Good Friday halo-halo dunked with suman

This is part of my Semana Santa series where I feature rituals and traditions observed in certain places during this solemn week in the Catholic calendar. Click on the image at the right to check the rest of the articles.

The Good Friday procession hasn’t ended yet and it was already 2000H in the evening. The minor carrozas and andas of saints has already arrived back at the church but the Santo Señor Sepulcro‘s bier is still somewhere along the maze of narrow streets of Lucban.

Jason Maceo, my host, and his friends then invited me to have halo halo, that delicious summer treat, while we wait and headed to Salud’s.

Salud is a small place just near the church. A few white topped wooden tables with wooden benches were almost full of people eating their share of the cold treat. And many more were still queuing to place their order. Fortunately, our group, seven of us, were able to find an empty table, took our seats and placed our order which is now at P35.

The halo halo arrived on a tray, a medium sized and ordinanary glass, not those fluted and curved receptacles that I’ve been used to in some joint. But it was familiar: sweet ingredients at the bottom, shaved ice on top and a drip of evaporated milk made its mark on the ice shaving’s top. A sliver of ube halea, sweetened and mashed purple yam on top is de rigueur.

Unsweetened suman, steamed rice cakes wrapped in banana leaves were then served. At first, I thought that this was just an accompaniment, but to my amazement, the guys dunked slices of it to the halo halo after unwrapping it!

We do this all the time. That’s how we eat it here

One of the guys told me. In most other localities, both are eaten separately but here, the suman becomes just one of the ingredients to the halo halo. And it was actually good!

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