild Pampangan hierbas from 157 years later. In the 1700s as in earlier years not all ingredients needed to be cultivated in one’s garden. TUNGKUT-LAÑGIT (Helminthostachys zeylanica L.) was a wild fern. So was PAKÓ (Athyrium esculentum) widely distributed on gravel beds and banks of swift streams. Their young fronds were eaten raw as a salad, as well as cooked as a vegetable. PAPATANI was a vine growing wild in thickets. The seeds were said to be edible but possibly poisonous. Finding now rare heritage ingredients can offer “new” ingredients for contemporary cuisine.
Subjects:
Vegetables
Exhibition:
Pampaga 1732
Type:
Image;Still Image
Format:
image/jpeg
Source
Preferred Citation:
"YERBAS", Philippine Food History, Felice P. Sta. Maria
Reference Link:
felicepstamaria.net/items/coll232.html