THE MONTH OF AUGUST
By Rudy A. Arizala
When I was a kid, the month of August in Infanta, Quezon or Liliw, Laguna, is the dry season aside from being remembered as the days of upheavals or revolutions such as the "Cry at Pugad-Lawin", of national heroes and the "roar of guns of August." It is a month when we have lots of sunshine that the grass sometimes turn yellowish or brownish in color. But the santol and lanzones trees do not turn yellowish because of the drying leaves but due to their bountiful harvest of golden fruits.
Santol fruit could be eaten when ripe, the slippery seeds having that enticing sweet sour taste. The meat of the santol fruit has that sour taste and eaten with a dash of salt. The meat of the santol fruit is also shredded and cooked with coconut milk mixed with "balaw" or "alamang" (tiny salted shrimps) and eaten as "ulam" or viand. Such native dish is called "sinantol". Try to eat "sinantol" with newly-harvested rice cooked in earthen pot covered on top with "pandan" leaves, and you will remember the "good old days" in Infanta prior to the advent of "electric rice cooker" and gas stove. The santol fruit could also be eaten either as dessert or refreshing drink. The meat and seeds are mixed with water and sugar. It could also be made into marmalade or "matamis na santol".
Lanzones fruits in Liliw, Laguna, are also yellowish in color when ripe and have also sweet-sour taste. But in partaking of the lanzones, be careful not to bite the seeds for they are bitter.
Santol trees in Infanta grow in remote places especially at river banks (Please do not ask me why). While lanzones in Liliw, Laguna, grow under the coconut trees and at the foothills of Mt. Banahaw.
August is generally associated with hot season, prickly dry heat and upheavals. But in rural areas such as in Infanta and Liliw, it is remembered as the month of that refreshing taste of santol fruit and lanzones as well as by the sight of rows and rows of stalls made of dried coconut palm leaves with bamboo tables laden with the golden santol and lanzones fruits being sold by pretty sweet smiling young girls along the winding mountain road from Quezon and Laguna Provinces to Manila.