Machang Day is east Asia’s annual colorful “Duanwujie” or Dragon Boat Festival, which this year 2021 occurs on June 14. Ever since 2020 lockdown, among the new foods introduced by 82-year-old Kamuning Bakery Café in Judge Jimenez St. corner K- 1st St., Brgy. Kamuning, Quezon City to “delight customers” is its now popular Machang glutinous rice dumplings. “Duanwu” Festival is called in Korean as Dano festival, in Japanese it is called “Tango” and in Vietnamese as “Tet Doan Ngo”.
The Fat Kid Inside food blogger Erwan Heussaff said: “There are a million things you can do with rice. If you want to take things to the next level, you definitely have to try Machang.” The “Wall Street Journal” food writer Fuchsia Dunlop said: 'It's gooey, aromatic and delicious." Also called “zongzi” in Mandarin, “Machang is the Hokkien or south Fujian province language name for this an ancient food created over 2,300 years ago to honor the late great Chinese poet and anti-corruption statesman Qu Yuan (pronounced “Chu Yuan” in Mandarin).
Machang started to be cooked at Kamuning Bakery Café when owner, realty entrepreneur and writer Wilson Lee Flores was bored during lockdown due to closed restaurants, so he asked staff to try cooking it using an old recipe of his late educator mother Mary Young Siu Tin. When he explained it’s “malagkit” or glutinous rice with pork belly, shiitake mushroom and others slow-cooked and then wrapped in lotus or bamboo leaves, the cooks and bakers said they have not yet eaten it and thought it was “suman”. Wilson further explained it’s not sweet suman, but more like savory paella. The talented cooks tried to cook Machang and finally succeeded on the third attempt. Kamuning Bakery Café now cooks four varieties of Machang weekly---Special Chicken Pork Mushroom Machang, Special Double Pork Mushroom Machang, Taochang Special Chicken Pork with Mushroom & Beans (“Tao” is Hokkien for “beans), and Machang Premium (Pork Belly, Chicken, Beans, Mushroom, Hebi & Salted Egg).
No comments:
Post a Comment