Following Tradition: making Rice Delicacies on All Saints Day

When you're getting older like me, you are no longer as adventurous and aggressive in trying new things and experiencing everything unlike in your younger years.  You then  tend to look for things familiar, especially food and experiences in childhood.  Is that "second childhood" already?   I hope not for I'm still lucid and physically independent

As a tradition in our hometown as it is in all the provinces in our country,  it is customary to prepare native delicacies on All Saints Day.   When townsfolk come home from the city to visit their departed loved ones, friends meet up at the memorial park and invite each to their homes for a treat of rice cakes. Everyone in town; yes! everyone who happens along were given rice cakes as well. That's how easy life was then.

In my childhood, life was so much easier, that was when two of our peso was equivalent to a US dollar.  A ten-centavo coin then could buy me a bottle of soda or one jeepney ride around the metro..

The  basic ingredients of native cakes are sticky rice and coconut milk.  I felt like eating "tambotambong", that's Ilokano for ginatang   bilo-bilo.  So right after the 6 o'clock mass, I went off to the market with my maid and bought these ingredients.

Above are plaintain cubes, sweet potato,  not yet cut, anis, grated coconut meat and tapioca. 

Mixing water to this fine flour, I made the bilo-bilo (balls) below.

Later, I found myself in the  outdoor kitchen enthusiastically cutting up plaintain and violet sweet potato and boiling the tapioca while my maid squeezed out milk from the gratef coconut meat.  

I let my maid cook it, having taught her last time.  I tasted it and added vanilla extract and anis seeds to enhance the flavor. 

The yield is one big caserole of yummy goodness of sweet, thick and creamy soup dessert.  

I iMessaged my older daughter to pass by after their weekend outing to pick up some.  It's also one of her favorites.