451. ACHARA ART: Relishing our Artistic Pickling Tradition

Picked Me Pink: ATSARA, pickled vegetables, presented artfully.

The Philippines share many food preserving traditions with its Asian neighbors, the most popular being pickling fruits and vegetables. Our term for such preserved condiment is “atsara / achara”, from the Indian “achaar”, a generic term for anything pickled. India’s stamp on our regional cuisine is evident as well in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Brunei, where the condiment is called “acar” or “atjar”.

Just about any fruit or vegetable can be pickled, depending on the country’s produce. Indian prefer green mangoes, lemons, carrot, chickpeas. Pickling, like its allied processes like fermenting, preserving by sugar, and drying is a way of extending the shelf life of food, and ensures availability of out-of-season fruits, vegetables and other produce.

ACHARA Atbp, from "Filipino Heritage:The Making of a Nation" 

Papaya is the most common choice in Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines. The pickling medium also varies—Japanese and Korean kitchens use salt, rice bran, miso (fermented bean paste), and mustard, while Indian cooks use mustard or sesame oil.  

Our local achara, made from green papaya laced with carrots, pepper, onion and optional raisins, is sweet and tangy. Its table uses also vary—as a side dish, dipping sauce, flavor breaker from the sameness of food, or relish to accompany longganisas and fish. I know at least one person who eats atsara as salad!

 MARMALADAS y CONSERVAS:  Orange, Pineapple, Kundol, Papaya

But it is in the manner of presentation that the Philippine achara is truly distinctive.While the pickling process is relatively simple--- upon boiling the fruit ‘n  vegetable mix, the pickling syrup takes over—and in a week’s time or longer, the atsara is ready to eat. It is the preliminary preparation of ingredients, however, where the creativity of local cooks found full expression. Grating the papaya is easy enough, but artistic cutting of the other achara ingredients requires a higher level of skill and attention.

Before placing in bottles for pickling, the vegetable and fruit pieces were delicately cut and carved with intricate designs—carrots were fancifully shaped into flowers, cucumbers became foliage or rosettes, and melons scooped into balls.

FRUITY FRETWORK, Sunday Time Magazine, 1966

This vegetable and fruit carving tradition harkens back to the ancient ages in Japan, where it began and known as “mukimono”,  then spread to the Malay region where the practice was adapted in local kitchens. The art thrived in some countries like Cambodia and Thailand especially, but not in the Philippines where, even before World War II, papaya carving was already a dying art.

Food technologist (and later, war heroine)  Maria Orosa, of The Bureau of Plant Industry, sought to revive the art by gathering trainees to learn the skill. Most of the talents came from Bulacan. One, Mrs. Luisa A. Arguelles of Meycauayan was a master carver of not just papayas, but kundol, candied orange and camote. She carved silhouettes of people’s profiles, various font styles, and figurals from peels and flat fruit pieces. Another, Mrs. Presentacion de Leon used locally-invented carving tools to make elaborate fruit and vegetable pieces that were shaped like balls, curls and petals.

ROSES AND THORNS, Vegetable Carving, STM 1966

Once the boiled in the pickling solution, the mixed fruit-vegetable achara is placed in wide-mouthed jars and the carved vegetable pieces are arranged and coaxed into positions to form  pleasant scenes and words (e.g. “recuerdo”, “ala-ala”, “amistad”). The bottles or jars are then sealed and let to stand on display on the aparador platera for all to see. The merits of these bottled achara lie not only in the decorative folk artistry but also in the rich flavor of its varied contents.

Aside from the papaya-based achara,  green mangos, kamias, radishes, and santols were also pickled in brine water. Filipino homemakers—from big cities to rural barrios—learned the art of pickling and preserving early—informally or home economics classes. Proof of their kitchen wizardry was when a group of Filipinos, mostly from Pampanga, won merit awards at culinary contest held at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.

FRUIT AND VEGETABLE CARVING TOOLS, Sunday Times Magazine, 1966

Among those recognized was Atanacio Rivera de Morales (buri palm preserves ); Isabel Mercado (preserved limoncito); Irene Canlas (preserved melon); Maria Guadalupe Castro (santol jelly); Rafaela Ramos Angeles (santol preserves) and Justa de Castro (kamias fruit preserve).

Imported pickled cucumbers in bottles were available in the Philippines in the 1930s under the Del Monte (Achara de Pepinillos) and Achara Libby’s brand. Local attempts to commercialize production of similar products began when American Mrs. Gertrude Stewart arrived in the Philippines in 1928. Living here, she was disappointed to find recipes in magazines calling for ingredients not found in the country so she created new recipes integrating local produce.

From vegetables and fruits--to blooms, petals,  and flowers!!

In 1959, Mrs. Stewart was contracted by Estraco Inc, a distributing company, to supply pickles, fruit preserves and marmalade products for their new food division. Thus Mrs. Gertrude Stewart Homestyle Foods was born. Her greatest contribution to the food industry is the utilization of native Philippine fruits like the duhat, bignay and sayote that she used to create mock maraschino cherries.

