Tita Ria

Tita Ria - Feb 21 - Menudo

The first thing I understood about menudo was that it was a party food. “I think it’s traditional, because you’re helping old people when you’re making this, when they’re cooking food at the fiesta,” Tita Ria tells me. We are not preparing for a party, but there is a lively energy in the air around the kitchen, buoyed by her daughter, the ever-vibrant Bea, who keeps us company.

Bea is just over a year old and the kitchen is her kingdom, along with the living room and the TV room where she has her playpen. She loves her Mickey Mouse toy, her flashcards, and of course, her iPad. While we cook, I can’t resist taking little breaks to play with her and listen as she names the colors of all the vegetables we cook. Tita Ria is quietly bursting with pride as she tells me everything Bea has been learning: shapes, colors, the alphabet. Bea is my youngest cousin; the oldest, I believe, is in her 50s, though we’ve never met.

She eats the menudo with gusto when we are done. The dish is composed of potato, chicken, peas, and other vegetables in a tomato sauce. Nutritious for a baby!

The Recipe

Ingredients

2lbs chicken breast or preferred meat
15oz can sweet peas
1 cup soy sauce
15oz can tomato sauce
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 large yellow onion, diced
1 head of garlic, diced
Small package of Filipino hot dogs or preferred sausage, pre-boiled, cut into slices
2 yellow potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 carrots, cubed
2 red bell peppers, sliced
½ cube of New Leeland Creek Filipino cheese
Raisins, for topping
Rice for serving

Instructions

Cut the chicken into small chunks, about the size of the tip of your thumb, a little more than an inch long. Remove the fat first. It’s okay if it’s a little big, the meat will cook down, so it’s better to cut it a bit bigger.
Peel the potatoes and scrub the carrots.
Cut the peeled potatoes and the carrots into large chunks.

*Instead of cubes, you can try slicing diagonally (like a trapezoid) for presentation!

Cut the hot dogs diagonally into slices.
Wash and slice the bell pepper just like you sliced the potatoes and carrots.
Dice the onions and cut the garlic. (You can also use a garlic press here.)
Put a large pot on medium heat. When it’s warm, cover the bottom with olive oil.
Once it is warm, add the potatoes. Sautee the potatoes 2-5 minutes until they are brown. Add a pinch of salt.

*Each vegetable may be sauteed separately for presentation or all at once, depending on preference. We cooked it all together, so add the carrots next (but not the peppers yet). Cook these 2-3 minutes so that they are soft but still crisp.

Add the bell pepper. When this is cooked for a few minutes, take the vegetables out and set aside in a bowl.
Add the hot dogs to the wok. No need to aid extra oil, since you don’t want your menudo to get too oily. Cook 1-2 minutes, but they should be pre-boiled. When they are done, set aside in a different bowl.
Now sautee the garlic. You can add a little more oil to the pan now if necessary. Tita Ria says her secret is adding a bit of salt to the onion and garlic when she cooks. Her mom told her that when you smell the garlic, that’s when you can add the onion.
When the onion and garlic is cooked, you can add the chicken. Mix it around, then cover the wok. This will take 6-10 min. Stir occasionally.
Once the chicken is cooked, add tomato paste, 2-3 tablespoon… or about half the can. Add also an 8oz can of tomato sauce and bring to a boil.
Add about a cup of soy sauce. Cover and let simmer for 10-15 minutes.
If it starts to get too thick, add some water. We added about 2 cups after waiting 3 minutes. Let boil 20-30 minutes, uncovered, until chicken is tender.
Taste! Not too sour, but in the middle. See if it needs salt also. Add pepper to taste.
Add vegetables back (potato, carrot, and red pepper). You can save some for toppings (but I put it all in too early… oops!) But when you bring it to a party, save some for later for toppings. Cover so the potatoes get softer. It should be a sauce and not a soup.
After a few minutes, add the peas and hot dogs and raisins. Then you are done!
Eat by itself or with rice, and with patis.
*OPTIONAL* Top with “Filipino-style cheese” keso/queso. Grate about half of a 200g cube over the pot.

Ria Reyes

Tita Ria is one of the newest additions to the family. I didn’t grow up with her, so sometimes I just call her “Ria” or “Iyah,” another variant of her name. I chose to address her as “Tita Ria” in this project out of respect. Tita Ria came from the Philippines in 2020, just a few years ago, when she married Tito Benny, who was a widow. She is 30 years old, working as a rehabilitation service technician, and would describe herself as “a nice person.” I would agree. Tita Ria is shy but kind, eager to share her cooking expertise. She is always offering to cook me food.

