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- Title:
- ALLIUM
- Date Created:
- 2021-07-03
- Description:
- The arrival of chile added piquancy to the Philippine diet. What indigenized according to Manuel Blanco, OSA by the 1800s was Capsicum minimum with a tiny fruit. It was known as Pasitis in his time and grew everywhere, even uncultivated. Except in Pampanga, its old name LARA had been forgotten. In the 1700s lara indeed was in use. MANLARA was to add lara as an ingredient in Pampangan food to make it hot and pungent according to the Bergano dictionary. It seems not everyone liked pungency because PANLARAN was putting chili into someone’s food, knowing he would not eat it. In pre-lara times, the prick in Pampangan cuisine came from LAYA (Amomum zingiber), ginger. The root must have figured in abundance because MALAYA meant an abundance of ginger. In the Visayas of 1521, raw ginger was served separately to accompany roasted fish. BAUANG was the Pampanga term for garlic (Allium sativum) that if eaten raw gave piquancy too. In Cebu of 1521 LAXUNA (pronounced lah-su-nah) meant garlic. LASONA was the term for “cebolla,” onion in Pampanga during the 1700s. But was lasona then the Allium cepa, shallot also called little onion? LASUNA in Ilocos and Pangasinan still means shallot. The Spanish onion that is large, yellowish and considered sweet is also an Allium; so is the Mexican bulb onion which is white that is not sweet. During a trip to Jakarta in the mid-1980s, bawang had become the term for related herbs, all of the Allium genus: daun bawang lalap (small, bulbous spring onions eaten raw); bawang putih (garlic, already sold then as loose cloves or full bulbs); bawang merah (shallots that were deep red to purple, flavourful and used sliced or pounded; deep fried slices were a garnish). In Manila of the 1950s and 1960s the big bulb onion was called SIBUYAS BOMBAY. In Jakarta it was sold as bawang Bombay, the onion for European-influenced Indonesian dishes. Indeed it seems that early Pampanga cooking likely used shallots and not the European bulb onion. For heritage cooks, which Allium to use for a dish is a serious choice.
- Subjects:
- Manuel Blanco Bawang Onion
- Exhibition:
- Pampaga 1732
- Source:
- Shallot. Dreamtime.com Public Domain
- Type:
- Image;Still Image
- Format:
- image/jpeg
Source
- Preferred Citation:
- "ALLIUM", Philippine Food History, Felice P. Sta. Maria
- Reference Link:
- felicepstamaria.net/items/coll233.html
Rights
- Rights:
- public domain