The Storms of Memory
I remember the darkness after the typhoon – the electricity gone, the skies strangely clear, and the smell of woodsmoke rising from neighbors’ kitchens. In late 1980s Marinduque, typhoons were an expected seasonal visitor, albeit a feared one. When a big bagyo (storm) passed, it left a familiar scene: fallen banana plants, uprooted gabi and camote, and coconut palms with their crowns snapped off. Amid the wreckage, our community would find its food for survival. The old folks would always say, “May makakain pa rin tayo” (We still have something to eat), as they scavenged for whatever the storm had strewn about. In those moments, food became more than sustenance – it was comfort, memory, and a testament to resilience. As Filipino food writer Doreen Fernandez observed, “Food to the Filipino is history. It is also bond, culture, and identity.”[1]. After a typhoon, this truth was felt in every shared meal cooked from the debris of our farms.
Ginataang Saging sa Asin (Banana in Coconut Milk with Salt)
One cherished post-typhoon dish was siroy (ginataang young saba with salt) – young and unripe saba bananas cooked in coconut milk, seasoned simply with a pinch of salt. In our barrio, this was both creative necessity and tradition. When a typhoon’s winds knocked down clusters of saba bananas before they could ripen, we refused to let them go to waste. The green bananas, firm and starchy, became a substitute for rice or root crops. My mother and uncle would peel and slice them, while I helped grate coconuts to extract fresh gata (coconut milk). With a bit of ginger and a dash of salt, the bananas simmered in creamy coconut sauce until tender. There was no sugar – unlike the usual sweet ginataang saging dessert – because in those times sugar was a luxury we didn’t have. Instead, we treated the banana like a vegetable, much as we would cook jackfruit or banana blossom in savory coconut stew. The result was hearty and satisfying: the bananas turned soft and rich with gata, their mild sweetness heightened by the salt, a comforting porridge-like meal that filled our bellies on an empty day.
Nilagang saging (boiled saba bananas) – a simple rural comfort often prepared after storms. In Visayas communities, boiled unripe saba are dipped in salty fish paste as a filling snack[2][3].
In fact, boiling unripe saba is a common practice across the Philippines in times of scarcity. It is usual food after a typhoon, noted one cooking blog, both because food is scarce and because “a lot of fruit-bearing banana plants may have been knocked down”[3]. In the Visayas, folks would simply boil the green bananas (often with skin on) and dip each bite into ginamos or bagoong (fermented fish paste) for flavor[2]. That was their pantawid-gutom – literally “to bridge hunger” – a stopgap meal to stave off an empty stomach. Our ginataang saba sa asin in Marinduque was a similar hunger bridge, but with the benefit of coconuts abundant on our island. Coconut milk turned the plain boiled bananas into something reminiscent of a proper dish. Even with no meat or fancy spices, it tasted like sustenance and memory. Every spoonful evoked for me a feeling of safety – as if the storm outside could be temporarily forgotten, replaced by the warmth of family crowded around a pot of ginataan. Banana and coconut, two staples known to Filipinos for generations, proved once again why the coconut is called the “tree of life” in the Philippines[4] and why humble crops like saba are literally lifesavers in lean times.
Ulang-Ulang: The Soup of Storms
If the coconut tree is the tree of life, a typhoon ironically granted it new life in our kitchens. One particular Marinduque delicacy came about only when the winds felled a coconut palm: ulang-ulang soup. This dish – a sour coconut and shrimp soup – was so tied to storms that we rarely tasted it except in a typhoon’s aftermath. As one Marinduqueña food chronicler explains, “This specific dish called Ulang-Ulang…is actually a survival food and we only get to taste it after a huge storm when every ingredient comes together.”[5]. The key ingredients were not normally easy to obtain: ubod (the tender palm heart from a coconut tree) and ulang (freshwater river shrimp). A day or two after a big typhoon, however, nature provided. Coconut trees that fell or had to be cut down for safety yielded their precious ubod – the creamy white core hidden inside the trunk, a delicacy we’d otherwise never dare harvest. And in the flooded rice fields and swollen rivers, my father and neighbors could catch ulang, the native prawns, flushed out by the heavy rains. It was as if the storm itself wrote the recipe.
