THAT was a phrase my mom always said while we were growing up. She’s referring to how my elder siblings (three of them) would pass whatever she asked to be done down the line, which all ended with me -- the youngest, the “daga”.
I think that’s how I ended up in mom’s kitchen. I don’t remember having that desire to cook or bake or whatever as the millennials and GenZ’s and now GenAlphas are pictured to have. I didn’t dream of reigning over the kitchen.
I was there because I was the “daga”.
“Himayin (Hagpat gud) niyo na yung dahon ng malunggay!” Guess who ends up plucking those leaves one by one?
“I-defrost na ‘yung manok!” Uhuh.
It would soon evolve to, “I-marinate mo na yung baboy/manok/baka para pamprito/ pang-ihaw” and then “Katayin mo na ‘yung manok!” Yes, I know how to slaughter a chicken as early as fourth grade, and how to clean the innards making sure I don’t break the bile sac. I loved cleaning the chicken crop (tiyan) and “balun-balunan” (batikolon) as I got to see how whole grains of corn from the crop become yellowish grits in the balun-balunan.
In between was going with her to the market to carry the basket and bayong. In the process, I learned to use my nose to check out the freshness of meat and condiments as mom did.
Unconsciously, I was developing the nose for cooking. Even as a kid cooking for my siblings
and dad when mom was out there accompanying one of the elder siblings in Manila to enroll in college, I rarely used a recipe. Putting together a dish became instinctive. When I’m not sure what condiments and herbs to use, I sniff them.
We’re a middle-class family. Mom was a public school teacher, dad was a local executive of San Miguel Corporation. Relatively better off than our neighbors who were mostly children of farmers and fishers, but just barely able to scrape by because all four of us were in private schools. My parents made sure we got the best. But this also meant we had to make do.
The daga was the repository of hand-me-downs. That never really bothered me, I even looked forward for that moment when a dress or shirt or pair of pants was handed down. And yes, the daga is the one sent to the sari-sari with a note to “utang” a can of sardines or eggs or “sibuyas/kamatis/panakot”. I wasn’t taught about humility, but it was embedded in me through what I had to do and more. What today’s snowflakes generation would regard as degrading, I just took in stride without labels.
Making do was thus embedded in my psyche, and that serves me well in the kitchen (and in life) up to this day. Friends have been fascinated how I’d just look at what’s in the ref and whip out gourmet level food even as they couldn’t see anything inside that could make up a whole dish. I guess, being the “daga” has its advantage: You end up with greater responsibilities and incidental learnings that you carry with you forever. My elder siblings can’t even cook...
Nyahaha!
-o0o-
*Stella is a Pranic Healing educator and an Arhatic Yoga practitioner. Email:
saestremera@gmail.com, fb: /saestremera, IG: @saestremera