Kumaun kita! Chef Miggy Cabel Moreno and journalist Nelson Canlas reimagine the Tausug rice cake as a starry-eyed princess in a youngsters’s ebook that brings Mindanao to life.
MANILA, Philippines – When a princess places on her star-speckled purple cape and dives into the rivers of Sulu, she carries along with her not only a love for swimming but additionally the load of reminiscence and delusion.
That is the synopsis of Ang Kwento ni Putli Mandi, the brand new trilingual youngsters’s ebook co-written by chef Miggy Cabel Moreno and broadcast journalist Nelson Canlas, with illustrations by Marbin Macalino.
A extra mystical sequel to Moreno’s first autobiographical youngsters’s ebook Si Migoy, Ang Batang Tausug, the brand new ebook introduces Putli Mandi, a royal youngster named after the Tausug delicacy with a membership foot who learns to seek out pleasure within the forest and water alongside mythological buddies.
As soon as upon a snack
Like many alamat-esque youngsters’s books, its tales of (mis)journey belie its metanarrative as a dessert’s imagined origin story — one which transforms a beloved Tausug delicacy right into a heroine who is nice on the within and sticky as a result of she “values household.”
For Moreno, who grew up in Jolo, Sulu, the sticky rice cake with coconut coatings is inseparable from reminiscence.
“It was a part of my core reminiscence rising up as a child there, having fun with it for meryenda, as it’s being served at our ancestral room in Sulu,” he advised Rappler.
Turning the dessert into a personality was his means of honoring that inheritance and lengthening it to youngsters who could by no means set foot in Sulu however can nonetheless style its sweetness within the story.
Through the ebook launch at Gateway Mall 2 in Quezon Metropolis, Moreno cooked the delicacy for company, reworking rice flour, sugar, and coconut right into a concoction of tradition and reminiscence as youngsters from the Philippine Nationwide Clubfoot Program and a neighborhood faculty watched on with hearty appetites and awe.
The dish, acquainted to Tausug households, echoed within the textures of different Filipino desserts equivalent to palitaw, kutsinta, puto. On this sense, putli mandi does what the ebook itself makes an attempt: to focus on what’s distinctly Tausug whereas affirming the kinship of flavors and narratives throughout the archipelago.
From Sulu, for Sulu
Moreno’s culinary profession, given type, would tackle no different form however that of the Sulu islands. His work is scattered throughout distance but certain by reminiscence, every dish a forlorn however forward-facing response to the stretch between his hometown and the capital.
Because the chef behind Palm Grill in Quezon Metropolis, he has carried Tausug and Southern Mindanaoan delicacies into town’s eating rooms — to not erase the scars of battle however to remind diners {that a} area is before everything outlined by the lives, flavors, and tales that endure past it.
“Greater than that, it’s illustration for me. Rising up and seeing all of the unfavorable issues about Mindanao, it hits me exhausting. As a result of I would like folks to know that there’s loads of good issues,” he mentioned.
The identical precept guided the linguistics behind Ang Kwento ni Putli Mandi. Its pages are written in Tagalog, translated into English and, extra crucially, in Bahasa Sug, the language of the Tausug folks.
“It’s written in Tagalog to have fun Buwan ng Wika. It’s translated in English and, extra importantly, Bahasa Sug, as a result of we don’t need that to be forgotten,” Moreno defined. “It offers folks hope that regional id nonetheless exists. And there’s a possibility for us to shine a light-weight on that.”
On the launch, company from Muslim Mindanao highlighted what the ebook represents: a tangible cultural artifact to be handed on to youngsters.
As Alyssa Sahali Tan, a social entrepreneur from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Area in Muslim Mindanao, shared, “Ang kwento ng librong ito ay hindi kwento ni Putli Mandi; ito ang kwento ng lahat ng tao na tinatawag na tahanan ang Sulu.”
(The story advised by this ebook is not only the story of Putli Mandi; it’s the story of all individuals who name Sulu their house).
What the ebook makes an attempt is directly easy and reformative: to let youngsters encounter Sulu not as a headline however a house wealthy with flowing rivers, lush forests, ringing laughter, and households that love, fear, and feast, simply as most Filipinos do.
Within the folds of a cape and the feel of rice flour, Putli Mandi makes the case that tales transfer ahead the way in which recipes do — handed over, lived once more, and carried additional by the youngest and most imaginative amongst us.
Ang Kwento ni Putli Mandi might be accessible quickly by e-commerce platforms Shopee and Lazada. – Rappler.com
Angela Divina is a Rappler intern finding out Bachelor of High quality Arts in Inventive Writing at Ateneo de Manila College.
