WOULD I LIKE TO see the old way of making noodles for mami?
That wasn’t a question but an invitation. Ivan Man Dy who conducts tours of Chinatown (tel. 0917-329-1622; e-mail fun@oldmanilawalks.com; visit www.oldmanilawalks.com) dangled that as one of the stopovers.
It was at the last stop of a whole-day trekking and food sampling through Binondo. We entered Masuki to be shown just how in the upstairs kitchen.
It was only later that the restaurant name in a way connected to the way the noodle is made. While “Ma” is the family name of the owners, suki means pony. And the long wooden contraption like a rounded oar is called the kabayo.
The way the mami-maker kneaded the batter is to ride one end of the kabayo while the other end is held steady by a vertical wooden bar nailed to the wall. The other end is ridden so that the man seems like he is on a galloping horse. This improvised kneader travels, from one end of the table to the other in a galloping motion.
Added information was on the walls of the restaurant. The original name of the restaurant was Makong, kong meaning a big horse. Naturally, when the children took over, it became Masuki.
While that was amusing, the best part of the tour was the ingenious way to knead a big amount of batter without electricity or modern equipment. The restaurant, however, has switched to a modernized pasta maker to flatten the batter then cut portions into strips.
Anthony Bourdain in his TV show “No Reservations” was shown a bamboo version in Hong Kong. I was glad we have our own.
The ipisan is another cool tool. It’s made of long wood pieces and is used to extract a big amount of coconut cream and milk. And we found it in Bicol, specifically in the town of Camalig, Albay, which is known for making the best pinangat in the province.
Those are packets of gabi (taro) leaves that contain the recado within, a mixture of coconut cream, minced ginger, garlic, chili and shrimp paste.
The ipisan is a lever where a bundle containing the grated coconut with some water is placed at one end where the fulcrum is. At the opposite end, a person jumps on the lever to bring it down and squeeze the bundle on the other end. Several jumps and the job is done.
I just had to try it because it looked like fun and brought me back to my seesaw days. It’s relatively safe because you hold on to a bar so you keep your balance. It’s difficult to slip unless you have no coordination skills because you jump with your feet sans shoes or slippers.
Still another interesting equipment was what we found in a Camalig bakery. It can be called a manual mixer, also made of wood. A rope is coiled once around the handle of a beater which moves by holding two ends of the rope then pulling one end backward which will move the opposite end forward. What is forward is pulled backward and so on and so on. It’s like being on the elliptical in the gym but only the hands are moving.
This particular bakery run by the Marquez family makes the marcasotes, a bread that resembles the Italian pannetone because the batter is contained in a handmade paper bag and once baked, the bread rises to a foot high.
The oven is made of clay that looks like the Ilocos burnay jar. Cut banana stalks line the bottom of this clay oven because it provides the steam that will cook the bread. The marcasotes is like puto and is eaten during breakfast or merienda.
My first visit to Bohol years ago included a tour of bakeries that make the famous broas (lady fingers). So while they had partially mechanized the mixer using a small motor to move a long thin bamboo handle connected to a paddle that mixes the batter in a pail, without electricity the handle is moved by hand. What I remember of the wood-burning oven is the grills holding the baked broas as it toasted, the last step in the process. Those were made of coconut leaf midribs.
It wasn’t apparent to me at first look but when I was told, that was such a “wow” moment.
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