Like my family, she comes from Luzon, “same province, same cities,” and she speaks Tagalog as a native language. However, the Philippines is not the only stop on her journey to where she is today. Tita Ria knows some Mandarin, which she learned when she worked in Taiwan for three years in an Apple factory. Here is her account of her job:

I’m working in the Apple company. We’re stored all the application in your phone, all the icons is there, I’m the one who put that in there. (Wait, what do you mean? How did you put it in there?) Oh, we have a machine, like a system, like they plug all the phones in there and you can check it. Because they already have download pictures. All you do is transfer it phone by phone.

Cooking Filipino Food

Tita Ria enjoys cooking, she tells me. “ I feel like I’m… all my stress, I put it in there, I feel like a relief after I cook.” This actually isn’t the first time she’s taught me a recipe; she’s taught me to make lumpia, pancit, and adobo in the past. At family parties, she’s accompanied by a deluge of praise for her cooking. She also introduces new foods that I haven’t seen before, but which clearly bring back memories for others, such as dinuguan, a blood stew. It’s delicious. She describes herself jokingly as a “lazy cook,” comparing her style to Filipino food vlogs. “Because when you do vlogging, and then the Filipinos watch it that’s like huh? She did not peel the carrots?” Instead, we simply wash the carrots.

ABBY: So where did you learn to cook?

TITA RIA: My mom. But I actually didn’t cook when I was in the Philippines, but after I get married, I have to cook for Tito Benny, I have to learn how to cook. At first to be honest they don’t like my cooking, cause like oh, there’s a lot of missing ingredients until oh okay I have to cook it many times. But pancit, I know how to make that, I don’t have to ask them do I have to adjust the ingredients? They said no that’s perfect. So I start making that all the time.

Tita Ria learned to make menudo from her mother as they prepared for parties. But she also remembers saving menudo after the neighbors had a party and eating it for several days afterwards, when she would become sick of it. “Me and my sister were crying like … you don’t have to, y’know?” she laughed. Menudo was served at every birthday party, and Tita Ria’s was no exception.

“So if we have a party in the family my mom needs to cook that. Cause my grandmother taught her…she taught us. Everytime she cook, she show us. Like this is how you cook this so next time when I’m not at home you know how to make it. But for that, we don’t usually cook that when mom is not around. Cause we’re not perfect to cook that. Until she passed away, my sisters always talking like how can you make her recipe like we forget? And we watched our aunties, titas and titos, cause like my dad don’t know how to cook, just the fried egg.

ABBY: So this is a party food then, a special occasion. I’m hearing that a lot for all these different recipes. So what would you normally eat in the Philippines?

TITA RIA: Adobo, yeah. Fish, like fried fish, and vegetables. Like they called it pinakbet.

ABBY: Wait yeah, what exactly is pinakbet?

TITA RIA: Like mixed vegetables with, you have to have the shrimp paste, I think that’s the secret ingredient. Unlike adobo, we use vinegar and soy sauce, but for pinakbet, you have to have shrimp paste or fish sauce.

ABBY: Like patis?

TITA RIA: Yeah patis! You know that?

ABBY: I actually didn’t know – I just knew oh that’s patis, and then I found out later it’s fish sauce! So how often would you cook something like adobo or pinakbet in the Philippines?

TITA RIA: Not almost every day, like every two days, especially if you have money to buy chicken, cause it’s expensive.

She would bring pinakbet and adobo to school. According to Tita Ria, school in the Philippines is “like here!” She describes it as having a lot of classmates, as many as 70 in one room. She remembers her dad dropping her off at school, and taking the bus back with her cousins at the end of the day. She remembers recess and cleaning up the sticks and leaves around to tidy up the yard.

Like Tita Nette and Tita Marcia, Tita Ria recalls getting ingredients at the palengke, only ten minutes away by bike. She asks me if I have a plan to go, and I wistfully give my standard reply: after law school. She replies that she is going next year with Tita Marcia to see her family in San Rafael – the cousins and aunts and uncles that she left behind in 2020 to marry Tito Benny and come to America.

Eating Filipino Food

Tita Ria’s view of Filipino food is upbeat and fond. “Oh, Filipino food is the best,” she said immediately after I asked her for her opinion. “Maybe because I’m Filipino! That’s why they said nobody can compare food in the Philippines.”

ABBY: How would you characterize [Filipino food]? … If someone asked you to describe Filipino food what would you say?

TITA RIA: When you cook Filipino food, they always cook it three or four times.

ABBY: What do you mean?

