Philippine Food and their Meanings
We Filipinos love to eat. We take merienda (afternoon), and enjoy rice-based snacks (kakanin). I recently found out, however, that some of the terms we use have quite a different meaning in aother language…
For example: mamon (light and airy sponge cakes), puto (steamed muffins), and panutsa (liquid brown sugar).
If you check out Jim Paredes’ Home again, workshop again, diving again and… you’ll find out what those words mean in Mexico.
The meanings are embarrassingly different, yet you can still find some connection with eating and drinking. Perhaps there’s some truth to Jim’s thoughts about our colonizers teaching us the “wrong” words.
Does anyone know the etymology of the words mamon, puto, and panutsa (as they are used in the Philippines)?
[Found out about this because of a Twitter exchange between @sassylawyer and @jonijavier]
First posted on Sunday, 13 Sep 2009
« « Affiliate Marketing Pitfall| Scary Pinoy Horror Characters » »
Manuel,
I’ve always suspected our colonizers were having such callous fun at the expense of our grandparents. Yes, it would be hilarious to blurt out these words in the presence of foreigners (Hispanics). But I think it’s a basic (if juvenile) frailty of people (not just the Spaniards) to get a cheap laugh out of foreigners trying to learn one’s language. I remember some classmates back in college, who had a ball teaching dirty Visayan words to a couple of Korean exchange students. And I thought all along that “mamon” was Chinese.
Manny
Hi Tukayo! I guess it’s human nature to have a bit of “language tutorial” fun. You should see some of the Tagalog “lessons” posted in YouTube.
(Have you dined in Mamonluk?)
I have a pen pal from the philipenes and wanted to know how to talk to them and this site helped alot!!!!
thanx!