Kakanin

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” ― Charles Dickens

Christmas holds such a special place in people’s hearts that in anticipation, countdowns are observed. In the Philippines, it is now a common practice for mainstream media to begin their count 100 days prior to Christmas.

Way long before media counts, countdowns during the Christmas season were already practiced in the parishes of towns and cities across the Philippines in the form of the Simbang Gabi. The first one took place in the country in 1669, as a practical compromise for farmers, who began work before sunrise to avoid the noonday heat out in the fields. Priests began to say Mass in the early mornings instead of the common evening novenas. Eventually, this Christmas custom became a distinct feature of Philippine culture.

The Philippine Simbang Gabi refers to the tradition and pious practice of attending mass for nine consecutive days – from December 16 to 24 – in preparation for Christmas. During the novena masses, parishioners took turns offering sacks of rice, fruits and vegetables, and fresh eggs during mass. The priest, in turn, would share the produce with the congregation after the service, providing them with the ingredients needed to make rice cakes or kakanin. Thus, the tradition of selling and eating kakanin during the dawn masses began.

Up to this day, Filipinos look forward to buying and eating rice delicacies sold in the churchyard after each Simbang Gabi mass. Among the various types of kakanin, bibingka and puto bumbong, which are cooked on the spot, are the most popular. These are often paired with salabat or tsokolate, hot chocolate from local cacao.

This practice of cooking rice cakes during rituals or special religious occasions actually goes back to pre-colonial times. A few ethnolinguistic groups have continued the practice: I observed rice cakes offered to ritual participants during an Ibaloi ritual in Benguet, and while at the foothill of Mount Apo, I witnessed a Tagabawa Bagobo ritual, where biko and other types of rice cakes were offered and “fed” to agricultural tools to ensure their efficacy in the rice fields.

The practice has also continued in lowland Christian groups. It is still common for families to have a bilao of kakanin prepared for Christmas or to greet the New Year with gratitude. And up until the year my father passed, I would look forward to his homemade royal bibingka each Christmas; I still consider the heirloom recipe passed on to him by my Ilocano lolo unparalleled.

The preparation of kakanin and other special delicacies during Christmas and other religious rites or rituals point to the human desire to celebrate the divine. In each celebration, man worships and acknowledges his God.

“God is here. This truth should fill our lives, and every Christmas should be for us a new and special meeting with God, when we allow his light and grace to enter deep into our soul.” ― Josemaría Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By

[Comments on the article may be sent to hrachanzarlabor@up.edu.ph]