TITA RIA: They always make sure the food is cooked. But over there they always fried it, just one cook that’s it. Unlike us, we boil it, sautee it, let it boil for a while again.

ABBY: How would you compare American food and Filipino food?

TITA RIA: I don’t know how to compare it! Because it tastes different.

ABBY: How is the experience cooking it? Which one do you like better?

TITA RIA: Oh, Filipino. Even for the chicken strips, I made it for Bea, homemade.

She is referring to Bea’s lunch: chicken strips and rice. Tita Ria takes care to prepare good foods for Bea, making the chicken strips from scratch and feeding Bea homemade Filipino food. It seems to be working; Bea is growing fast! For her first birthday party, my cousin Ashley and I went to buy diapers for Bea. We picked the size based on the age range on the box, but alas, they were far too small for Bea.

ABBY: How would you compare Taiwanese food to Filipino food?

TITA RIA: Taiwan, they have a lot of spices they use for their foods, I know sometimes when you think about it oh is it safe?

ABBY: It’s interesting to hear your conception of Filipino food, because so far I’ve cooked with Tita Nette and Tita Marcia and they’ve been here for a while, and you just came to the US, when?

TITA RIA: Like 2020.

ABBY: Yeah, so you’ve been in the Philippines a lot more recently.

TITA RIA: Yeah, updated food.

ABBY: Well, like a different generation – so for them, it was a different experience.

TITA RIA: Just like Tita Marcia, she came from other province, like Visayas. To be honest, sometimes I don’t like how she cook, like I don’t know what this is, what is that!

ABBY: For what dish?

TITA RIA: I don’t know…

ABBY: Well, we made sinigang today–

TITA RIA: Oh yeah!

ABBY: –and she says some people like it a little more sour but I like it like this.

TITA RIA: So everytime she makes sinigang I say can you put more sinigang mix? And this is how i want like okay?? But she’s really good cook, especially for fish. Because for me every time I fry fish it’s very dry. But for her, I don’t know what she put in there.

Tita Ria tells me about her favorite dishes growing up: sinigang and tinola, both soups. Tinola sounds similar to goto: a chicken soup with ginger, onion, and garlic. Surprisingly, Tita Ria isn’t as fond of adobo, a staple Filipino food – perhaps because of its ubiquity, she says. Soups is where it’s at, it seems. Like Tita Marcia and Tita Nette, she remembers soups and sickness: “Especially when you’re sick in the Philippines your mom force to eat that.”

I also asked her about goto – is this something to eat at a funeral? It appears not.

TITA RIA: No… in the Philippines, we eat that every morning, and when we get sick, not in the funeral. Because in the funeral, they cook you sopas. Yeah sopas. The macaroni… pasta? With soup, hot dog too, carrots, yeah! And evaporated milk..

Baby Bea

Baby Bea wakes up “like a Disney princess.” Bea rotates between her studies, eating, and watching videos on Youtube in her castle, a tent in the TV room. At some point, she runs into the kitchen and we are totally derailed from cooking in order to make baby noises at her for five minutes. While the food cooks, we entertain Bea by teaching her shapes and colors. Later, Bea runs around joyfully and shrieks. She loves to play peekaboo. “Show Ate Abby the alphabet!” Tita Ria encourages, using the Filipino honorific for an older sister. Bea can even identify letters of the alphabet out of order. She eats chicken and rice with abandon, filling her bib quickly. “All the foods on the floor… that’s why her dad always does the vacuum.”

ABBY: So does Bea mostly eat Filipino food then? Or kind of a mix?

TITA RIA: Yeah, kind of a mix. But she really loves Filipino. That’s why I feel she’s Filipino… don’t like to eat American food.

ABBY: Did you expect to be raising your child in America?

TITA RIA: No…

ABBY: So how different is what you do for Bea, raising her, how different is that from when you grew up?

TITA RIA: From Bea? Um, in the Philippines we have a lot of help, like your neighbors, they help you. Usually they’re the one who have to raise a kid, for me it’s a little bit hard because I’ll be by myself and Tito Benny so I have to.. Take her from the beginning and everything. Cause actually it’s really hard for me, I’m still learning how to speak English, especially for the baby. But your mom always told me that maybe when she goes to school she will learn, and maybe she’s the one who teach me how to say it in proper way!

ABBY: So are you gonna teach Bea Tagalog then? That would be nice for her to have multiple languages.

TITA RIA: Yeah. Because sometimes it’s hard for us to speak English at home.

