In living color

Imagine you’ve made it to the final round of Jeopardy! The category is “Edible Plants” and you put all your winnings on the line because, well, you know your herbs and veggies, chervil from flat-leaf parsley from cilantro, and insist upon the taste difference between mace and nutmeg. You’re the next Alton Brown, if with more hair.

So maybe you recognize the plant in the photo above as stevia, from which the sugar substitute of the same name is derived. No? Then you, my friend, are screwed. When I saw this plant tucked among some token herbs (mint, tarragon, and chives, mostly) beside the ornamentals and fruiting trees on display at the sidewalk across Sto. Niño Church in Tacloban City, I thought it was a weed. “Ser naman,” the vendor said. “Dat’s istibya. It’s—”

“Sweet. I know.”

“Por you, ser, only ₱250.”

“Hmp,” my mother said. “I’ll take it for free with that overpriced lemon tree over there.”

Stevia has been used for hundreds of years, mainly by the Guarani peoples of South America. It belongs to the sunflower/daisy family. The leaves are supposedly best picked when the plant flowers, like mine here, and they’re indeed sweet (a hundred times more than sugar, it is claimed, but without the calories, hence its popularity with the diabetic set); I would invite you over to taste for yourself, but that would leave my already anorexic plant bare, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

By the way, if you intend to go to Tacloban or Samar via Sogod or Baybay, the DPWH has closed off a section of road from Mayorga to Dulag due to repair of the Daguitan Bridge, so be advised that you will have to take an almost hour-long detour through La Paz, Dagami, and Burauen instead of the 15-or-so minutes it normally takes to traverse said closed road, which is incidentally the same stretch lined with stalls selling sweet potato, taro, and peanuts. The bridge was damaged by Typhoon Seniang in December 2014 and work was ongoing when Typhoon Ruby hit the same area almost a full year later. Now the DPWH says repairs will be completed next month — unless another typhoon comes barreling our way, it goes without saying. Then we’ll probably see Jojo Binay in Malacañang before that happens. I’ll take “Only in the Philippines” for 300, Alex.