SUEZ CANAL: DR.

JOS RIZAL AND HIS PADALAS

POSTED: Saturday, February 23rd, 2013
http://islandsentinel.com/2013/02/23/suez-canal-dr-jose-rizal-and-his-padalas/

Another effect of the shortened time and travel distance through the Suez Canal
from the Philippines to Spain is the accessibility of trade goods. For the expatriate
community like Rizal, trade goods can only mean padala of specialized Philippine
food. This must be understood by examining three things:
1. The Filipinos in Spain are always hungering for Filipino food. No doubt about that.
In fact whenever they have get- together, they most often serve Filipino dishes:
lechon, pancit, adobo.
2. The opening of the Suez Canal shortened the time for food transport. It has
become easy to have neatly packaged and air-tight-sealed native delicacies not to
spoil and prolong its travel- life.
3. And most importantly, today, as it was during Rizals time, the Filipino syndrome
of padala was a common trait.
Lets peek into one of Rizals letters. Reporting on political doings and proposing
social solutions within their circlethe Circulo-hispano filipino in Madrid, in the next
paragraph he suddenly goes left field into a request for food!!!
Sanciangco is going there and plans to return very soon. If you want to send me
something, through him, you can do so, such as sweets, jellies, bagoong, pickled
mangoes, tamarind
In-house stories tell (source: my father who heard his uncle Dr. Maximo Viola relate
this story) that Rizals bagoong clay jar broke during the passage at the Suez Canal.
The sustained stink it created, mixed up with the salty-desert air, must have
contributed to the erosion of the 2,500 year old sphinxes that lined the river Nile
banks.
Meanwhile, Rizal is undaunted. In another instance, through Paterno this time,
Rizals bagoong was prepared air-tight and sealed properly. We know this because of
another letter thanking them for their food padala and more request for various
food ingredients.
In one of Saturninas letters, she complains that fruits are so scarce that she was
not able to make preserves. However, shes sending him guava jellies instead. She
adds that through the next one who will go there (of course through padala), she
ordered hand-woven pia embroidered handkerchiefs from Lipa.
We also learn that Rizal, paying court to Consuelo Ortiga y Perez, (the lovely
daughter of Don Pablo Ortiga the house owner where the Circulo hispano-filipino is
held) gave a present of hand-embroidered pia handkerchiefs.
Rizal receives (through padala parcels that he orders) all kinds of noodles, (he must
be cooking pancit), and esoteric Filipino ingredients like angkak not available in
Madrid. What is that for? I wonder if he must be preparing a lot of buro food!!!

Its interrelated: the opening of the Suez Canal and the exporting of specialized
gustatorial support for the Filipino expatriates in Europe.
By Penelope V. Flores