In our barrio in the late 1980s, I remember wading with Tatay in the muddy river, a makeshift lantern in hand, netting a few wriggling ulang. Back home, Nanay prepared the ubod. This was laborious – she’d strip the fibrous layers of the coconut palm heart to get to the tender core, slicing it into thin julienne. She joked that the storm did the hard part for us (bringing the coconut tree down) – otherwise, cutting a coconut tree without permission was illegal, a remnant law from when coconut plantations were protected by the state[6]. By noon the next day, a fire was crackling under a pot. Into it went onions, garlic, and a bit of ginger sautéed in oil. The cleaned shrimp were added, turning bright orange, and then the shredded ubod. We poured in water, creating a rich broth. The defining flavor was sour: someone had foraged some fruits of alugihib (a wild sour plum leaf) or kamias, or simply squeezed a dozen calamansi into the pot. This gave the soup a light asim (tang) like a mild sinigang. Salt and chili leaves went in last. The whole neighborhood knew we had ulang-ulang by the aroma wafting around – sweet briny shrimp, nutty coconut heart, and citrusy sour broth dancing together.
We shared bowls of this precious soup with our neighbors, each of us sipping the broth gratefully. Every ingredient told a story of the storm: the coconut tree that had fallen in our yard, the shrimp from a river that used to teem with life. (In earlier years, Marinduque’s Mogpog River was full of ulang until mining pollution took its toll[5].) The soup was both sustenance and celebration – a reminder that even disaster could yield something nourishing. In Marinduque cuisine, ulang-ulang actually has two faces: the version we made (prawn and coconut soup), and another version of ulang-ulang which is a crab dish (stuffed land crabs cooked in coconut milk)[7][8]. But it was the soup that lived in our family’s memory as “the soup of storms.” Neighbors would remark with a smile that “nakagawa kayo ng ulang-ulang” (you were able to make ulang-ulang) – implying that a big storm must have hit for us to gather all those rare ingredients. And indeed, without the typhoon’s destructive power, we would not be feasting on coconut heart at all. Food anthropologists note how local knowledge turns adversity into advantage: after Typhoon Yolanda in 2013, for instance, people noted that millions of felled coconut palms meant an sudden abundance of ubod, potentially “at least 3 million kilos of ubod” across the Visayas[9]. Our ancestors similarly knew to salvage what they could – finding the “silver lining” in a storm-torn coconut tree by harvesting its edible core[10]. Ulang-ulang soup is our Marinduque proof of this wisdom, a dish born from scarcity that tastes like community and hope.
Buko and Sardinas: Creativity in a Can
Perhaps the most inventive post-typhoon dish I recall was one that might sound odd to those who never experienced it: buko sautéed with sardines. Buko refers to young coconut meat – the soft, jelly-like flesh of an immature coconut. In normal times, buko is for refreshing juice or desserts, but in the wake of a typhoon, it became an emergency vegetable. I first encountered ginisang buko at a neighbor’s house after a severe storm around 1989. Tita Miding invited us over, saying cheerfully, “May ulam kami – buko at sardinas!” (We have viand – coconut and sardines!). We children giggled, thinking it was a joke. Coconut and sardines? But as we crowded into their dim kitchen, the scent of garlic and onions frying in oil convinced us this was serious.
On the table was a pile of shredded buko meat – likely scraped from fallen young coconuts that had been collected that morning. There was also the ubiquitous canned sardines in tomato sauce, a staple of Filipino households and disaster relief packs alike. With deft hands, Tita Miding sautéed garlic, onions, and a thumb of ginger, then added the buko strips, stirring until they sizzled. She poured in the contents of the sardine can, tomato sauce and all, mashing the fish a bit so it flaked into the coconut shreds. A splash of patis, a chili if available, and a little water followed. The mixture simmered for a few minutes, and then it was done – ginisang buko at sardinas, served hot over rice (if you were lucky to have rice; if not, eaten on its own). This is absolutely delicious. The buko strips had a mild sweetness and a chewy, noodle-like texture that absorbed the rich tomato and fish flavors of the sardines. In fact, I later learned that using buko as a substitute for noodles or vegetables isn’t unheard of in Filipino cooking. In Quezon and Laguna provinces, there is pancit buko, where thin coconut strips stand in for pancit noodles in a stir-fry[11]. During World War II and other hard times, families often turned to coconut meat as an extender or replacement for staples. Here in our typhoon-hit village, that knowledge persisted: young coconut could fill the pot when other vegetables were wiped out.
The combination of coconut and canned sardines was truly a child of circumstance. Sardines, being non-perishable, were often the only protein available after a storm – either from relief goods or stored pantry stock. Many Filipinos have comforting memories of ginisang sardinas (sautéed sardines with garlic and onions) as a quick meal. Tita Miding’s genius was adding buko, which transformed a single humble can of fish into a large enough sauté to feed a family and neighbors. What might have been a thin, soupy dish of plain sardines became a hearty stir-fry brimming with coconut strips. This is how local communities turn scarcity into shared meals: by extending flavors and stretching ingredients, making sure everyone gets a bite. I recall us children slurping up the sauce-soaked buko as if it were pasta. The adults joked that we were having an “improvised spaghetti,” and indeed the coconut strands were as long as noodles. We certainly didn’t feel like we were eating “relief food” – it felt inventive and oddly celebratory. To this day, the taste of sardines still reminds me of those post-typhoon gatherings. It’s a flavor of camaraderie – a tin of fish and a fallen coconut, elevated by nothing more than garlic, heat, and bayanihan spirit.
