![[Time Trowel] The world on the Media Noche desk](https://www.rappler.com/tachyon/2025/12/The-World-on-the-Media-Noche-Table.jpg "[Time Trowel] The world on the Media Noche desk")
A trowel (/ˈtraʊ.əl/), within the palms of an archaeologist, is sort of a trusty sidekick — a tiny, but mighty, instrument that uncovers historic secrets and techniques, one well-placed scoop at a time. It’s the Sherlock Holmes of the excavation web site, revealing clues concerning the previous with each delicate swipe.
Throughout Media Noche, we collect round a desk meant to usher within the New 12 months. We lay out noodles for lengthy life, rice desserts, kakanin, and 12 or 13 spherical fruits for prosperity. We move these round with out considering past style and household custom. However each merchandise on that desk holds a timeline that reaches far past our personal reminiscences. Lengthy earlier than this stuff turned vacation staples, the vegetation in them have been wild species that individuals realized to form by commentary, choice, and steady replanting.
The apply of Media Noche itself got here to the Philippines by Spanish colonial rule. The phrase means “midnight,” referring to the meal eaten after the ringing in of the New 12 months. This practice grew out of Catholic and Iberian traditions that emphasised household gatherings, thanksgiving, and shared meals. It merged simply with native celebrations and shortly turned a well-recognized a part of Filipino life.
Nonetheless, one other component on the New 12 months desk comes from a special supply — the spherical fruits didn’t originate from Spanish customs. This a part of the celebration attracts from Chinese language traditions delivered to the Philippines by centuries of commerce and migration. In Chinese language perception programs, spherical shapes sign continuity, whereas fruits corresponding to oranges and pomelos are linked with abundance. Filipino households absorbed this apply and tailored it in accordance with what markets provided, giving us a New 12 months ritual formed by a number of historic streams. These layered influences don’t cease at customized and symbolism. They lengthen to the vegetation themselves, whose histories replicate lengthy processes of motion and choice.
Earlier than agriculture may exist, folks needed to cultivate vegetation. Between 10,000 and 6,000 years in the past, communities all over the world shifted from gathering wild vegetation to intentionally rising them. This transformation unfolded progressively quite than abruptly. Folks realized how soil, water, local weather, and timing affected plant development. They noticed which vegetation produced constant yields and saved seeds from these. Agriculture developed by collected selections grounded in repeated apply. Rice supplies a helpful place to start out.
Rice is commonly handled because the centerpiece of Filipino id, which makes its historical past particularly related. Domesticated rice started alongside the Yangtze River in China round 9,000 to eight,000 years in the past. One other domestication occasion passed off alongside the Niger River in West Africa round 3,500 to three,000 years in the past (Oryza glaberrima). There are additionally wild varieties and kin of rice, which present that domestication constructed on current plant range.
Wild rice sometimes sheds its grains simply, permitting seeds to disperse and reproduce with out human intervention. Domesticated rice, in distinction, has non-shattering grains, extra uniform ripening, and bigger seed measurement, traits that make harvesting environment friendly however require human administration for replica. These variations replicate choice formed by farming practices quite than pure pressures alone. In Asia and Africa, early farmers labored with wild Oryza species that grew naturally in wetlands and floodplains. Within the Americas, “wild rice” refers to completely different species (Zizania), native to North America, underscoring that grass domestication occurred in a number of areas even when it didn’t result in the identical crop.
Within the Philippines, regardless of the long-held concept that our ancestors practiced wet-rice agriculture deep previously, there is no such thing as a archaeological proof for early domesticated wet-rice programs within the archipelago. What we do have is wild, dryland rice from Andarayan Collapse Cagayan dated to about 3,000 years in the past, on pottery tempered with rice husks. These finds recommend that historic communities knew and used rice, however they don’t level to irrigated rice fields. Research throughout the area recommend that wet-rice programs within the Philippines developed comparatively late, formed not by historic custom however by political change and shifting landscapes.
As we replicate on the meals that anchor Filipino celebrations, it’s value trying intently not solely at rice and greens but in addition on the ritual spherical fruits of Media Noche, which come from domestication histories that stretch properly past the archipelago.
Filipino households welcome the 12 months with apples, oranges, grapes, pears, melons, and different spherical fruits. Their origins span many areas. Grapes have been domesticated within the Close to East round 6,000 to five,000 years in the past. Citrus fruits emerged from hybridization amongst species domesticated in Southeast Asia and southern China between 6,000 and 4,000 years in the past. Apples got here from Central Asia, and pears from China and the Close to East, each spreading alongside historic commerce routes. Watermelon started in Africa greater than 4,000 years in the past earlier than transferring into Asia. Melons have been first cultivated within the Close to East and South Asia. These fruits, displayed for luck, are on the Filipino desk due to lengthy histories of motion and alternate.
Past fruits, many greens on our tables additionally carry deep histories. Alongside the Mediterranean coast, broccoli, cabbage, kale, kohlrabi, and Brussels sprouts all got here from one wild species, Brassica oleracea. Round 4,000 to three,000 years in the past, folks chosen vegetation with bigger buds, thicker stems, or compact heads. Over time, these selections produced the acquainted greens we cook dinner right now.
Extra domestically, taro grew extensively in Island Southeast Asia earlier than domestication started at the very least 4,000 to three,000 years in the past. Communities chosen vegetation with bigger corms and decrease acridity. Taro tailored to terraces, wetlands, and dry fields and was a major supply of carbohydrates in lots of elements of the Philippines earlier than rice turned dominant solely 300 to 400 years in the past.
Candy potatoes, domesticated within the tropical Americas round 5,000 to 4,000 years in the past, reached Polynesia lengthy earlier than European arrival and entered Island Southeast Asia by oceangoing migrations and commerce.
Chili peppers have been first domesticated within the Americas round 6,000 to five,000 years in the past. They entered Asia after the sixteenth century and have become a part of Filipino cooking, with siling labuyo functioning as a semi-domesticate that responds to human choice.
Throughout these examples — rice formed in distant river valleys, spherical fruits linked to a number of cultural traditions, greens derived from a single coastal plant, and taro carrying timelines from completely different areas, and chili peppers adapting to new environments — domestication seems as an extended means of shut commentary and regular choice.
And maybe there’s something extra in these histories. By the point all these vegetation attain the tables within the Philippines, they already carry tales of motion and alternate. The New 12 months feast might really feel conventional, but it surely additionally displays centuries of interplay throughout Asia, the Pacific, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Our meals hint histories constructed on connection quite than isolation, fashioned by individuals who shared seeds, exchanged information, and tailored to new circumstances.
Once we put together Media Noche, cook dinner rice, slice camote, or add chilis to our meals, we participate in histories fashioned over 1000’s of years. Agriculture might have begun round 10,000 years in the past, however its legacy seems in each meal — together with the one we share as we welcome the New 12 months. – Rappler.com
Stephen B. Acabado is professor of anthropology on the College of California-Los Angeles. He directs the Ifugao and Bicol Archaeological Initiatives, analysis applications that interact neighborhood stakeholders. He grew up in Tinambac, Camarines Sur.
