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.
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