Scarcity and Sharing Across the Archipelago
Our Marinduque experiences were unique in their details, yet they echo countless stories across the Philippine archipelago. In every region, people have developed typhoon survival food practices that reflect local produce and culture, turning meager supplies into communal sustenance. In Eastern Visayas, for example, Waray families traditionally boil unripe bananas or sweet potatoes after a cyclone, sharing slices of nilagang saging with a dab of salt or fish paste to keep hunger at bay[2][3]. In Bicol, where storms are frequent, households rely on hardy root crops like taro and cassava; a simple linubian (boiled cassava or taro in coconut milk) can become a filling meal when rice paddies are flooded. Upland communities have their own catalog of famine foods – wild yams, dried bananas, even field snails. Anthropologists note that indigenous Filipinos pass down knowledge of wild edible roots for crisis times: the Teduray people of Mindanao, for instance, resort to a poisonous yam called kayos during extreme droughts, carefully detoxifying it to eat and survive[12]. While typhoons and droughts are different threats, the underlying ethos is the same: in hardship, use what nature still provides – be it a windfall of bananas, a felled coconut palm, or a flush of river shrimp – to fill empty stomachs.
Just as important as the ingredients is the spirit of community sharing. There is a Filipino term, bayanihan, which captures the collective unity in times of need. After a typhoon, I witnessed bayanihan constantly: neighbors pooling resources and cooking in one house with a functional stove, or families taking turns to host meals for those whose homes were damaged. Food was always the centerpiece of recovery. “Tara, kain tayo!” (Come, let’s eat!) – someone would call out to whoever was nearby when a pot of porridge or kalabasa (pumpkin stew) was ready. We understood that eating together not only filled bellies but also lifted spirits. This tradition of communal cooking runs deep. In fact, even modern disaster responders observe that “community kitchens are natural to us”, noting that every barangay (village) traditionally had cooks mobilized for fiestas and emergencies alike[13]. In the absence of outside aid, the community became its own soup kitchen. Each person contributed what they had – a cup of rice, a bundle of kamote, a few dried fish – and in exchange, everyone got a share of a warm meal. Scarcity became an occasion for solidarity.
I recall that in one particularly bad storm in the early ’90s, when relief was slow to arrive, the women of our sitio organized what we jokingly called a “tiyangge sa kusina” (kitchen bazaar). It wasn’t commerce at all, but a system where each family brought one ingredient to a communal pot: one brought mongo beans, another brought malunggay leaves, another some salt and oil, another a solitary dried fish. With a bit of everything, a nourishing munggo stew was cooked and ladled out to all. There was laughter amid the tragedy, as we compared it to our normal fiesta feasts. Perhaps it wasn’t lechon or morcon, but it was the best meal in the world that day because we made it together. In these shared meals, we found normalcy and hope. As Doreen Fernandez so insightfully put it, food in the Filipino context is a bond – it ties people together, reinforcing community identity especially in crisis[1].
Foodways of Resilience and Memory
Looking back now, decades later, I realize how layered our typhoon foods were with meaning. As a child, I simply found comfort in their taste and the coziness of family gathered around a kerosene lamp, slurping ginataang saba or ulang-ulang soup. But through the lens of history and culture, I see that we were living a legacy. The Philippines, an archipelago battered by dozens of storms every year, has developed a cuisine of resilience. Our forebears learned to transform famine into feast – at least psychologically – by creating dishes that could make the poorest ingredients delicious and nourishing. Every province has its own such dishes, yet there is a shared narrative: the resourcefulness with coconut, the reliance on root crops and bananas, the clever stretches of a small can of protein. These are not just recipes; they are survival strategies encoded in our foodways. They are why, even in the worst of times, Filipinos will still manage to say, “Kain tayo” (Let’s eat), extending an invitation to join in whatever little there is.
Marinduque, known as the “Heart of the Philippines” for its shape and central location, offered a microcosm of these practices. In our island province, we cherished the post-typhoon dishes as part of our cultural identity. Ginataang young saba with salt , the simplest pairing of fruit and salt in creamy coconut made me a fan of that sweet-salty duality of life. Ulang-ulang soup connected us to the land and waters, a literal taste of our environment responding to nature’s whims. Buko sautéed with sardines revealed creativity without boundaries, mixing the old (coconut from our trees) with the new (tinned fish from the sari-sari store) to forge something uniquely ours. These foods turned disaster into a kind of shared ritual – we mourned what we lost in the storm, but we also quietly celebrated what we still had: each other.
