Kalamay Story

We were about to go home when my older brother-in-law decided that we spend another day in Quezon so that we could eat Kalamay. Kalamay is a native cake made from ground sticky rice, sugar, butter, pandan and  (liters of sweat) cooked in coconut milk.

Now, all I know about Kalamay is the ten peso slice that I buy from bilao carrying vendors that sells them. I have eaten a couple of slice but I have never seen how it was made. Well, I have seen glimpses how it was made by my in-laws, but I have never paid that much attention to it until now.

 I know how sumans are made because my late grandmother sold them for living. My mother also cooked bico, but bico is whole grain sticky rice cooked in coconut milk it also requires a lot of stirring but unlike the Kalamay, it is not ground and not as sticky as Kalamay. 

Anyway...here are pictures of how Kalamay is cooked:

My bilas Arman (my wife's sister's husband) was cooking brown sugar in coconut milk. On the left were ground sticky rice made into balls by my mother-in-law. I thought they were making humungous kariokas, but she explained that that was how Kalamay was made. They were shaped into balls to better absorb the caramel-coconut milk mixture...whatever. On the right was my brother in law's prominent belly--obviously from the thousand of beer bottles and other liquors drank. Ramil, my brother-in-law, is an very nice guy.

Nanay Norma, my mother -in-law, putting the sticky rice balls into the boiling caramel-coconut milk mixture.

Here was the fun part: the stirring and the mixing. The stuff was so sticky that it took  my brother-in-law Ramil and bilas Arman, two "muscled" men, with paddles made from coconut stem to mix it to the desired consistency. 

My mother-in-law and my sister-in-law Melda had to hold the talyasi so that it would not tip over. I was not able to help because of the smoke coming from the fire would trigger my asthma.

My mother-in-law pouring oil into the bana leaves so that the Kalamay would not stick. Traditionally bilao was used but since we could not find any bilao, my mother-in-law used an aluminum basin covered with banana leaves. Banana leaves added flavor to it.

                                             

Having fun with the paddles.

We were not able to eat the Kalamay because it was still hot and we were scheduled to leave at two in the afternoon. It was decided that we would just bring it along with us and we would divide it per family once we reach Calamba, Laguna where my other sister-in-law lived. But we were so tired that we forgot about the Kalamay until we were near Calamba, Looking for it, we found out it was under the luggage and was stepped on many times by the children that we thought it was already sticking on the van's floor. Fortunately the Kalamay survived the trip to Calamba and then to Cainta and we were able to enjoy it long after we were home.