On the way to the beach last summer, we stopped at a small town to get some greens for fish soup. It was nearing noon and witheringly hot; there was nary a soul outside to solicit directions from. After a couple of aimless turns we found the vegetable market tucked away in a narrow alley.
“Do you have kamunggay?” we wasted no time asking at the first stall we came to.
The vendor squinted up at us. “Kamunggay?”
“Yes,” I said. “You know, malunggay? Moringa? Horseradish tree leaves? For tinowa?”
Was I being patronizing? Hardly. The week before, we were in Panaon (an island away) for a friend’s birthday, and also looking for the market. “How do we get to the mercado?” my friend Edna had asked a local.
“Mercado?” the girl said.
“Yes.”
“Ano po ’yung mercado?”
That ticked off mild-mannered Edna. “Tiangge,” she offered. “Market. Have we been overrun by Tagalogs?”
“Medic,” I whispered. “A year in Manila and suddenly they don’t know how to speak Bisaya anymore.”
Now that was mean — at least the part where I implied the girl was a maid. She might have abandoned her mother tongue, see, but it clung heavily to her accent as she pointed us the way.
“There,” the vendor pointed with his snout at a malunggay tree across the street. “Help yourself.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, but I can tell you no one sells kamunggay around here.”
In the end, we tore a branch off the tree and promptly made a run for the car, half-expecting a volley of rocks to follow suit. Inspecting our loot, I wondered out loud if anyone ever went to jail for stealing five pesos’ worth of leaves.
“Of course not,” Jenny said. “But that doesn’t make you less of a thief.”
Or make the plant in the photo up top malunggay. That’s sili (chili), better known for its fiery fruit, but whose leaves make a worthy, if milder-tasting substitute for malunggay. Chili leaves are not spicy at all. I would describe their taste as verging on bitter — pleasantly so. Younger leaves are picked off their stems and added to a dish (usually soup) near the end of cooking, left to wilt in the residual heat. Cooking any longer renders them mushy.
As with malunggay, use more chili leaves than you think you need — they lose volume when wilted, then your dish will look like you have scrimped on a cheap yet crucial ingredient. Maybe you can even get them for free from someone’s garden. Ask for permission, though (and do not pick the shrub bare; that would be bad manners).
One more thing. When in Waray country, be mindful that sili means penis. We share an island, not the same dialect, and so communicate in Tagalog.
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