The Best of the Summer"Halo-Halo"

Halo-halo (from "halo" = mix) is a favorite Filipino dessert or snack. It is basically a mixture of sweet preserved beans(red beans, chick peas), coconut meat (macapuno), jackfruit (langka), pounded dried rice (pinipig), sweet yam (ube), cream flan (leche flan), shreds of sweetened plantain (saba), filled with crushed ice, milk (or coconut milk) and topped with ice cream. The halo-halo basically is sweet, creamy, and a filling dessert. 

This Filipino concoction is quite popular during the hot summer months (March-June) in the country, just as ice cream is. It is usually served in tall, clear glasses that show its colorful contents that tempt one's taste buds. One's thirst is even made worse by the perspiring ice-filled glass, and the melting ice cream on top.

Filipino culture may be likened to a halo-halo. The ice cream, which is a Western ingredient, may be on top of the concoction, but that is just the surface of the dessert. The ice cream melts, and it blends with the Asian tropical fruits and beans underneath, which forms the bulk and substance of the mixture, the ones that are to be eaten first with a spoon. Drinking the melted ice cream and milk later is the final act and passion of consuming the halo-halo, the creme de la creme in its liquid form.

To say that Filipino culture is primarily Western is like taking the ice cream as the main ingredient of the halo-halo, thereby missing the colorful Asian substance of the whole mixture. Likewise, to say that Filipino culture is essentially Eastern is the same as taking only the Asian tropical fruits in the halo-halo and failing to drink the melted ice cream in the mixture. One then misses passion, which is the creme of Filipino culture.

Every time I want to eat some my first thing that pop-up in my mind is Halo-halo because I can forget the nice taste of this food, the different ingredients were make me enjoy eating.