Teresa Hilis
When sugar and protein react and the Maillard reaction takes over in the magical melding of flavors, once sticky beige blobs turn into browned mounds of goodness, great for sweet and savory spreads. Waking up to the aroma of freshly baked pandesal might just be someone else’s definition of an ideal morning, but I had my fair share of embittered bouts with the bread of salt as someone who lived in a bakery, that coming to the tang of it slithering through my nostrils brings dread more than zest.
Growing up, our household rarely clapped the lights out before midnight. My mother would do the dinner dishes and last-minute meal prep for tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch while waiting for my father to arrive. My siblings and I would build forts from frayed blankets, stained bedsheets, and pillows heavier than all our weights combined. Amid such childish chaos, my father would arrive. In his hands were four small brown bags, each with exactly two pieces of malunggay pandesal, so that no childish bickering would transpire. We looked past his bloodshot eyes and slouched shoulders, and we savored the tasty treat without regard for the slight shiver of the man’s calloused hands. My mother, refusing to take a bite, saying she already brushed her teeth, would busy herself with ironing all of our uniforms, including my father’s old polo, as we ate. Midnight after midnight, this was our routine. Until 2017, when he was let go from work due to a mass layoff.
Once a clerk in an air-conditioned office, now a baker who stands in front of the blazing heat of the oven all day to cook rolls of dough. Every day of their lives since 2017, they wake up at 3 a.m., their backs do not so much as touch their thinly cushioned bed until 9 p.m.
The worst part is the inescapable fact that every kid of a Filipino small business owner would understand: tending the shop is part of the deal.
For a bakery like ours, it meant more than handing out the bread, receiving payment, and giving change. It also meant taking care of small tasks: preparing the baking sheets, helping with pagpipigura (shaping) and pagkakamada (organizing) of the small cuts of dough, and coating everything with fine bread crumbs to avoid sticking. All of which were, to an extent, enjoyable except for the part where I had to stand near a hot commercial oven.
Perhaps it is enticing when imagined: being the first to smell the aroma of freshly baked pandesal just when the town is rising from its solemn slumbers. It is often forgotten that baking uses dry heat to transform batter into cake and dough into bread. Browning against the crust yet searing against the skin.
Once in the middle of a Sunday morning rush, waves of customers from a nearby church poured in. My parents were out delivering to regulars a few houses away. No pandesal was warm enough to serve and the customers had a strong preference for maputi (without a toasted crust). In batches and finally all at once, they all demanded the same thing.
Taking shortcuts like the lazy kid that I was, I cranked up the oven valve to heat up the pandesal as quickly as I could. Day after day, since we opened shop, I had always found ways to make things easier and never did I ever burn pandesal. Even if I dozed off for a moment, even if I took quick bathroom breaks between batches, I never burned bread, so it was out of what I thought to be the realm of possibilities. Only increasing the flame to extreme levels without care. How was I to know that bread burns when blazed with high flames?
Needless to say, customers left without their brown bags of pandesal and with a thousand apologies from my parents, who returned briefly after the fact. I remember vividly to this day how the silence between my parents and me lingered throughout the day. How, as my father let out the smoke from the oven and the curses from under his breath, my mother burnt her hands trying to inspect the burnt batch for any survivors. There was the stench of seething in the air tussling with the burnt fumes. There was no exchange of words between me and my parents about the incident. Another Sunday for our household, only with way fewer bakery sales than usual.
It took a few years to realize what that loss meant to a home business like us. It took a few years to understand why my parents reacted that way. I expected some reproach, yet received none. Looking back, perhaps I should have insisted on some sort of corporal punishment, as it was easier to overcome physical wounds than to get rid of the guilt in the pit in my stomach.
Those sticky beige blobs and browned mounds of goodness kept the lights on and carried us through difficult times. And while the magical transformation of the aromatic bread of salt may have brought more bitterness than sweetness, now I revisit this old memory with warmth.
