Giniling and the Taste of Fairness

There are days when I don’t wake up to my alarm, but to the faint bubbling of tomato sauce on the stove. That smell always means one thing: my mother’s cooking giniling. Not the kind with carrots, peas, or eggs that other people swear by—just ground pork, potatoes, raisins, and tomato sauce. To anyone else, it might look incomplete, even plain. To me, it’s perfection.

I remember the first time I tasted it—I must have been around six or seven, peering over the kitchen counter. At first glance, it seemed ordinary—not like the flashiness of kare-kare with its peanut sauce or the prestige of lechon at the fiesta table. I had seen others eat giniling before, )but it never seemed appealing—the hard potatoes or the overload of peas and carrots that distracted from the harmony of flavors. My mother’s version looked different. One bite, and I was hooked.

When steam rises from the pot, the tang of tomato mixes with the sweetness of raisins. The pork soaks up the sauce, the potatoes soften into creamy morsels, and the raisins—sweet, unexpected—burst on the tongue like surprises you never get tired of. It’s not fancy, but it makes me slow down and breathe deeper. I’ve eaten other versions—some too greasy, too dry, some overloaded with vegetables that taste like a different dish altogether. Nothing could replicate my mother’s recipe. What makes hers unique is her restraint—she cooks it simply, letting each ingredient speak. It’s not carinderia giniling. It is hers, and therefore ours.

On other days, it isn’t the smell that greets me, but the sign of what’s to come. When I help sort the groceries and spot a bag of potatoes, I know there’ll be a big pot waiting for dinner. She cooks in generous amounts—not because we’re a large family, but because she knows how quickly it disappears. I always pile it high on my rice and return for more. And when she sets some aside to turn into torta the next day, I eat it with ketchup—though it’s just as good without.

The best giniling is the one I come home to after school, weighed down by exams or lectures. By then, it has been simmering for hours—the flavors deeper, the sauce richer. I push the door open only to be met with its scent before I even drop my bag. My shoulders relax; the day’s weight fades. The first spoonful always tastes like relief—warm, steady, comforting. Whether with rice, as torta, or reheated the next day, giniling never loses its magic.

I leaned on that magic most in one of the hardest times of my life. We were supposed to leave for a family trip the next day, bags already packed. But past midnight, my mother’s phone rang. My father had been rushed to the hospital—he had collapsed in the middle of a meeting after what looked like a heart attack. We were by his bedside as doctors called him a walking time bomb—words that didn’t seem to fit the man who had been laughing just the day before. The days that followed blurred into weeks of worry and exhaustion—school, Davao Doc, home, repeat. 

We were fortunate to manage without collapsing under the weight of hospital bills, but I couldn’t help noticing that many families around us didn’t. I saw mothers clutching prescriptions they couldn’t afford, overheard whispers about selling clothes, or worse, deciding which treatment to skip. In those moments, I realized how illness here is not just about health—it’s about survival, and survival too often comes down to how much money you have. In a country where so many already struggle to put food on the table, sickness can feel like the final blow. 

One evening, after days of stress, I came home to its familiar scent. The pot waited under the kitchen light, a mountain of red and gold glistening beneath the steamed glass lid. My mother, sister, and I sat together at the table, talking softly as we ate. The taste was the same, but it felt heavier—like warmth had weight. For a moment, everything felt steady again. A pot of giniling meant that even in chaos, there was something we could hold onto. It was care, spooned out carefully, enough for everyone who needed comfort that night.

That comfort also made me think about fairness. Giniling has always been a dish about stretching what little you have—meat is expensive, so you grind it and mix in potatoes or sauce to make it seem like there’s more to go around. It’s a dish born from limitation, proof of how Filipinos make do with less. But my mother’s version doesn’t feel like “making do.” She doesn’t cook it to disguise scarcity—she cooks it to share fully. She adds more potatoes not to cut the pork, but to fill the table, to make sure no one feels shortchanged. What others see as a dish of necessity and a reminder of lack, she turns into one of abundance. That’s what makes hers different: not just the ingredients, but also the intention. It reminds me that fairness is possible when there is no greed in the pot.

When I think of giniling, I think of mornings filled with its smell, afternoons when comfort waited at the table, and nights when fear sat too heavy. I think of what it means to share fairly, to care without reservation, to give enough for everyone.

And every time I scoop a spoonful onto my rice, I am reminded of this truth: the simplest dishes can reveal the biggest lessons. That life, like giniling, should always be enough—if only it is served with honesty and shared with care.

Until then, I will keep turning to her giniling, because in a country that so often leaves its people hungry, that dish will always remind me that fairness and love are still possible—even if only in one pot at home.