On comfort food, makeshift meal and drink
It was early in the morning when I was preparing myself for breakfast, and the what I am preparing was mostly instant ones-of sausages in can, of instant pancit canton noodles, and even frying an egg to complete the meal plus a hot chocolate for drink.
And as I started eating that instant breakfast fare, it seems that anything around from the ones inside the can to the plastic foil is in an instant-creating a series of makeshift meals in which trying to replace slow ones despite having lack of some basic nutritional content according to the recommended dietary allowance just because it was mass made, fortified with supplimentary ones and being prepared in an instant.
Same as in comfort food, in the sidewalks of Recto lies an array of comfort foods, or in laymen's term street foods that makes students and even the stowaways enjoying it-from a fishball worth 50 cents to a chickenball woth a peso somehow gives a mouthful appetite to them, and with a plastic glass of coconut water worth ten or a dirty ice cream coming from a sorbetero woth five to quench their thirst after day's work or a long walk. Somehow these comfort foods, like those from the can and in the plastic foil gives cheap but simple pleasure, and a means to enjoy oneself.
How about drinks?From Coconut water, sago't gulaman to the soda and ice-cold coffee lies the array of drinks that seemed enjoying to the people as a non-alcoholic alternative. Like beer or hard drinks, especially brandy, these softdrinks somehow is also a means to bind friendship and solidarity to other men aside from quenching one's thirst. And even a cheap means to complete the meal alongside the Nawasa juice (water).
Anyway,
Despite all of these, better not to forget a well balanced diet. These comfort, makeshift, and instant meals are not consumed in a daily basis although it is cheaper to buy with. These kind of foods and drinks we see in the streets are no match from the Ulam and kanin freshly cooked in our bahays courtesy of our loving nanays to give us a healthy meal and a means of love for us.
