I knew this aroma. It had been almost twenty years since I last smelled it, but there was no denying the dish in my aunt’s hands.
“Is that . . . is that Mommy’s chicken?” I choked, trying to get the words out.
Tita Rosie set the plate on my desk and handed me an old, stained slip of paper, likely torn off a sticky pad grocery list since it had a fruit-and-vegetable pattern decorating its borders. “I was going through some old boxes and found this.”
She sat on the edge of my bed. “I know you’re having a hard time right now. With the cafe. With the pageant. With a lot of things, honestly. And I know it’s partly because of her. I thought tasting this dish would remind you of the good parts of her, not just the bad.”
My mom hated cooking. As the oldest child of a large, poor family in Tondo, preparing meals for everyone had been her responsibility. Her distaste for the task meant she wasn’t a particularly skilled cook, but that didn’t excuse her from doing her part to take care of the family. Winning the pageant and moving to the U.S. made it so that she had enough money to support them without having to work with her hands anymore. But marrying into a family of cooks was equal parts a blessing and a curse.
She was happy to always have delicious food and not have to worry about cooking to feed her family. But Lola Flor had very different ideas of what would make a good daughter-in-law and wasn’t shy about letting her know. My grandmother got sick of my mom feeding me cereal and instant noodles after school, so she took over all my meals. My mom resented the fact that Lola Flor considered her an inadequate wife and mother since she wouldn’t cook proper meals. So, she perfected this one simple chicken dish for me and I ate it as my afterschool snack every day until she died.
Memories of my excitement at coming home to that plastic container, one that’d originally housed margarine or ice cream or some other product that my family had consumed, leaving behind the vessel for us to reuse until it fell apart, filled my mind. She would usually leave a note as well, reminding me to do my homework or practice my walk or daily singing lesson. I’d carelessly thrown away those notes every day, not realizing how precious they’d be in the coming years.
Looking at the recipe now, written out in her lovely, studied script, I wondered at how she’d packed such delicious childhood memories into such a short ingredient list. The only items on the sheet were chicken legs, soy sauce, and brown sugar. The ingredient list to the tangible example of my mother’s love.
I grinned as I dug into my favorite childhood food. Memories of this dish had carried me through some rough patches, and I waited for the explosion of salty-sweet comfort that had lived on in my memory.
It didn’t come.
Had my palate changed that much since I was a kid? Or did my taste buds hold false memories, overhyping this dish that meant so much to me because it was one of the few happy things I remembered about my mom?
I put down my fork.
“What’s wrong, anak?” My aunt came over and speared a piece of chicken for herself. She chewed it slowly, either experiencing her own sense memories or trying to dissect the flavor.
“It’s not how I remembered it.” My heart clenched so hard, I withdrew into myself, as if tasting that chicken had caused me physical pain.
Tita Rosie put the fork down. “You’re right. Something’s missing.”
“So it’s not just me? I’m not remembering things incorrectly?”
She shook her head, studying the handwritten recipe card she’d put on my bedside table. “You know, your mom was so proud of this recipe. It was the one dish she insisted on preparing instead of me or your lola. Maybe this recipe is incomplete.”
I unfurled from my cramped position, an idea blossoming in my head. “I think you’re right. She was always jealous of you. Maybe she purposely left out some of the ingredients.”
Tita Rosie smiled sadly at that but chose not to comment. “You’re so good at analyzing food to figure out what’s in it. Maybe you can piece together Cecilia’s recipe from memory.”
She hadn’t even finished her sentence before I was out of my chair and heading to the kitchen. Luckily, we always had chicken legs in the fridge and plenty of soy sauce and brown sugar. But what else was in it? The salty sweetness was the dominant flavor, but it was more well-rounded than that. There was a depth and brightness.
Calamansi! My eyes alit on the bottle of citrus juice we kept on hand when we couldn’t find the fresh fruit. That must’ve been what she used. And what else . . .