As I write this essay in the voice of that Filipino child now grown, I can still taste those memories. The faint heat of ginger in banana-gata porridge, the sour kiss of ulang-ulang broth on my tongue, the rich umami of sardines clinging to coconut strips – they are all vivid and alive. They remind me of a specific time and place but also of a larger continuity. My grandmother’s stories hinted at similar experiences during World War II evacuations: they survived on boiled kamoteng kahoy (cassava) and coconut, scraping by until better days came. Today, when I see news of another typhoon hitting some part of the Philippines, I think of the families who will, in the next days, gather around humble cooking fires and do as we did – make do and make meaning through food. They will boil saba bananas, or cook lugaw (rice porridge) if rice survived, or invent a new ginisa from whatever the relief truck delivers. They will feed each other, swapping jokes and recipes, finding solace in communal resilience. And in that act, they continue the legacy of turning scarcity into shared meals, of asserting that we will eat together, and therefore we will survive together.
In the end, these post-typhoon food traditions are stories of hope written in rice bowls and coconut shells. They show a broader history of Philippine food culture – one that is deeply adaptive, bound by social ties, and rich in ingenuity. We have an old saying, “Kapag may isinuksok, may madudukot,” if you stow something away, you can pull something out in times of need. In our case, it wasn’t just about stored goods, but stored knowledge and solidarity. The late Doreen Fernandez, whose writings inspire this reflection, illuminated how our food is an expression of our collective memory and creativity. She could have been speaking of a simple typhoon meal when she noted that what we eat is a product of history, shaped by land, season, and necessity[14]. Our ginataang saba, ulang-ulang, and ginisang buko were precisely that – born of the land and season (and the fury it sometimes unleashed), shaped by necessity into something culturally meaningful. These dishes, humble as they are, anchor me to my community and to the larger story of my people. They remind me that even after the fiercest storm, we find our strength in sharing food and stories, restoring not just our bodies but our faith in life’s simple abundance.
In Marinduque of my youth, once the winds settled and the floods receded, the kitchen became our sanctuary. Around each improvised feast, we laughed, reminisced, and planned the next day’s rebuilding. In those bowls and plates, we tasted hardship, yes, but also tasted the love and perseverance that define Filipino foodways. A visitor might have seen just a pot of boiled bananas or a strange coconut soup, but to us it was heritage and heart – a testament that we endured, we helped one another, and we would live to see the next harvest. Each spoonful was a quiet victory over hunger and despair. And every typhoon season since, when I cook these dishes in remembrance, I am back in that communal circle, slurping and smiling under the kerosene glow, knowing that the true flavor in all these foods is the flavor of hope.
Sources: Historical and cultural context drawn from Philippine food literature and ethnography, including Doreen G. Fernandez’s essays on Filipino cuisine[1]. Archival references to post-typhoon food practices such as boiling unripe bananas after storms[3] and utilizing fallen coconut palms for ubod (palm heart)[10] support the narrative. Marinduque-specific dishes like ulang-ulang soup are documented as a survival food only made after big storms[5], highlighting local ingenuity. These examples, alongside accounts of communal cooking (bayanihan) in disaster situations[13], situate the personal memories within the broader context of Philippine resiliency and shared foodways.
[1] [14] Article | The way we eat 140 | CREATEPhilippines: Promoting Philippine Creative Industries
https://www.createphilippines.com/article/the-way-we-eat-140
[2] [3] Nilagang Saging na Saba at Bagoong
https://www.overseaspinoycooking.net/2018/10/nilagang-saging-na-saba-at-bagoong.html
[4] Coconut – Wikipedia
[5] Taste Marinduque: Try Ulang Ulang Ubod Soup with Crayfish for an Explosion of Flavors! ~ Relax Lang Mom
[6] [10] When Storms Fell Coconut Palms… – Market Manila
[7] [8] 12 Amazing Marinduque Food You Should Try! | EAZY Traveler
[9] ‘Coconut is not called the tree of life for nothing’ | Inquirer Opinion
https://opinion.inquirer.net/66529/coconut-is-not-called-the-tree-of-life-for-nothing
[11] Pancit buko – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancit_buko
[12] Indigenous peoples eat poisonous root crop amid dry spell
[13] Feeding the masses when disaster strikes in the Philippines – Los Angeles Times
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