Christmas and Hot Chocolate

From the family where I come from, no Noche Buena is complete without Tita Babie’s hot chocolate.  It is one of  the staples of our clan’s Christmas buffet table together with the Chinese ham and fruit salad.  For two years now, I haven’t tasted this heavenly drink because my family spent last year’s Christmas in Taiwan and this year, there were no cacao beans available for harvest from Bacon, Sorsogon.

While I was eating Chinese ham oozing with pineapple sauce sandwiched between two slices of loaf bread at this year’s Noche Buena, I knew something was amiss.  There was no hot chocolate!  Since I was a little girl, I eat my Christmas ham sandwich by dipping it in a small cup of hot chocolate before chewing it.  The bittersweet taste of the chocolate tempers the salty goodness of the Chinese ham (either Excelente or Adelina’s).  I can forgo all the other food on the table like chicken, pasta, soup, rice cakes, embutido, salad, as long as I have my Christmas ham and hot chocolate.

Cacao Pod

From my knowledge and readings, the hot chocolate I am   crazy about comes from the cacao beans from the cacao or cocoa (in English) pod.  The  beans are dried from which cocoa solids and butter are extracted and form the base of chocolates.  One pod contains 30 to 50 seeds but 400 dried beans are needed to make one pound of chocolate.  The cacao tree is native to South America and grows 20 degrees to the north and south of the Equator.  It was introduced to Europe by the Spaniards and because the Philippines was a former colony of Spain, it also reached our shores.  Though cacao may be native to South America, to be specific, Valenzuela, it is not the leading producer of this crop.  More than 50% of the world production is grown in the Ivory Coast and Ghana.  The beans are exported to the United States, Netherlands and United Kingdom, among others, countries known for their chocolate industries.

Cocoa contains flavonoids that have beneficial cardiovascular effects.  It is a different story though if it is chocolate.  Flavonoids degrade through cooking and with the addition of sugar and milk, chocolate has lost its health benefits.  Oh well, that’s sad.  My hot Christmas chocolate is bittersweet from the sugar that was added and has milk that was used to melt the cacao tablets or tableas in cooking.  Well Christmas only comes once a year.  I can have my fill of this divine drink.

Tableas

 

Love Your Coconut

If the coconut tree is called the “tree of life”, its fruit should be rightfully called the “fruit of life”.  By clicking on the article Coconut:  The Tree of Life, you will know why it is so.  For this post, I will be tackling on the fruit that comes in many names like coconut and buko.

The Bicol region is one of the places in the country where coconuts are abundant.  Huge plantations or farms dot the countryside. It is not surprising that coconuts have become a major ingredient in most Bicol cuisine.

Aside from the different culinary uses of coconut, recent studies have proven of its medicinal value and other benefits.  Do you know that it helps in reducing weight and constipation?  Because of the coconut milk’s high concentration of dietary fiber, one tends to be full at once.  The next time you indulge in Bicol express or ginataang langka, don’t feel guilty anymore but go slow on the rice.  Lol.

The lauric acid that is inherent in coconuts is known to be antiviral, antifungal and antibacterial.  Lauric acid and its derivative, monolaurin, contain properties that destroy HIV and AIDS viruses.

The juice of a young coconut or buko is a rich source of potassium that helps in lowering blood pressure levels and prevents dehydration caused by diarrhea.  When my children were very young, their pediatrician, Dr. Alice Tamesis, would prescribe fresh buko juice for them.  Its cool and refreshing taste is preferred by my children over the hydrating tablets that can be found in pharmacies.

People suffering from rheumatoid arthritis should include viands cooked with coconut milk because of the selenium found in it.  A high level of selenium in the body relieves the symptoms of arthritis.

Diabetics suffer from manganese deficiency brought about by glucose intolerance. Coconut milk is an excellent source of manganese.

People with urinary tract infections could do well by drinking plenty of glasses of buko juice, known to flush out those infections through frequent urinations.

For the men out there, make it a habit to include coconut milk in your viands.  Men who are at risk of having prostate cancer need to shift to a vegan diet of plant oils and fish.  The zinc that is found in coconut milk retards the cancer cells activities.

There are still other health benefits that can be derived from coconut meat, coconut milk and coconut juice.  I won’t be surprised if a lot more will be discovered in the future.  My advise is to include more viands with coconut milk in our daily menu.  For the Bicolanos who gobble laing, Bicol express, pinangat, kinunot, my advise is to start replacing those aging coconut trees by planting now.