PHL, continental dishes for 73rd birthday of Mama Sita’s Clarita Reyes-Lapus

A feast of Philippine and continental dishes for sauce tycoon Clarita Reyes-Lapus' 73rd birthday celebration on March 22 was successfully crafted by Chef Margarita Fores, who used spices and sauces from the celebrant’s 47-year-old condiment company.

“Chef Margarita Fores knew what I wanted when I asked for Philippine and continental dishes that would remind my family of the sumptuous diners hosted by our parents and grandparents,” said Reyes-Lapus, an architecture graduate from the University of the Philippines and now head of Marigold Manufacturing Corporation (MMC), which produces the 106 condiments that carry the brand name Mama Sita.

The feast was held at her home in Mandaluyong.

On the celebrant’s buffet table were dream dishes that pleased the eyes and lured relatives to discuss “food fusion and expressionism”: fried spring rolls; flakes of tinapa on crystal sotanghon; barquillo cylinders filled with chive mousse; crisp jamon Iberico from Madrid with chive sauce; pasta spaghettini with prawns and extra virgin olive oil.

The main course included chicken inasalito rubbed with Mama Sita’s achuete powder and served with choices of toyo and calamansi, and sinamak; slow roasted US beef belly with Mama Sita’s barbecue marinade sauce; au jus garlic caper berry with olive oil; heirloom brown rice with garlic; broccoli tops and squash flowers with Mama Sita’s ginisa mix; and salad with greens, cress, raw carrot and cucumber curls dressed with Mama Sita’s muscovado sugar cane syrup and thin shavings of Manchego cheese (from Spain).

Dessert was a classic tiramisu with chocolate shavings, but slightly sprinkled with Mama Sita’s sea salt which has “sweetish taste and, for me, safe for kidneys,” said Reyes-Lapus.

Fores was an ideal chef for a client whose family lives for food the way artists live for art. “I was inspired when I saw [her] combine Mama Sita’s guava jelly and mango jam with Manchego cheese during the Madrid Fusion Food Festival in Spain [in] February 2015,”  said Reyes-Lapus, recalling their first meeting.

The Reyes family members live long. Her mother Teresita, MMC’s founder, died at 81 in 1998; her agriculturist father Fidel Reyes died at 86 in 1997. Her eldest sibling is 77, the youngest is 56.

“Me and my 10 siblings always take turns hosting reunions every second, third, fourth and fifth Sundays of the month. We choose the Sunday that is closest to our birthdays,” Reyes-Lapus said. “We try to be healthy with good food even if we have a true ‘lamon gang’ in the family.”

Reyes-Lapus' family’s passion for food concoctions includes cashew wine—fermented from cashew apple and served during her wedding to Bartolome Lapus, a biologist, in 1968. He collected butterflies for laboratories, museums, and scientists, and eventually became MMC’s food chemist starting in 1973.

Worldwide promotion

Reyes-Lapus has been on the go abroad. In 2014, she went to Cambodia’s Siem Reap province to start the worldwide promotion of MMC’s Philippine rock salt, which she proudly describes as “hand-harvested and radioactive-free.” She has participated in almost all of the world’s big and small food fairs. She would take any opportunity to cook with MMC’s products—guided by Mama Sita’s cookbooks—at Oriental food trade events, Asian supermarkets, diplomatic events such as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders’ summit, and Philippine restaurants abroad.

“I gave Mama Sita’s cookbooks to Pinoy Taste of Asia in Prague, a store owned by chef Martin Nizaradze who is married to a Filipina. I had a cooking demonstration at Bistro 7102, a restaurant in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia that is co-owned by Manny Tagle, brother of Manila Archbishop Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle,” she said.

In 2013, she was part of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas’ cooking contest launched in nine privately-run primary and secondary Philippine schools in the Middle East and Shanghai. Winners competed for a final round at Enderun Cooking School in suburban Taguig Bonifacio Global City in 2014.

“The world is my kitchen. I have been to 65 of the world’s 196 countries pushing Philippine food cooked with MMC’s products,” she said.

Family tradition

Reyes-Lapus' grandparents, Engracia “Aling Asyang” and Justice Alex Reyes, established a snack mobile  they called Aristocrat in Manila’s Luneta and, later, on Roxas Boulevard in 1936. The 79-year-old landmark is now part of a legendary chain of restaurants that caters to lovers of Philippine food.

Her mother, Teresita, was one of the 12 children of the justice’s large family. “During a tour in the United States with my mother in 1972, she developed a passion to redeem the taste of Filipino food among Filipinos abroad. She saw them eating junk food,” recalled Reyes-Lapus. Several start-up companies were established until MMC was officially born in 1980.

The Reyes-Lapus couple established Mama Sita Foundation in 1999 and began planting agricultural products in a nursery in southern suburban Laguna. Now, fruits of their five plantations are sold to food manufacturers.

A partnership with Nissin Monte for local distribution also began in 2014. But the Reyes-Lapus family has remained at the center of “personal” export sale. And the next generation—the Reyes-Lapus children: daughter Joyce Sandoval, MMC’s product developer; son Kim, general manager; and son Mark, a geologist and food taster—are carrying on the family business. — BM, GMA News