Article | Lately, It's Been Cold, So The Family Cooks...

 By Eurielle

Written on January 3, 2022

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Once in a while, I like eating soup. I think soup makes the food hearty and it can be comfort food for those who need care. In some cultures, soups are the main staple when you are sick because not only does soup have some ingredients that are nutritional, they're also easily swallowed and chewed. When I'm sick, my parents usually cook lugaw and other nilaga dishes. Sometimes, my sister will cook egg-drop soup or tofu miso soup - both taste so delicious. 

Yesterday, January 2nd, my sister requested misua from my dad. Usually, my dad would cook misua with patola and some meat or seafood (mostly shrimp), but he's into meatballs right now, so we have bola-bola misua most of the time. 

Then, today, he cooked chicken lugaw (i.e., congee), which tasted so good. The rice wasn't cooked thickly, so it was easy to scoop, and it had a light taste. We usually put patis (fish sauce) and calamansi, but this time, I only put calamansi in it. 

Misua with Egg and Halved Meatballs

For the misua, I like eggs in it. Truthfully, the soup itself will taste similar to what you put in it. Usually, the shrimp-and-patola misua will taste stronger, and more seafood-y, than bola-bola (meatball) misua. In this case, I put some chili flakes for a hotter taste.  Although it's not really spicy, the combination of just-cooked misua and chili flakes made a really nice hot taste. The combo exploded in my mouth, and it tasted very good. 

Chicken Lugaw with Calamansi

For lugaw, sometimes, my dad would hard-boil eggs as well, but this time, he didn't. It was all good. Really. Yesterday, I ate around 3-4 eggs, so I'm done with it for this week. My dad's lugaw consistency varies. Sometimes he will cook a really thick lugaw, which is a little bit harder to scoop, but this time, he cooked it with great consistency - not that thick, but not watery as well. I like this type of lugaw. 

Noodle-wise, misua is a Filipino dish that originated from Fujian, China. Historically, Filipino-Chinese, or Chinese-Filipino, are mostly descended from the Fujian province [1]. Most Chinese dishes that Filipinos now adopted as their own, or Filipino dishes that are heavily influenced by Chinese cuisine, are Fujian in origin.

Lugaw, according to Wikipedia, originated from the Philippines [2], but we all know that there are abundant variants of the dish in Asian cuisine. Other variations include congee and arroz caldo. 

I think food is a culture that does represent a certain group or certain people, but it also crosses borders, and most of the time, origins can become blurry. Eating is a way of survival, but also a way of life and a symbol of people.