CUT ABOVE THE REST. An expert fruit and vegetable carver

Today, the bottled achara has become a familiar offering in pasalubong stores, food stalls and even big groceries and supermarkets, supplied by small to medium sized home industries. Packaged in bottles labeled with catchy brand names, the commercial atsara may still hold the same taste appeal, but for sheer visual attraction, nothing can match the presentation of atsaras of yesteryears.

Though some might dismiss this pleasing bottled arrangement as purely culinary, the art of fruit and vegetable carving/cutting is part of our cultural heritage, a charming form of folk art where food becomes the art itself.

For to fashion a santol into a multi-petalled dahlia flower, to create stars out of carrots, green papaya into curlicued leaves, mangos into palm fronds, to carve sentiments of love and names of beloved on a pomelo, constitutes a skill worthy of an artistic genius.

SOURCES:

All About Achaar, the Indian Pickle: Recipe and Tips, Written by MasterClass

The Folk Art Issue, The Sunday Times Magazine, May 1963

The Food Issue, The Sunday Times Magazine, 1966

“Let’s Preserve our Preserves”, The Sunday Time Magazine, 12 March 1961 issue, p. 32

“Conservas”, The Tribune, 25 Nov. 1933, Rotogravure Section, p. 3.

Homefront section, The Tribune, 10 Dec. 1943, p. 27

 

*316. Gotta Travel On: MACARTHUR HIGHWAY

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD. The main road in Dau, circa 1915. By the the Commonwealth years, the Americans had built 220 kms. of concrete roads in Pampanga, ending in Dau., to accommodate Pampanga's motor vehicles, which ranked 5th in number, nationwide.

In the early ‘60s, before NLEX and SCTEX, the only way to travel to Manila from Pampanga was by the old Manila North Road—or MacArthur Highway, as it was more popularly known to motorists. Named after Lieutenant General Arthur MacArthur, Jr, the military Governor-General of the American-occupied Philippines from 1900 to 1901, the long highway stretched from La Union, to the provinces of Central Luzon (Pangasinan, Tarlac, Pampanga, Bulacan) and finally to the city of Manila. Under the American Regime, road-building was at its most brisk, and by 1933, Pampanga had over 220.1 kms. of 1st class roads, ending north in Dau.

As a child, I remember some of those trips so vividly well as they were moments to look forward to. After all, it was not very often that kids like us were taken out for long rides to the big city. So, every time our parents announced that we would be going to Manila, we knew the occasion would be something special—a family reunion, a fiesta in Blumentritt or perhaps, a visit to our cousins in Herran (now Pedro Gil St).

Our trips were always scheduled on weekends, and as early as Friday morning, our parents would already be preparing for the trip. Dad would be checking on and tuning up the Oldsmobile, while Ma would be looking for tin cans that would serve as our emergency “orinola” (urinal) or vomit bag, in case of motion sickness or incontinence. We always left in the early dawn, with most of us still drowsy and asleep--no later than 5 a.m. , as mandated by my ever-punctual Dad. With water bottles and half-a-dozen or so hardboiled eggs, we thus began our 99 km. journey to the capital city.

From our house in Sta. Ines, Mabalacat, my Dad would drive out onto the main highway, towards Dau and Angeles. Past those familiar places, we proceeded to the capital town, San Fernando, with Manila still 57 kms. away. We would just coast along till San Vicente in Apalit, the highway a bit dusty and bumpy at this point. Upon hitting the rickety bridge of Calumpit, I knew we were no longer in Pampanga—we were in the Tagalog province of Bulacan, home of my favourite ensaimada de Malolos. I knew, because we would always stopped in the capital town to buy these pastries, cheese-topped and overloaded with red eggs.

From Malolos, it was off to Guiguinto, a town with an intriguing name for a 6 year old—I had often envisioned it either overrun with salaginto beetles or sparkling with golden lights. I remember the tall electric posts that lined the highway as we approached Bigaa, Tabang, then Bocaue. I once overheared adults talking about the “kabarets”of Bocaue in hushed whispers, but I've never seen girls dancing on the highway! Fixing my gaze on the world outside through the car window, i would see early risers buying bread from bakeries, Mobilgas stations and their lighted signs wishing travellers “Pleasant motoring!, Baliuag buses picking up passengers, ricefields that stretched as far as the eyes can see.

I would already be impatient and bored at this time, even as the features of the bucolic towns of Marilao and Meycauayan (where are the bamboo trees?) loomed clearer with the rising sun. But all this fretting would stop as soon as we got a glimpse of this tall obelisk in the distance—the Monumento—a landmark that told me that, at last, we were in Manila. If we were going to Sta. Cruz, we would veer towards the Monumento, gawking at the sculpted images of the revolucionarios and the doomed Gomburza padres as we made a half-loop towards Manila proper. After some two hours of driving, we did it--the “promdis” have finally arrived!

