Indulgences

1. Kakanin

   Kakanin (traditional rice-based sweets)

   Usage

   Glutinous-rice or rice-flour foods, usually with coconut. The sign word for sweets counters in markets or fiestas. Main types: bibingka, coal-baked rice cake; puto, white steamed rice cake; kutsinta, chewy brown steamed cake; suman, sticky rice in banana leaf.

2. Bibingka

   Bibingka (rice cake baked over coals)

   Usage

   Glutinous-rice cake baked in a clay oven with heat above and below, in a banana-leaf-lined clay mould. Traditionally sold outside churches after pre-Christmas dawn masses, Simbang Gabi. Often topped with salted egg itlog na maalat and cheese.

3. Turon

   Turon (banana fried in a spring-roll wrapper)

   Usage

   turón, also lumpiyang saging, is fried saba banana wrapped like lumpiya. Thin saba or cardaba slices in a wrapper, fried with caramelised brown sugar, often with langka, jackfruit. An afternoon merienda stall staple.

4. Halo-halo

   Halo-halo (shaved ice with assorted toppings)

   Usage

   Shaved ice with evaporated or coconut milk, ube halaya, sweetened beans and chickpeas, coconut shreds, sago, gulaman, pinipig, boiled taro or sweet potato, flan and preserved fruit, topped with ube ice cream. An unofficial national dessert. Served in a tall glass; mix thoroughly.

   Grammar Note

   A reduplication of the root halò ("to mix"), i.e. "thoroughly mixed". Reduplication marks intensity, repetition or variety in Filipino, as in kare-kare and sari-sari

5. Kapeng barako

   Kapeng barako (strong Batangas coffee)

   Usage

   kapéng baráko is thick bitter coffee, grown in Batangas and Cavite. barako originally meant a breeding male animal, hence a fearless man. Very strong and bitter; also sold as a souvenir.

6. Sigarilyo

   Cigarette

   Usage

   sigarílyo [from Spanish cigarillo]: "something smoked, made of shredded tobacco rolled in thin paper". ⚠ Smoking is tightly restricted in the Philippines — banned indoors, on public transport and in most eating places, with smoking confined to designated areas. ⚠ The health harm needs no explanation, and it is fine to decline if offered

7. Tabako

   Tobacco / cigar

   Usage

   tabáko, from Spanish tabaco, means a large hairy Nicotiana herb, its dried leaf for cigarettes or chewing, and a large smoking roll, a cigar. Ilocos and Cagayan Valley in northern Luzon are main growers; cigars are souvenirs. Smoking restrictions and health harms apply.

8. Nganga

   Nganga (betel quid)

   Usage

   ngangà means "a chew, usually of buyo and lime (apog) wrapped in an ikmo leaf". Ikmo is the betel leaf (Piper betle), bunga the areca nut (Areca catechu), apog lime burnt from shells. ⚠ The practice is linked to oral cancer, and the lime causes gum recession — it is what turns the saliva red. It survives mainly among older people and in the northern Luzon highlands; it is fine to decline if offered. ⚠ The differently stressed ngangá ("to open the mouth") is a separate word

9. Lambanog

   Lambanog (distilled palm liquor)

   Usage

   lambanóg means "a spirit distilled from the sap of the nipa palm (sasâ) or the coconut". Quezon province is the home of it, and souvenir shops sell it in sealed bottles. ⚠ It runs 40–45% ABV. ⚠ Unregistered production is illegal under Philippine FDA and Department of Agriculture rules. Deaths from methanol poisoning in moonshine or adulterated lambanog occur every year; in December 2019 at least 11 people died and more than 300 were treated in Laguna and Quezon. Buy only sealed bottles from FDA-registered producers and never drink loose pours of unknown origin.

10. Tuba

    Tuba (fermented palm wine)

    Usage

    tubâ is foaming nipa-palm or coconut-sap wine. Lambanog is distilled; tubâ is only fermented, low in alcohol and drunk that day. It becomes vinegar sukà if left. Differently stressed túba is a shrub whose seeds yield croton oil, used medicinally or as fish poison, not a drink. Do not confuse them.

11. Basi

    Basi (sugarcane wine)

    Usage

    bási is sugarcane-juice wine, used in Bikol, Hiligaynon, Ilokano, Kapampangan, Pangasinan and Cebuano areas. Best known as Ilocos wine of northern Luzon, sold in souvenir jars and bottles. Differently stressed basî means iron in Tausug; basì means if in Hiligaynon/Cebuano.

12. Serbesa

    Beer

    Usage

    serbésa is malt liquor from Spanish cerveza. Filipino spelling serbesa changes c to s and v to b. English beer is equally common in speech. Ordered with salty pulutan such as sisig or isaw.

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