For these cookbook authors, recipes are meant to be passed on

Almost every woman has that special dish only she can cook well, one that stirs the cravings of family and friends. For me, it’s my lola’s tender chicken adobo that somehow no one can rival, not even me. My sister has a much requested chicken macaroni salad with cheese, while my aunt makes flawless maja blanca, a staple in potluck family reunions. Another aunt, now deceased, is best remembered for her morcon and the way she would cook a leg of Chinese ham—even using a flat iron to seal in the brown sugar. And then there’s my mom’s mechado, made with big slices of potatoes and oozing with rich sauce; my brother, who works thousands of miles away, still dreams about this dish.   Nancy Reyes-Lumen, Marilou Garcia-Morera, Pacita “Chit” Juan, Ma. Regina “Reena” Francisco, and Atel Jazmines have their own special dishes as well. But instead of keeping these to themselves (to make people hunger for more), they have chosen to be selfless and share the recipes they have discovered, tried, and served to loved ones and friends all these years.

“Many recipes have become sayang. We should not bury them just like what some lolas did—and then they died,” Reyes-Lumen says. “The digital generation ought to know what we ate and what we cooked,” asserts the Unang Hirit segment host and editor of the cookbooks “The Malunggay Book” and “Make Good Money with Malunggay.”   Francisco, who came up with the recipes for “The Barista Manual” that she co-authored with Juan, says she wrote down the recipes so these can be replicated step by step. “There’s no book on coffee that’s locally available. So we made one,” adds  Juan. The book gives details on how to put up a coffee shop—which ties in with their advocacy to promote local coffee. For Garcia-Morera, it was her husband Pablo – who’s Spanish – who encouraged her to start writing down her recipes.   “I love to cook. My home is like the dining room of my children’s friends. Ako ang halfway house. I prefer cooking than eating out. And I would always be asked for my recipes,” she says. Thus, it was just logical to put them together in a book she titled “Easy Spanish Cooking: Using the Right Ingredients.”   But for Jazmines, the motivation was something closer to home.   “My daddy is diabetic and hypertensive. We thought about it—how do we make healthy food that doesn’t taste like hospital food? And so in the book (“Cooking for Health” which she co-authored with Cris C. Abiva and Luz S. Callanta), we have kare-kare which you can adjust for someone requiring a low-salt diet—just reduce the salt and add more herbs,” she explains.   Talking food   But there’s more – having these women together one afternoon to talk about food and the making of food was an enriching experience. In between bites of freshly baked empanada and fluffy mamon, they shared their thoughts and secrets, from the number of cookbooks they have to their opinions on the future of hard copy cookbooks.   Q: Is it true that cookbooks are always best-sellers? Juan: Pardon the pun, but yes, they are the bread and butter of publishing houses. Gwenn Galvez, marketing director of Anvil Publishing Inc: They have steady sales, steady usage. Juan: People don’t think twice about buying cookbooks. It makes for a nice gift. It’s timeless and you can never go wrong with giving one. Galvez: Now you can even give cookbooks to men; it’s not a gender thing. Garcia-Morera: I think every woman has a few cookbooks. Women collect these. Juan: How many cookbooks do you have, Reena? Francisco: I have three shelves. Maybe 300 cookbooks. Garcia-Morera: I have 50 cookbooks. Reyes-Lumen: Me, I just counted. I have more than 850. Jazmines: I have around 300. Reyes-Lumen: I have a lot because every September I would have a book holiday with my son. We would save P1,000 a month. So by the time it’s September, we have P12,000. It’s like Christmas in September.   Q: Majority of cookbooks are written by women, right? Why is this so? Galvez: Yes, I think it’s because of the attention to detail. It’s in the nature of women to be systematic. We have men chefs who make books but they leave out details. Juan: There’s this book that says men can read maps, women can ... I forgot. [“Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps”—ed.] Basta it’s a different part of the brain that functions when you read maps. And men can do only one thing at a time. Garcia-Morera: They can’t multitask. Juan: That’s why cookbook editors are most likely women. Kasi bubusisiin talaga. They’ll put your recipes under scrutiny. Galvez: But have you noticed that most chefs in the kitchen are male? Reyes-Lumen: The physical rigors of the professional kitchen mas kaya ng lalake. But at home it’s the women who are cooking. Juan: When women are in the childbearing stage, they choose jobs that are part-time. It’s a matriarchal society. The woman will not eat as long as her children have not eaten.   Q: So have you always loved cooking even when you were small? Jazmines: We were cooking since we were young. My mom didn’t know how to cook so she enrolled us in cooking school. Francisco: Sa amin, bawal ang bored sa kitchen. I had no choice but cook. My mom and lola cooked well. But I love to eat, I love to cook. I got hasa with flavors. Garcia-Morera: My mother was not really a cook. Friends would come over and kami na bahala. My sister and I would make our own pizza. Reyes-Lumen: Every summer we had to wear a hairnet (in the kitchen). My cousins and I could not go to Baguio until we learned how to clean the balun-balonan, kill a hito, clean the atay. My lola [the famous Aling Asiang, a culinary icon] who is from Navotas taught us how to know really good suka and patis. We took it for granted until much later. My mom, on the other hand, is partly Bulakeña, part Kapampangan. She knew how to cook. During the war, you had no choice but to cook what you can. Juan: I’m not a cook. I’m an eater.   Q: Given the Internet age when people can just download recipes online, do you see a future for print cookbooks? Reyes-Lumen: So you don’t feel guilty anymore that you don’t cook. People buy for the vicarious experience. It’s food porn. Francisco: Will it die? I don’t think so. I use the Internet too to look up recipes and read the feedback posted by readers. Juan: I like reading travel cookbooks. It’s my bedside reading. I read about Hanoi and there’s this restaurant and recipe mentioned. You can recreate it. Parang matitikman mo ito. And pagtanda ng readers, bibili rin ‘yan ng cookbook. Garcia-Morera: Even if you download recipes, you cannot pass it on. Galvez: It’s like an heirloom. Francisco: Many Filipinos who leave the country permanently bring with them cookbooks like “Recipes of the Philippines” and “Let’s Cook with Nora” by Nora Daza. Galvez: Every bride has to have a cookbook. – YA/ELR, GMA News