Suman Latik

I maintain a blog elsewhere. Sometimes, I am a diligent blogger, but I tend to backslide.

Why Suman Latik? If you are Filipino, you know what it is. FIlipinos love to eat. With 79 provinces spread out in the archipelago, there are different customs, traditions and food. My mother is from the Eastern Visayas Region, specifically the Province of Leyte. Her hometown is Tacloban City. Her mother, my grandmother, was a fantastic cook. My mom takes after her. They have this family recipe: suman latik.

It’s a delicacy made of glutinous rice (malagkit), steamed then topped with syrup made from freshly extracted coconut milk and panutsa or cane sugar chunk. Muy delicioso! I’m not saying it because it’s ours. At Christmas time, our lives revolve around this suman latik. Boxes and boxes of orders that never seem to stop. Sometimes, they start coming in late November. Mostly, when December rolls around, we’re off. It’s tedious because everything is done by hand. We use a special wrapper sourced from the mountains. No kidding. It’s the leaves of a wild plant. With any other wrapper, believe me it tastes different. But suman latik is a real winner. Christmas is never complete without the assembly line production. Back-breaking work, really. And at the end of the season, we all swear we don’t want to see it again. Till next Christmas.

I’ll try hunting up a photo of the suman latik. Just so you know what I’m talking about. Everything becomes more interesting with visuals.

I hope this blog won’t be a seasonal thing. I’ll try to be diligent. And interesting. And different. Keep up with me, okay?