Saturday, September 30, 2006

LP 14: A La Espanyola - Panaderya

Panaderya, hurnuhan, pan de sal, pan de coco, pan de limon, biscocho -- it is obvious that these terms are of Spanish origin. If there was a certain Spanish influence in our foods that touched my life greatly and early, it was the staple bread and rolls that we Filipinos have during breakfast and merienda, the ones typically sold at the bakeries just around the corner every two or three blocks in a relatively congested area in Metro Manila.

My father started "working" as a tricycle driver in MM, and was delivering baked goods (especially pan de sal) to houses in the wee hours of the morning. The bakery was in Bagong Pag-asa in Quezon City where I lived as a child. My father had this dream of putting up his own bakery someday, and he took me once on a "tour" of the bakery, which was then using the old-fashioned brick-style oven that was as big as a wall, with a hole big enough to maneuver a baking pan easily.

My father was able to raise enough money to buy his own oven (the modern-style made of metal, not brick), and some baking tools like the wooden dough cutter, and a dough boat (yeah, the bakers knead dough as big as 4 big pillows combined, and had muscles and bodybuilt that could qualify for bodybuilding competition). Since it was meant to be for commercial purposes, everything looked big to me, and I kinda stereotyped baking doughs as a manly thing.

At first we only made pan de sal, with our workshop within our apartment unit, but there was such a great demand, we expanded and had to rent another apartment unit along a busier road, and also put up a general merchandise store. We added and added more staple breads and rolls, and had a display of baked goods which were pang-masa that typically would include ensaymada, Spanish bread, pan de coco, monay, pan de limon, pianono (?) ( a jelly roll-type of bread although this one we made then had no jelly; I am not sure what the filling was, but it was one of my favorites), "kababayan", biscocho,

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