The Cassava Killer aka Balinghoy and the Casanova

Dear mouse,

One of my favorite snacks when I was a kid growing up in the middle of a big farm planted with cassava and sweet potatos was the linupak. This is a delicacy prepared from boiled cassava, sugar, grated coconut and sometimes mixed with banana(saba). This is mashed using the pestle and mortar.

Masarap.

Or my grandma would boil peeled and sliced cassava with brown sugar. We were warned however not to eat food made from cassavas if we do not know who prepared them.

I would see my grandma in the "batalan" with the newly-harvested cassavas sorting them what would be for our food, for the pig and for sale.

One time,I was so hungry that I did not bother to call my lolo(grandpa) to get me a snack.When my mom would visit my dad in the City, she would leave us to our grandparents who pampered us with lots of food from their farm and fishpens.

I went to the kitchen and found this glutinous stuff steaming hot from a big dish.

I tasted it. Uhhhhmmm, good but it was not sweetened. I thought, I would just add some milk and sugar.

My grandma came when I was scooping the stuff with a ladle.

She said: Gusto mo bang tumigas ang bituka mo?

My grandma was using cassava to make "almirol" of the mosquito nets.

Here in the Estet, the favorite "potlock food" is the cassava cake.

One time I chanced upon a lady who was selecting a few pieces of cassava from a box of these tubers.

I told her about the poisonous content of the cassavas.

She said with a grin, " I know that is why I am buying it to prepare a cassava cake for my husband's birthday. I am making extra. I know he would give some to his "querida".

Me: achecheche.

The threat to poison was just a joke by the lady but the querida thing is not.

Me: achecheche.

The Ca t