![]() Historically, the tuber sustained Boholanos during periods of famine and war, and local folklore talked about kissing an ube whenever it fell to the ground as a sign of respect. Interested in finding out more about ube’s origins, she learned about its significance to the people in the central province of Bohol, the country’s largest ube producer. She currently resides in the Philippines and it wasn’t until a month ago, when she visited her cousin in the province of Nueva Vizcaya, that she saw fresh ube for the first time. ![]() Jessica Hernandez, whose newsletter Meryenda looks at Filipino food through a second-generation Filipino-American lens, grew up in Carson, a city in California with a large Filipino population. Her signature: an ube chiffon cake topped with a layer of leche flan.īut for those who are seeing ube for the first time on their phones, there’s a responsibility of not reducing the crop to a trendy colour like millennial pink, the pale pink colour that dominated decor and trickled down to food trends in the last decade. In addition to ube white hot chocolate, ice cream sandwiches and macarons, she makes a white chocolate ube sans rival cake, a riff on the layered cashew, buttercream and meringue cake by using ube-flavoured sponge cake, buttercream, fudge and streusel. “Most of us are taking those flavours we knew as treats growing up and putting our take on it.” “I’ve met a few of the other Filipino bakers (in the city), and I’m getting so excited that we’re all trying to do the same thing,” said Marquez. Pastry chef Caroline Marquez of Asukal Desserts started her bakery around the start of the pandemic and her treats can be found in Kensington Market’s 6x8 Market and through her Instagram account, She said ube pairs well with the sweeter flavours of white chocolate and coconut in baking applications. “But if you’re Filipino, it brings the nostalgia.” “It’s the colour that first gets you if you’re a non-Filipino, like the charcoal trend a few years ago when people were lining up for that ice cream,” Cancino said. “The way Filipinos have adjusted and transformed ube into all these permeations, maybe that’s a reflection of the people’s capacity to make the most of what they have and see where that can go,” said Alli.Īt midtown Toronto’s Mineral, chef Daniel Cancino uses ube extract to flavour (and colour) his delicate and jiggly leche flan, which is finished with pops of caramelized white chocolate and miso crumble, crispy rice, compressed fruit and dots of hibiscus and passion fruit gel. Until then, she’s enjoying the creative ways ube is being used. Even there, she said, ube wasn’t something typically found in the produce sections of the supermarkets in big cities.īut, she said, she hopes ube’s global popularity will lead to the raw tuber being shipped to Canada one day so that people can grow more familiar with the crop. Nastasha Alli, research and engagement co-ordinator for food tourism organization Culinary Tourism Alliance and host of the Exploring Filipino Kitchens podcast, spent her teenage years in the Philippines. “I remember when you get an ube, you start grating it right away for halaya and the process would take hours.” “When I grew up, we’d eat sweet potatoes or cassavas with salt and sugar, but no one ate ube on its own,” said Joyce, adding that coming across frozen packs of it grated when she came to Canada was a big time saver. Ube is often processed for desserts rather than roasted and eaten plain like sweet potato. It is usually frozen and shredded, powdered or bottled in extract form. Most cooks buy ube shipped from overseas. Underneath, the flesh can range from creamy white to lilac and deep purple, depending on the variety. The vine-grown tuber has a thick, fibrous and barklike skin similar to taro root or cassava, which is the easiest way to distinguish it from a sweet potato. It’s also grown in Vietnam where it’s used for sweet and savoury dishes. Ube (look up its scientific name dioscorea alata for more accurate photo results) is believed to originate in the tropics of Southeast Asia. ![]() I did, in fact, mistakenly buy sweet potatoes thinking they were ube. ![]() ![]() Often, the more common American purple sweet potato gets mislabelled as ube in stores. Despite ube’s superstar status, further propelled by two years of the pandemic, which saw a rise in staring at phones and home baking, fresh ube is a rarity in Canada and odds are most people have never seen one.Ī call to the trade office at the Philippine Consulate General in Toronto confirmed this is because of the local and global demand outpacing production in the Philippines. ![]()
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