CSSAC prof links Bicol writers, food and diaspora in Singapore lecture

by H. Francisco V. Peñones Jr., photograph by Zhella Monserate-Manrique

HOW DO expatriate Bikol writers remember or retain their connection to their common roots, that is, Bicol?

This is one of the questions raised and answered by CSSAC professor, Dr. Judith B. Salamat, in a paper she read early this month at a conference of international scholars at the National University of Singapore.

In her paper titled, The Return of the Writers: The Culinary Diaspora, Salamat studied the works of three Bikol writers who establish linkage with Bicol through their use of food images in their respective ouvres.
These writers include New York-based Magarao poet, Luis Cabalquinto, San Jose State University MFA graduate student H. Francisco Peñones Jr.; and University of Wollongong creative writing professor, Merlinda C. Bobis.

At the said conference sponsored by the Asia Research Institute which tackled the issue of Return Migration in Asia, Salamat argued that these Bicol writers return home by and through the integration of images of food identifiable with the region, like the coconut-creamed natong or gabi.

"These writers project their sense of home and return through their 'stomach,' that is, through gustatory elements," Salamat pointed out.

She said that "Bobis explores nostalgia, pain of loss and either/or, neither here/nor there dynamics. Penones' culinary images provide a taste of the poet's concern for the oppressed and the abused, such as the OFWs and his anti-neocolonialist voice of the Philippine government."

"On the other hand, Cabalquinto reveals a Bikolano's 'child-like content' once s/he is at home -ensconced in the comfort of his/her loved one," she added.

"All these three writers basically create works that whet the culinary appetite of the readers while penetrating a more profound cultural ethos of longing and belonging," she concluded.

Salamat's Singapore paper on culinary diaspora closely followed a related topic she tackled in another paper she earlier presented at the 8th International Conference on Philippine Studies at the Philippine Social Science Center in Quezon City held last month.

In the ICOPHIL gathering, she discussed how three Bicol writers cope with what she termed "academic diaspora" through the use of Blogs and Blogging.

These three writers include Victor Dennis T. Nierva, who is taking his Master of Arts in Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines as a scholar of the Ateneo de Naga University, Jazmin B. Llana who is pursuing her PhD in Theater Arts at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth in the U.K. as an International Ford Foundation Fellow like Peñones, the other subject of Salamat's paper.