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

 

*433. TABLEWARE TALK

DINNER IS SERVED, Students of Domestic Arts practice the art of setting a table using china plates, glassware, cutlery and table napkins. Our pre-colonial ancestors had their own ideas of fine dining on their low, wooden table called 'dulang', filling it up with jars, plates, jugs and pots, of all sorts. ca. 1920s.

When the Spanish missionaries came to our islands in the 16th century, they found a low wooden table in practically every native home called “dulang”. It served primarily as a dining table, around which people sat to partake of the food, eaten with bare hands. Tableware was limited to a few wooden spoons, ladles, food and liquid containers. But contact and trading with Asian traders afforded natives to have quite a wide assortment of jugs and jars, plates and pans, bowls and storage containers for both “dulang” and dwelling.

 Old Pampanga homes may still have, in their kitchens, earthenware containers used for cooking or storage. Balanga was a traditional clay pot used for cooking everyday viands, while a curan—that featured a narrower mouth-- was used for cooking rice.

Storage jars of varying sizes include the gusi, a china jar that can contain anywhere from 6 to 8 gantas (1 ganta is a local unit of measure equivalent to ¼ of a cavan); next to it is the guguling, a medium size jar. Another medium size jar for holding water is the marapatayan, which is smaller than a tapayan, that can hold some 11 gallons of liquid. A large China-made jar was called tui-tui, while a lupay was the name for a small, multi-purpose earthenware jar.

 To deter ants from infesting food, the leftover ulam are kept in bowls, then placed on a shallow, water-filled vessels called lampacan. This serves as a sort of a moat, so the ants would not be able to reach the food. When storage cabinets came into use, its four legs were made to stand on lampacans, to provide the same protection.

 Kapampangans ate with gusto using their hands, as ‘cubiertos’ were still many years away from being introduced. Rice was placed on banana leaves spread on the dulang, but plates were also known from trading with the Chinese, Annamese and the Siamese who brought all kinds of pinggan (plates). A large plate was called tapac, and a porcelain plate for mustard was called suic.

 Bowls were perhaps the most common tableware found on the native table. The smallest bowl is called sulyao (sulyo, or silyo), which is perfect for a single-serving of soup. Mangcoc is bigger than a sulyao, same with another larger bowl called lampay (or lampe). A banga is a large, narrow-mouthed pitcher, while a siolan is a small flask. A tampayac is a cruet, that was used for both condiments and for ointments. People drank water from coconut half-shells, or used a communal long-handled dipper to scoop out water from a water-filled jar.

 The Spaniards, and later, the Americans are credited for upgrading our table (and table manners, by Western standards) by introducing fork and spoons, complete silver cutlery, demitasse cups, silver table adornments like toothpick holders, lace napkins, and a bewildering array of plates, saucers, cups and glassware. The legendary reception given by the Apalit Arnedos to the Grand Duke of Russia in 1891—marked with the ostentatious display of fine china, silver and table accoutrements—was a testament as to how refined, how sophisticated we had become.

 But truth be told, it takes very little to please a Kapampangan on the dinner table—remove the silver forks and spoons, take away the fancy bone china, give him a plate of sizzling sisig and unli rice---and he will roll up his sleeves and feast away with his hands, like there’s no tomorrow. As one Kapampangan with a hearty appetite declared—“Asbuk mu at gamat ing kailangan! Mangan tana!” (You need only your mouth and hands. Let's eat!)