By Tara Duggan – When Jun Belen was preparing to leave for graduate school at Stanford, he warned his mother not to expect him back home in Manila for at least two years. He planned to save his money. But it was hard adjusting to life in Palo Alto, and after a few frugal months he couldn’t face the thought of spending christmas flowers netherlands away from home.
“When you’re uprooted and don’t have family or friends, it’s so difficult. In November I called my mom and said, ‘I think I’m coming for Christmas,’ ” recalls Belen, who now lives in Oakland and blogs about Filipino food.
Besides missing friends and family, Belen was homesick for christmas flowers netherlands blogs traditions in the Philippines, which celebrates the holiday on an epic scale.
As a teen, he would meet friends for the 4 a.m. Masses called Misa de Gallo or simbang gabi, held for the nine days before Christmas. Afterward, they’d eat traditional rice cakes and hot ginger tea sold by vendors in the churchyard. On Christmas Eve, he would go to midnight Mass with his parents and five older sisters; that would be followed by dinner, a celebration called Noche Buena. Christmas Day was spent visiting extended family for more eating and gift giving.
Noche Buena
“The Americans have their Thanksgiving turkey, and the Filipinos have their Noche Buena,” says MC Canlas, cultural specialist and co-founder of the Bayanihan Community Center in San Francisco.
“Sometimes you are being judged for the food you provide. But Christmas is also a symbol of blessing and is about serving and sharing. That’s why food is so very important.”
The Bay Area’s Filipino community holds on to many Christmas traditions from the Philippines, where the population is more than 80 percent Catholic. Daily Misa de Gallo Masses at St. Patrick Church in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood are followed by Philippine foods served in the church basement. On Saturday night, the Bayanihan Community Center was scheduled to hold its annual parol parade, where community groups carry traditional star-shaped lanterns, called parols, that hang outside of Philippine homes during Christmas. And many Filipinos go to midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, though it’s sometimes held earlier here.
Party all night
“We get together at midnight on Dec. 24,” says Michelle Malang of Daly City. “We have the party until the early morning of the 25th. Usually on the 25th we’re sleeping.”
Christmas foods usually include ham, queso de bola – a round Edam cheese from the Netherlands – and pan de sal (bread rolls), but the menu can go on elaborately from there. Families often order lechon (roast suckling pig) from a restaurant to complement the spread of homemade dishes.
While many holiday foods are also a part of other celebrations, rice-based dishes are particular to Christmastime, a part of pre-Christian harvest celebrations. “The month of December in the Philippines is the harvest season for rice,” Canlas says.
Almost as important as the early morning Masses are the street foods that follow: bibingka, a rice and coconut cake topped with salted egg; and putobumbong, a sweet cake made with purple sticky rice.
“December and January are the coolest months in the Philippines, so you bundle up with your jacket and your sweater when you go to Mass. It’s always nice to have that cup of hot tea with your bibingka after,” says Belen, demonstrating how to prepare a home cook’s version of the cake in his Oakland kitchen.
He describes how bibingka vendors set up clay ovens with coals lit up inside.
“When someone orders bibingka, she lines a pan with the banana leaves, then pours the batter,” he says. The vendor covers the cake with another pan loaded with hot coals for a makeshift oven.
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