Bea continues her flashcards happily. There are many posters around the house at her eye level, things like the alphabet or animals. She is always learning. I think about the day that’s coming soon where Bea will go to school for the first time. She will grow up to speak English as a native language, hopefully alongside Tagalog. She will come home and her mom will say, “Bea, how do you say this?” And Bea will be able to answer. She will know what to say, because from even before her first birthday, her parents have strived to develop her mind and her language skills, because her mother agreed to move to America with her husband, because her father followed his family here, because Tita Angie waited five years for her immigration papers to be approved.

ABBY: So what’s the most important thing to you guys… for Bea to know growing up. Or like, things that are important to you about how you want to raise her.

TITA RIA: Tito Benny said in a Filipino way.

ABBY: Mhm. Like what does that mean to you?

TITA RIA: It’s hard. You explain, Benny! You explain it! Cause [Tito Benny] always tell me about Bea, how we raise her right.

At this point, Tito Benny has dropped into the kitchen for a moment. Bea gurgles at him joyfully from her chair.

ABBY: Like what does it mean to you to raise her in a Filipino way?

TITO BENNY: I think uh, I’ll just uh, explain her– explain to her, where she came from.

TITA RIA: Our culture.

TITO BENNY: Because if you don’t accept your origin, you won’t be happy. Some people forget where they came from, one side of you… So, I’ll tell her… that you are lucky, very lucky. If you see Filipino kids, like your age… people five years old, they’re already working in the Philippines. So they have uh… sometimes they don’t have the luxury of this like that… All they want is to eat three times a day. And like in America, we have everything. So I’ll tell her you are lucky. Don’t worry about material.. You know that thing, you’re still lucky. And another thing, if you show her love.

TITA RIA: Yep. And I believe nowadays– I’m not saying this but–

TITO BENNY: You can scold her… but that’s better, you still take care of her. Just show her the right… Don’t get tired of her. That’s what I’m — Sometimes you know, you can tell her, she already…

TITA RIA: As a kid, they need us for a while, like right now, they don’t know everything, so you’re the one that teach her first.

TITO BENNY: And I’ll tell her, always support her whatever she wants to do.

TITA RIA: And I think the best thing to– raise us is to always showing you love because, some of my coworkers, they have kids like the age of her, they don’t really care. Just like, they don’t teach them, just give them bottles water that’s it. I don’t know if they are busy…

ABBY: But they’re not like you know taking the time like you guys do to show her the flashcards and to talk through things with her–

TITA RIA: Cause they said “Oh really? How old is your daughter?” so I told her she’s 16 months… and how old they are.. 32?

TITO BENNY: Maybe they get married very young?

TITA RIA: Yeah and… some of them divorce, broken family or something, so I don’t want Bea feel that way, like nobody cares about her. That’s why sometimes when she’s with her Nanay at Tatay, Ate Marcia, they don’t want her to touch anything! Like everything they touch something, oh wash your hands! Like let her be!

ABBY: I think they’re just kinda worried about her getting sick or something. I know like she’ll come over here by the stove and I’m like no!!

TITO BENNY: Sometimes.. It’s not good….

TITA RIA: Yep.

ABBY: To be too worried?

TITA RIA: I mean we have to let her spoiled– I mean explore. {laughter}But she’s very spoiled. Right Bea?

ABBY: As she should be!

TITA RIA: Because she’s the last in the family.

TITO BENNY: And we are not going to force her, whatever she wants.

Editor's Note

For Tita Ria, Filipino food is not something from a distant past. It wasn’t the 70s when she arrived, but the 2020s. She, out of all my interviewees, is perhaps the most connected to what the Philippines is today. She does not remember walking to school for miles or stepping on rusty nails. She remembers taking the bus to school and eating well at her neighbor’s house. It’s a testament to how the Philippines have changed, or maybe just to how her situation was different, to hear her talk about getting tired of adobo because of how often she ate it, when any chicken dish seemed like a rare specialty to hear Tita Nette and Tita Marcia talk.

Tita Ria is living out her transition period now, adjusting to life in America with a new family and a new baby. She hadn’t expected to raise her daughter in a new country with new customs. When she talks about how Bea can help her learn English, I remember how adamant my own mother was that I become well-spoken as she drilled me on how to spell and define words picked at random from the dictionary.

To Tita Ria, Filipino food is a link to her home, a way to raise her child in a way that she recognizes, and a way to connect to the family she has joined. Of course it is her favorite – why wouldn’t it be?

One day, when Bea is older, I hope she will read this. It is a snapshot of her mother’s life, five years after coming to the US, and just after Bea’s birth. I hope she will see into why her parents have raised her the way they did, and I hope she will know just how much they love her.

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