Our family always gets together on holidays even though we are not all the same. The foods, at the gatherings are always a mixture of Asian cultures, mostly Japanese and Filipino. As soon as my tata walks through the door, I rush over to him to hug him and of course, to see if he brought my favorite Filipino food, chicharon.
As my dad stands there patiently waiting for the cold water to raise into a boil. He tells me that “First you must boil the pork to soften and cook the meat.” Then all of a sudden the water starts to boil out of the pot and my dad calmly lowers the heat. After he lowered the heat he gently put the pork into the pot to boil. The smell of the pork hit me instantly and so did the memories.
When I was almost to my dad’s waist and starting preschool, I was eagerly waiting for Santa clause to come out and give us all our presents. But then all the delicious food came down and I instantly turned to the food thinking yummy. Waiting for my dad to take me to the dinner line holding all of my relatives. Hanging on to him like my life depended on it while he is asking me what I want. Next thing I know he is putting this fluffy crisp piece of meat on my plate and I ask, “Daddy what is that?” He said with a low and sweet voice, “It is chicharon you will like it.” “Okay, daddy.” Is what I replied to him in my sweet and high voice. Then we went back to sit down and eat. When it came time to eat the food I was closing my eyes trembling with fear. It was getting closer and closer, ohhh no. Then when I took a bite of the meat, it flew right out of my mouth. I thought this is horrible oh my gosh, I will never ever eat this again.
Then a decade later, I waited eagerly to see the people’s faces when they opened my present to them. My attention immediately shifted to the smell of the food. I waited until my dad came with me in line. He is helping me choose what to eat but then he puts this crispy pork thing on my plate. I ask him what is it and he replies, “Oh you will like it trust me.” So I am thinking ok this is something new. I put on the sauce and lift my fork up for the first bite. Then the flavor of the pork just burst in my mouth so I finished my plate and went back for seconds. Later on I found out what it was and it was chicharon, the food that I made a pack to never eat again. From then on I had loved it ever since.
As we finished boiling it, we went had to wait a long hour for the pork to cool off. After the long hour was done, we went into the back yard to fry it in the hot oil. He had a propane tank hooked up on to the burner with a black pan on it to fry. He tells me to stay away so I don’t get burned. As soon as the pork hit the oil it immediately started to sizzle and the oil splattered all over the lawn. There were even explosions of oil popping up every once in a while unexpected. We had to do three rounds to make sure the meat was cook to perfection.
After the explosions of oil were over we again had to wait impatiently for the pork to cool off. Then we went back outside to fry it a second time to make the skin fluffy and crispy. When my dad started heating up the propane burner he put it scorching hot and the oil turned charcoal black whereas the first time we fried it was yellowish golden. But this time instead of an explosion of oil when it met the pork it was calm and small bubbles came up. Instantly, we had to take it out since it was going to burn and the skin was all ready fluffy and crispy and the meat was golden brown whereas before it was a tan color. I was jumping out of my skin waiting to take the first bite but we were not done yet.
We still had to make the sauce. The sauce was made out of bloody red tomatoes and bleach white onions and a hint of patis or fish sauce. Mixed all together we had a killer sauce. As I watched my dad slice through the onion and tomato into small squares all the same size with such precision and swiftness. While he cut I asked him how he learned to cook, he told me that at parties the men always used to cook and the women did the desert and he learned from his dad.
Now that the sauce was done he cut the chicharon into smaller pieces to eat. My mouth was watering at the sight and smell of it. Thinking “Almost done. Almost done.” Of course I had to taste it and the pork (chicharon) was soft and crispy while the sauce added flavor to the whole thing. I had to stop myself from eating more. My dad did a very excellent job on the chicharon.
As we were cleaning up he said to me, “Making chicharon with you today reminded my of the Philippines when I was a little boy watching my dad make it and always getting scoldings for sneaking back in to eat some more while he is cooking.” I am glad I got to learn about this special dish and spend time with my dad.
