If you think about it, the arrival of Manila Goodie Trail to the digital space has been years in the making. Yodel Pe, the visual artist behind MGT’s namesake, Manila Paper Trail, began by cooking up the dishes from her childhood and sharing them with friends.
You said these recipes come from the family cookbook. Is there a real physical cookbook and what does it look like? Since my mum decided to type the recipes up in the 80s, they have been disintegrating over time. I thought about how best to preserve these typewritten treasures and they have now been placed in plastic folders. What was your introduction to cooking?
When we were growing up, which was the 80’s, my mother used to work during the weekdays, and our meals would more often be foreign-inspired. I think she especially loved it when we would often request beef fondue as it required little to no heavy cooking at all. All she needed to do was make the sauces consisting of a peanut satay sauce, a Béarnaise sauce and a soy based sauce. She also managed to make mushroom fried rice to go with it.
For special occasions such as Christmas, we would order Hok-Siu ham from a supplier from Ongpin and about a week before Christmas we would cook the Chinese ham outdoors in a large kawa, using wood as fuel for the fire. We would also have home-cooked honey and soy-glazed turkey with fried rice stuffing.