*257. FELIPE SALVADOR: A Rebel Messiah Comes to Pampanga

SALVADOR DEL MUNDO. Felipe Salvador, "Apo Ipe", the Supremo of Santa Iglesia, a religious/revolutionary cult group which had its base at the foothills of Mt. Arayat and which wielded influence over the Central Luzon area. From El Renacimiento Filipino.

During the years of the Philippine Revolution, a man who spent much of his time communing with God in the slopes of mystical Mount Arayat, organized a controversial religious movement that led armed campaigns against Spaniards and the succeeding colonial masters, the Americans, but remained alienated from the Katipunan. Dismissed as a dangerous ‘bandolero’ by Americans, Felipe Salvador, founder of the cult group Sta. Iglesia, would eventually be executed for his perpetrations in Pampanga, Bulacan, Nujeva Ecija and Tarlac.

Felipe Salvador (“Apo Ipe”) was born on 26 May 1870 in Baliwag, Bulacan, the child of a well-off family. His father, Prudencio had been an official in the Spanish government. The Salvadors had many relatives in nearby Pampanga province and it is even possible that Felipe was born there as his name is not recorded in the canonical books of Baliwag.

Even as a profoundly religious young man, he had a rebellious streak, defying the parish priest by dissuading a group of vendors from paying dues to the Church. Felipe soon became the head of a cofradia (confraternity) called “Gabinistas”, originally founded by Gabino Cortes of Apalit. Cortes was said to possess supernatural powers, conjuring food, money and male guards to appear using a magic ball. Gabinista members were mostly Kapampangans from Apalit, San Luis, San Simon, Santa Ana, Candaba, Macabebe and Santo Tomas.

Upon reorganizing the cofradia and renaming it as Sta. Iglesia in 1894, the self-proclaimed Pope joined the armed struggle by raiding garrisons and joining skirmishes against Spain. In one battle in San Luis, Salvador was wounded and fled to Biak-na-Bato where he consolidated his forces with Aguinaldo’s.

Social squabbles between the two factions, however, caused Salvador’s fall from grace. Elitist Kapampangan officers, for instance, did not want an outsider like him to command Kapampangan forces. Gen. Maximino Hizon even ordered the execution of 5 Sta. Iglesia members without proper trial. Two of Salvador’s soldiers also suffered by being falsely accused of committing ‘abuses’; they were later found shot and floating in the river. Meanwhile, in Floridablanca, Sta. Iglesia members were harassed by being forcibly ejected from their lands.

Despite these setbacks, Salvador continued his warfare, this time, against the Americans from his command post at Barrio Kamias. Refusing calls to surrender, he was captured in 1900 and dumped in prison. But after swearing allegiance to the United States, Salvador rejoined the resistance and was branded as an outlaw. Captured in Nueva Ecija by the police in 1902, he was charged with sedition. But while being transferred to the Bilibid Prison in Manila, Salvador eluded his guards and escaped to Mount Arayat.

There, Salvador revitalized his ‘diocese’ and found wide sympathy from the central Luzon peasantry. He became a sort of a demigod, subsisting on his brotherly relationships with certain people he met on his journey, like Vicente Francia, Epifanio de la Cruz, a certain Juan and Damaso. They not only helped him find sustenance, but also provided security as he worked his way around the area. Ipe was warmly welcomed by people in the community who offered generous gifts, and he used these opportunities to recruit members and generate funds.

His modus operandi was simple: he would enter a town with some 20 chosen disciples, plant a cross and exhort people to donate money and join his brotherhood while projecting an image that is at once poor, pitiful and prayerful. As membership grew, so did the number of fanatical attacks launched against the American-run government—with the biggest ones waged in Malolos, San Rafael and Hagonoy in the summer of 1906, led by Capitan Tui.

On 17 April 1910, Salvador did the unthinkable—he and his group of about 20 “Salvadoristas” strode to the center of Arayat town to purchase supplies and provisions, knowing full well that they were under tight surveillance. Yet, the police officials and the rest of the populace were too stunned to do anything—with some even spontaneously giving their donations. To cap their visit, Salvador and his group knelt in prayer in front of the church, leaving the residents in complete awe.

Shortly after this remarkable event, he was captured just as he prophesied on 24 July 1910—a Sunday. An informer, Eusebio Clarin, motivated by the 5,000 peso reward on the Supremo’s head, led policemen to his lair in Barrio Kamias of San Luis, as he was in prayer with his family members. He was convicted and sentenced to die by hanging on 15 April 1912. Still, his faithful followers were confident that he would work a miracle and escape once more. But this was not to be. Salvador faced death calmly , “in high spirits , without a frown on his forehead”, as Taliba reported.

Even in death, his devotees believed he would rise again—after all, he seemed like “he was only asleep, happy, his complexion not darkening as is usually expected of him who has died of unnatural causes”. But his passion has clearly –and finally ended. Apo Ipe—sinner or saint, villain or hero, fanatic or patriot--was laid to rest the next day at the cemetery at Paang Bundok.