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| I SAY BOBOTU, YOU SAY TAMALES... |
My earliest encounter with local kapangan was not with
the readily available puto (both lason and kutsinta), the common kalame and
suman, but with bobotu—the banana leaf-wrapped treat with a rather unusual
taste and an even stranger name.
It was always made at home during the yearly fiestas of my town, prepared by Ati Bo, my dad’s former nanny who came to live with us and her family for the rest of her life.
Exposed early to the making of the bobotu, I acquired a
taste for its delicate “malinamnam” mix of spicy-salty-peanutty flavors, so
different from other kapangans that were mostly sweet.
A week before the fiesta, Ati Bo would recruit extra help from Arayat, her original hometown. The women would efficiently turn the back of our home into a dirty kitchen, cleaning and bringing out implements like the kawa (vat), the stone gilingan in which to ground malagkit rice to a paste (galapong), and the coconut kudkuran.
My favorite part of the process takes place on the long bangku (benches) where the bobotu was “assembled” efficiently . One lays a line of cut, fire-softened banana leaves on the bench, while another plops a dollop of the cooked bobotu mix on the wrapper with a sandok.
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| Documenting bobotu makers with Bryan Koh, culinary writer |
The sheer number of ingredients explains the bobotu’s distinctive taste, making it more than just a kapangan to me. It can very well be an ulam (viand) or a meal in itself. But what about the name—Bobotu? When did people start calling it “tamales”?
For as long as I can remember in the early 1960s, we only called it “bobotu”—and by no other name. I started hearing the term “tamales” more frequently to our bobotu, from mostly Manila friends and outsiders. Maybe “tamales” sounds more “sosy” (classy) than bobotu, for those with more refined tastes. Even ambulant vendors have been hollering "Puto!! Tamales!" when they make the rounds of the nieghborhood. During a 2012 food research trip with Singaporean culinary writer Bryan Koh in San Fernando, Pampanga, kapangan makers there differentiated the tamales from a bobotu. Tamales, they say, is a more special version because it has more toppings!
I have also heard stories about it being a Mexican import, introduced here during the time of the galleon trade. Sure, our amigos introduced us to the avocado, the camachile, and the guava, but I still have yet to see references about “tamales” in the Philippines in written works or old documents. I have always thought that given the use of basic ingredients, and the fact that the Asiatic region has an ancient established culture of leaf-wrapped cooking, the “bobotu” of Pampanga must be known even before the Conquest.
I can only offer a few conjectures. Could it be that the Spaniards saw the banana-wrapped bobotu and noted some similarities with the corn husk-wrapped “tamales” of Mexico, their Nueva España of central America—and began calling them as tamales (of the East) , too?
Or just maybe, it was the Mexicans themselves who saw our “bobotu”, which triggered memories of their homemade “tamales”. Could there have been a case of reverse adaptation where the Mexicans made tamales here, substituting local ingredients, like our rice, for their corn? Did the Mexicans turn the bobotu into tamales? Or did the Filipinos turned the tamales into a new bobotu as a way of resisting what was alien to their palate?
Just a few years back, an origin story alleging how the delicacy came to be called “bobotu” circulated in the local culinary circle. In pre-women’s suffrage days (i.e. before 1937), it was said that women huddled together and voted to cook “bobotu”, while their menfolk were out casting their ballots in the town elections. The dish they cooked was reportedly, “bobotong asan”.
I heard this story few months after the folk song, “Eleksyon Ding Asan”, collected by Dr. Lino L. Dizon in San Fernando, saw print in a popular Singsing magazine. I am inclined to believe that the overly-imaginative storyteller learned of this song, borrowed the plot about fishes involved in the electoral process, to cook this yarn of a tale.
“Bobotu” sounds Malayo-Polynesian to me, so I proceeded to locate the word and its variations in Bahasa, Javanese, Malay dictionaries and on-line translators. This led me the Javanese word “botok / bothok”, defined as “a traditional dish made from grated coconut flesh, which has been squeezed of its coconut milk, often mixed with other ingredients such as vegetables or fish, and wrapped in banana leaf and steamed.” The key words: “coconut flesh”, “coconut milk”, “banana leaf”, “steamed”, leaped out from the page, as they are associated with preparing “bobotu”.
It goes on to describe its consistency ( “It has a soft texture like the mozzarella cheese and is usually colored white.”), cooking and serving suggestions (“To add flavor and nutrients… use additional ingredients as...tofu,..catfish,..salted fish..egg… salted egg…shrimp..minced beef”). Like in Pampanga where we have “bobotung asan”, Indonesia, too, has “bobotok lele” , steamed banana-wrapped catfish laced with spices, tomatoes, and peppers.
Botok was so popular among the Indonesians that it has become a generic term for any dish made by wrapping various ingredients in banana leaves, then steaming them.
Now the clincher: The plural form of “botok” is botok-botok, which, when contracted becomes another alternative name with a familiar ring-- “BOBOTOK”! Have we found bobotu’s nearest of kin?
Of course, there are telling differences too. “Bobotok” doesn’t make use of rice dough—it is in fact, served as a viand, to be eaten with rice. On the other hand, the Mexican tamale uses a masa of corn flour, while Pampanga’s uses rice flour. Tamales are filled with a mix of meats, beans and cheese, wrapped in corn husks, while bobotu is topped with achuete-based sauce, meat, eggs and nuts, wrapped in banana leaf. And, as mentioned earlier, they taste a world apart.
It is interesting to note that in South Africa, another dish inspired by “bobotok” is served in many homes where it is called “bobotie”. According to Jakarka Post writer Theodora Hurustiati, bobotie was “first introduced by Javanese slaves, brought to South Africa through Cape Town by the Dutch East India Company in the 1600s”. Apparently, a large number of workers from Southeast Asia were recruited who practiced their cooking traditions as one Malay-speaking community. Indeed, good food, like good news, travels.
I’ve always known bobotu as bobotu, so I will always call it bobotu, not tamales--never mind if the English bard maintains that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. Tamale never tasted anything like bobotu, anyway. Bobotu originated in this part of the world, with a name that is clearly Malayo-Polynesian, not Mesoamerican. The Spanish/Mexicans may have contributed the word tamales—their sole influence-- but not the origin of a kapangan we know ever since as bobotu. We could say merely that they built on the Philippines’ leaf-wrapped cooking tradition that is aligned with the well-entrenched Asian gastronomic culture.
Bobotie's Melting Pot, https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/11/10/bobotie-s-melting-pot.html
Thank for very informative (in many ways) article.
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