Mamas biko and other kakanin

By Arvin Antonio V. Ortiz

Very few may have heard of St. Mary Parish Shrine in Davao City. Its
the church nearest to our house, but we seldom attend masses there. As
with other Philippine churches, however, St. Mary is not without its share of
vendors selling all sorts of goods outside it like balloon, toys, popcorn, icecream, lechon, mais, and kakanin. The kakanin vendors made up the bunch
of vendors outside the church.
My mother used to be one of those kakanin vendors. But she did not
start out as one. My two elder sisters were studying in college thenone was
taking up Social Work; the other, Education. We relied mainly from the
income generated by our PUJ that Papa drove himself. Payment for tuition
fee, daily expenses at home, our daily baon, upkeep for the jeepney, electric
and water bills, were seldom fulfilled by my parents combined income.
Mama always knew that Papas income was not enough. She had to
help my father augment our income lest my sisters had to stop going to
school, I could not proceed to college right after graduation, and my younger
brothers fate would remain uncertain.
But how? She had no College degree to speak of. She took up BS in
Biology in college, but she barely made it through first year. Neither did she
have the energy of the youth to take menial jobs. It seemed as if she had
nothing to show except for her desire to get us out of the pits.

But, in fact, she does have something to show: Her cooking prowess. It
was clear to her that the only way she could help Papa was by cooking and
selling food. And thats how Mama found herself selling kakanin outside St.
Marys church every Sunday.
Mama and her fellow church vendors sold pretty much the same
kakanin: sapin-sapin, suman, puto, kutsinta, etc. What made Mamas
kakanin unique, however, was the fact that she made the kakanin herself,
while her fellow vendors purchased theirs from Bankerohan Public Market.
Of her kakanin, its her biko that stood out. If one were to survey the
biko being sold there, none could rival Mamas biko, in form and in taste.
Theres no secret ingredient involved. The ingredients are substantially the
samemalagkit rice, sugar, coconut. Where most biko involved only two
stages of cooking, Mama had a third. And there lies the difference.
Since Mama did not only sell biko, preparations for her kakanin would
start on Saturday morning. I dont particularly remember anymore what was
cooked first, but I remember that the biko was the penultimate kakanin she
cooked, the ultimate being suman.
It all began with the pilit or malagkit ricethe sticky variety rice
which had to be cooked first, in a way that one cooks steamed rice.
Mama used to cook about one and a half kilo of malagkit. As for the
amount of water used to boil the malagkit, a measuring cup was of no use to
her. Her finger was more indispensable. Mama would measure the depth of
the water by dipping her middle finger inside the cooking vessel.

While the malagkit rice was being cooked, the gata was to be prepared
next. I hate this part right here because upon me fell the task of grating the
lubi (matured coconut). Papa usually cracked the coconuts into two. When I
learned to do the cracking myself, Papas role became mine as well. When I
said coconuts, Im talking about ten coconuts. So if halved into two that
means there are twenty coconuts to be grated.
Why dont you buy from the market? I once confronted Mama.
She would counsel against the use of grated coconuts from the market.
She said that in the market, they use a machine which makes the grating
faster. But it also makes the grated coconut hotter, and thus more
susceptible to spoilage.
Thats alright, Mama explained, if one would immediately use it. If,
however, it would be used much later, better have it the traditional way
using a kudkoran.
I disdained the use of kudkoran. Ive had many bouts with it. When I
was still learning to use it, I never made it until the end. Papa would rescue
me and finish the rest. I got better by the week, though. But sometimes sloth
kicked in. So to finish them as fast as I could, I would press hard the coconut
against the kudkoran, and pushed it down without taking the coconut off the
kudkoran. Mama used to scold me for doing that. If you do that, she would
say, its harder to extract gata out of the coconut.

However laborious it once was, today Im glad Ive mastered its use.
Not all men know how to use a kudkoran, perhaps not even those who sport
a six-pack abs and well-sculptured body.
Once the grated coconut was ready, Mama would add a cup or two of
hot water. The hot water, she said, would stimulate the coconut to produce
more juice. She further explained that the coconut has natural oil. Add cold
water and that oil would curdle. Thus, one wouldnt be able to extract much
gata from it. Then Mama would squeeze the grated coconut by her hands to
extract the gata. The first extract was the kakang gatathick and rich
coconut cream. She would repeat the process. The second extract was much
thinner coconut milk. Mama would combine both the coconut cream and
coconut milk.
By this time, the malagkit rice was cooked. A kalaha, a large steel wok,
is heated over a high fire powered by firewood. Mama would pour the gata
into the wok and slowly add sugar. The mixture had to be stirred every now
and then to keep it from curdling. Once the mixture thickened, Mama would
scoop out some of it for the toppings later. After which the cooked malagkit
was put into the mixture, ladle by ladle. With a wooden ladle on each hand,
Mama would mix them together until the malagkit turned brown, which
meant it blended well with the sweetened gata. The mixing would continue
for several minutes to keep the biko from sticking into the wok.
A tray made out of an iron sheet was already set up. The interior base
was covered with banana leaves. The banana leaves underwent a process

called lahob, the burning of the leaves over a fire made out of the bananas
dried pulp. This was to make the leaves pliable.
When the biko was cooked, Mama would ask Papa to get the wok and
suspend it slightly above the tray so that Mama could scrape off the biko into
the tray. Mama would even the biko in the tray using a banana leaf.
The latik Mama set aside earlier would be poured into the surface of
the biko. Almost all who cook biko stop right here. Mama had one more thing
to do before her biko would be sliced and sold. She would transform that
latik into a hard, mildly burned, bittersweet crust. Its a technique she
learned from her mother. Among the siblings, Mama conceded, Auntie Inday,
her older sister, does it better than she. Her customers found it mysterious
how Mama could make such a biko. Did she use a torch? Did she place it in
the oven very much like how a baked spaghetti or lasagna is made?
There was, of course, no mystery to it. On top of a rectangular iron,
Mama would place burned bunot (the coconut covering). When the bunot
was really hot, Mama would lift the iron sheet using two long sticks made of
coconut stalks or bamboo, and then placed it on top of the biko tray. Since
she couldnt see whats happening inside, Mama would frequently lift the
cover and check if the latik was already cooking. Normally, the center got
cooked first and the sides were cooked the least. And so Mama would adjust
the heat, shoving the bunot on the side. An indication that its time to
remove the cover is when the latik on top of the biko turns like a dukot
scorched steamed rice found at the bottom of the kaldero.

The biko was neither removed right away from the tray nor sliced.
Mama would allow it to cool in a room temperature. Otherwise, the biko
would be ruined when sliced while still hot. When the biko was no longer hot,
Mama would cover the knife with a cling wrap. So when she sliced the biko
into small rectangular pieces, the biko wouldnt stick to the knife.
We usually finished cooking and preparing the kakanin past Saturday
midnight. We would only sleep for about three hours and wake up before the
5:30 AM mass, the first scheduled mass. We had this routine for about three
years until both of my sisters graduated from college.
If it were not for the lowly kakanin Mama used to sell, we wouldnt
have finished college. We wouldnt have known the true meaning of hard
work, sacrifice, and love.