The Taste of Home

By Noel Galon de Leon

I borrowed the title The Taste of Home from an essay by the late Doreen G. Fernandez that was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on December 20, 1988 as part of her column series In Good Taste. In that piece, she asked a question that seemed simple but carried so much weight. What is the taste of the Filipino Christmas. Many years later, I find myself returning to that question not as a food writer or a scholar, but as a son and a brother who has lived long enough to understand that taste is not just about flavor, but about memory, loss, and longing. This is my last column for the year, and perhaps that is why it feels necessary to write with less distance and more honesty. I am grateful for the chance to write for the Daily Guardian, but gratitude alone feels insufficient. In this last piece, I want to speak from a place that is quieter and more vulnerable. I want to name my fears, acknowledge the wounds I still carry, recognize what I have survived, and admit the dreams I am still holding onto.

The year 2025 was not gentle. It was heavy and exhausting, both personally and collectively. It was not kind to me, and it was not kind to many of us, especially here in our country where uncertainty feels constant and stability often feels temporary. There were moments when the future felt blurry, and days when simply continuing felt like a difficult decision.

Perhaps because of this weight, I made a decision that felt both instinctive and frightening. I went home. I returned to Guimaras, the island where I grew up, where I learned discipline, patience, and silence from my father. For me, Guimaras is not just a place on a map. It is where my memories breathe. It is where the sea seems to understand grief and the land remembers the footsteps of those who have left.

Going home required courage I did not know I still had. Courage is often misunderstood as certainty, but I had none. Papa was no longer here. He died in 2022 during the later years of the pandemic, a time when grief felt both shared and unbearably lonely. Entering our home without him felt like walking into a familiar room that had lost its center.

Papa was the cook in our family. When Mama decided to go to America to work, he took on a role he never planned for but eventually embraced. Cooking became his responsibility, but it also became his language of love. Feeding us was how he stayed present, how he softened the absence that migration forced upon our family.

I sometimes think Papa became a good cook because he had no choice. There were children to feed, school days to prepare for, and very little money to stretch. Cooking was survival. Over time, survival became routine, routine became ritual, and ritual became memory that we now carry quietly.

Every New Year’s Eve, Papa cooked sopas. Not the thin kind you find when times are hard, but a rich pot filled with vegetables, chicken, and slices of hotdog. His sopas announced itself even before you saw it. The smell filled the house and quietly told us that the year was ending and another was about to begin.

Food historians say that food is memory, and I understand that truth now more than ever. I do not know if Papa ever thought about food that way, but after he passed away, sopas became his voice. Whenever I see it on a menu or taste it in another home, I do not just remember him. I feel him.

Every New Year, when my siblings and I manage to gather despite how life keeps pulling us in different directions, Papa’s sopas must be on the table. It is not something we debate. It is our way of keeping him with us. It is how we remind ourselves that we were loved and cared for deeply.

When Papa was still alive, lechon was always part of our New Year celebration. Even on ordinary days, if there was extra money, he would cook crispy pata. He would rub the pork leg with salt and fry it until it was golden and loud with oil. Those meals were joyful and noisy, filled with laughter and plates passed around without counting portions.

After Papa died, lechon slowly disappeared from our table. Not because it stopped being delicious, but because it began to carry too much memory. I remember the last Christmas we spent with Papa. He had already suffered a stroke, yet he forced himself to walk to the table just to pinch a piece of lechon. A few days later, we rushed him back to the hospital.

The lechon was not at fault, but that moment stayed with me. It taught me something painful and necessary. Tradition, when left unquestioned, can harm us. Celebration should never come at the expense of health, presence, or life itself.

Now, my siblings and I talk before deciding to prepare lechon. We ask practical questions. Will we really eat it. Do we have plans the next day. Is it worth it. These conversations may seem small, but they are acts of care we learned too late for Papa.

Lechon is undeniably delicious. It carries the idea that a Filipino celebration is incomplete without it. That belief is deeply rooted in us. But completeness, I have learned, does not come from one dish. It comes from people choosing to stay, sit, and share time together.

Our family is small. We are six siblings, with six nieces and nephews, living in a simple house in Guimaras that Mama bought after many years of working in America. That house stands quietly as proof of sacrifice. It holds years of missed birthdays, illnesses endured alone, and love sent home through remittances.

During Christmas and New Year, difficult questions still visit me. Why did Mama have to leave. Why did Papa struggle with addiction. Why did some of my siblings not finish school. These questions no longer surprise me, but they still hurt.

Growing older gives understanding, but it does not erase pain. Even now, these questions sit beside me, returning when the noise fades. They are part of the story we inherited, whether we wanted it or not.

Yet celebrations like Christmas and New Year do something powerful. They force us to sit down together at a long, old table. We talk. We laugh. We remember. Just as Papa taught us, we eat together. He believed this was important, not just on holidays, but every day.

Tomorrow will be 2026. Time feels fast and unforgiving. Opportunities are fleeting, and hesitation often feels dangerous. Still, we have no choice but to continue. We have to move, try, and believe that something better is possible.

The other day, my sister and I talked about what to prepare for New Year. Maybe seafood this year, we said. Something lighter. Something different. We laughed at how adulthood turns excitement into calculation and care.

I do not yet know what will be available at the market. Life, much like cooking, depends on what is there and what you can afford. You adjust. You make do. You choose with intention.

My wish for 2026 is simple but heavy with hope. I wish for better opportunities for my siblings. I hope life becomes kinder to them. I pray for stability and dignity for the families they are building.

More than anything, I hope Mama finds the courage to come home. After decades of postponed promises and necessary sacrifices, her presence would be the greatest gift. Not money. Not food. Just her, finally sitting at the table with us.

Perhaps this is what the taste of home means to me now. It is not a single dish. It is memory, restraint, absence, and hope served quietly on a shared table. It tastes like warm soup on New Year’s Eve, like grief softened by laughter, and like the belief that one day, everyone we love will finally be home.