The Filipinos love of desserts is created by cultural diversity of each community. Dessert is panghimagas (in Tagalog), saramsam (in Ilocano), palamis (in Pangasinense), and dulse (in HIlingayon). Desserts is consists of baked goods, ice cream, or even party refreshments.
In the Philippines, desserts are already found in the streets such as the famous “dirty ice cream,” halo-halo, mais-con-yelo and even the banana-con-yelo. It also goes with the event such as Christmas occasion desserts puto bungbong and bibingka (found during traditional Christmas midnight masses). The dairy desserts that are prepared like candies: yema, and pastillas and the pasalubong ng bayan which is buko pie (sometimes with different combination of flavors). There is also available sweets such as an all time favorite leche flan, ube (comes from ube yam), gelatin and the newbie which is “lechetin,” a combination of leche flan and gelatin. Another desserts of Filipino people are the palitao, ginataan, turon, and polvoron.
The common denominator with these desserts is its sweetness that comes from sugar. These all natural goodness is delightfully refreshing especially after having a good meal. Aside from sugar there is available evaporated milk and condensed milk which adds to the real taste of each recipe. Coconut is another famous ingredients of desserts, and because it is very abundant in the country, most small scale farmers or agriculturist makes the most of this.
Dessert is a food to ease one’s satiety (suya). It doesn’t have to be nutritionally sound but people cannot live without them. It please the senses in way savories can’t. If no dessert is forthcoming, it feels as though the meal ended abruptly. It is also during dessert that the whole family will be able to talk and make stories of their eventful day. It is also their bonding moment when they are happy with what sweet foods they are eating.
Another good thing about desserts is that they can also be eaten anytime. Most of the time they are served during special occasion or event, but having them on ordinary days is also a reason to celebrate.
