Bawang grows in my pocket garden

Now in my pocket garden at home, healthy greens of Batanes red garlic. Cloves sown last week. They grow that fast.

BAWANG
Garlic (Allium sativum, L.)

• ba-wang in Tagalog, Ilocano, Bicolano, Capampangan, Pangasinense, Maguindanaon, Tausug, and Tiruray. Also spelled ocassionally as bauang in Tagalog, Ilocano, Pangasinense, and Capampangan.
• ahos in Cebuano and Boholano.
• lasuna in Waray.
• lasuna or lasuna a tekapun in Maranao.
• ahus in Yakan.
• a.k.a. lansuna na lanang and takapan in Maguindanaon.

Taking advantage the cold weather and intermittent rain showers, I planted cloves of garlic in my pocket garden and they now sprout well in pot soil consists of compost and burnt rice hull (carbon ash). The young leaves is as good as spring onion (sibuyas dahon) and sakurab (Maranao scallion) when used in cooking. What I have here are the tiny Batanes red garlic and the big Taiwan garlic.

Batanes red garlic sprouts and few more cloves sown as seeds.

The first time I saw a field of garlic plantation was in 2018 while setting footprints in Brgy Monteclaro, about 25 kilometers north of San Jose City, Occidental Mindoro.

I learned that it would take around 9 months to grow a garlic clove to be ready to harvest as a fully grown head. Wow, that's how long a human baby is also carried in mother's womb. We must put more value and patronize more the garlics cultivated by our local farmers.

Taiwan garlic sown last Sunday are now sprouting. They look healthy. Today, I'm burying few more cloves and expecting to harvest them on my birthday next year, exactly nine months from today.

In photos are Batanes red garlic and Taiwan garlic.

The origin of KAMOTE to mean 'dumb' in the Philippines

Illustration not mine. CTTO Inquirer.net Lifestyle Dec 26, 2006

KAMOTE to mean BOBO.

It originated from a Tagalog word kamot (to scratch) that the unlearned will unconsciously do - scratch one's head when they do not know how to answer or explain something.

Until now they do this.

You and I did it too.

When one is caught in this situation, we say, "kamot ka ng kamot eh" or in short phrase "kamot eh" that eventually morphed into "kamote."

Do you still remember the time when teacher called you in the class to recite or explain something and you didn't know what to say? Of course, you just scratched your head though it is not itching at all, di ba? Kamot ka nang kamot eh and I could hear you teacher said, "you better go home and plant kamote!"

Bikers and drivers are also called kamote when they are dumb enough or at fault when they figured in untoward incident or when confronted for being wreckless, careless, or ignorant of traffic laws and safety rules. Obviously because they would just scratch their head and say, "Cencia na po (sabay kamot sa ulo)." It's their mantra on the road. This gave them the connotation as being stupid or moron, for short bobo.  

Noon kasi sa probinsya, lalo na sa Visayas, di ka marunong magTagalog kung walang "eh" sa dulo ng sinasabi mo. Dapat may eh lagi hahaha... lalo na kung sarcastic or just to impress lang ang dating.

Related readings

• Micky Fenix partly featured Edgie's dictionary in the Philippine Daily Inquirer 

Bulaklak ng sasa (nipa palm flower)

 

BULAKLAK NG NIPA

Nipa palm flower (Nypa fruticans).

In one of my tours in Malolos, Bulacan, I was very lucky to find this blooming inflorescene of nipa palm. Beautiful.

Captured here is the male phase of nipa antheses or the blooming of inflorescense. The bright yellow part of the flower is the stamen or the male pollinator. The female phase is (Read more...)

NILAMAW NGA BUTONG at home

NILAMAW NGA BUTONG (Palamig na buko)

Recreating my childhood version of linamaw nga butong (palamig na buko in Tagalog) I grew up with as a young boy until early teen in Inopacan, Leyte.  

We sometimes add orange soda, preferably the Royal Tru-orange (RTO). However this time I opt to make without the RTO as I often did before. It was already a luxury back then to have a bottle of orange soda and we could hardly afford it. 

I had to climb myself the coco tree to get  butong (buko in Tagalog). I often sat on the palm fronds up there and split the butong while on there with my razor sharp bolo we called sanggalab. Then I scoped out those tender meat of butong with an improvised scraper carved out from the  tough outer skin of husk of that young coconut. 

In my pocket are several pieces of cookies. I took them out and  crumbled them into the freshly scraped butong . The best part is eating nilamaw nga butong while having an aerial sight of the field. The hardest part is when I had to climb down. Though feeling well satisfied with my  filled tummy, it was not easy anymore to carry more weight while exerting more muscular strength to keep me from falling down the tree. 

Now that I am 53 and 180lbs,  I could no longer do that. I just now buy butong from a magbubuko in the palengke here in Metro Manila where I live now for years. My Nikon D5600 captured these photos. I had that déjà vu feeling watching the sight of crumbled cookies that speckled the purity and whiteness of palamig na buko. A can of condensed milk was added here for that savory milky sweetness. Chilled with cracked ice. Oh yeah,  I feel home again with this.