Lined in the busy highways of Barangay Paulog, Ligao City, Albay are mothers selling rice puto macapuno. For decades, they have not only served warm rice cakes to both locals and tourists. They also offered inspiring stories both as mothers and culinary massons that safeguard the continuance of local traditions and flavors.
The town’s pioneer shop, Alda’s, was also built out of a mother’s love of Dr. Erlinda Rillo’s daughter Maria Jeil Rillo-Martinez revealed. Dr. Rillo was an active researcher and scientist at Philippine Coconut Authority-Albay in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Martinez revealed that rice cakes were used to have the usual sweetened coconut meat called bukayu. Her mother’s love for science coupled with their innovative ways of empowering locals, introduced macapuno as rice puto’s special filling. Thirty years later, the industry thrives to where it is now.
Dr. Rillo’s work also made Bicol the leading region in macapuno production in the country through the coconut embryo culture. With her partner researcher, they introduced it to farmers, helping many families have better income than their usual coconut produce.
Driven by a passion for the coconut industry, Dr. Rillo became particularly fascinated by “kadang-kadang,” a coconut disease. She later came across the studies about macapuno. Recognizing its potential despite limited market presence, she focused her efforts on addressing this challenge.
Love in every bite
Generations after, Charlene Mendoza, one of the vendors selling what is now renowed as the city’s culinary pride, benefit from her innovation. While attending to customers, Mendoza explained how Ligao’s prized culinary signature became so special.
For her, adding love, is the secret to having the best quality of their products. This is coupled with how they faithfully maintained the traditional methods in preparing their products.
Demonstrating how each rice puto macapuno are prepared, she started by mixing the ground rice with sugar. She later put wood chunks in the furnace of the improvised traditional oven. The said oven is made of tin cans and thick slices of pseudostems (banana tree’s stem-like trunks). She molded the mixture using small coconut shells and then filled each with sweetened macapuno. And, finally, it was tied up using banana leaves.
The mixture is cooked using a maintained heat and steam that also provides woody flavor to the rice cakes. It gives the rice cakes distinct and traditional flavors. This process is maintained and replicated from one rice cake to another for all the stalls in the said location.
According to Mendoza, selling their products is the best way she knows how to provide for her toddler. She said that her child loves to eat rice cakes, so she thought about selling it for more people to enjoy the same joy it provides to her child. Mendoza added that, “It’s more than just a meal; it’s something that makes every conversation with loved ones more special.”
Labor of love
Like Mendoza, Hilda Napire, who has been selling the same product for 17 years already, said that by selling rice cakes she was able to send all of her children to college.
She proudly shared how selling rice cakes became very special for her because it was the job that got her children to school. Napire said that more than just earning profit, she treats her work as a labor of love, especially as a mother grateful for the chance to life the rice cakes gave their children.
Napire’s story is just one of countless testimonies of how rice puto makapuno’s sweetness has not only fed tourists but also given local mothers ways they can care for and support their children. These mothers’ stories are just a glimpse into the countless others who have spent decades selling rice cakes, not just to earn a living but to pour their love and tradition into every bite.