Pusô
A meal with pusô
One thing that I know about the subject of pusô is the use of coconut leaves wrapped around the cooked rice and shaped in a “3D” diamond form. It’s actually one of the interesting things that Cebuanos have for years. I wouldn’t know about its history except the Tagalog term of puso, which means “heart”. I had hours of thinking about how to connect the dots, but to no avail. Nevertheless, it never fails to capture the hearts of Cebuanos whenever they “connect” the pusô to their favorite barbecue and other dishes.
The art of making pusô
Unlike any other food descriptions that imply how-to-fold-this and how-to-measure-that type of instructions during food preparation, the production of pusô does not have any cookbooks or do-it-yourself handbooks. I would assume that there are those who misunderstood the concept of making pusô. An example would be the cooked rice is clumped in the hands and then wrapped in coconut leaves. It’s actually done by weaving the coconut leaves first into the shape of diamond. The weaver then leaves a hole in which the uncooked rice is poured in and sealed right before they put them on this steaming hot pot filled with water and then cooked. This is where the concept of cooking rice happen – which is to wait until the water disperses and the rice have grown and enough for you to know that it is indeed cooked.
And unlike the method of measurement, there is no exact dimension on the amount of uncooked rice to be poured into the diamond-shaped shell. This is all up to the weaver, who probably knows the estimation amount of the rice to be poured. You wouldn’t want to simply make it on your own since the more rice you put in the hard and clumpy the result is. This is so since the limited size of the shell inhibits the growth of the rice. In fact, I actually thought I can make one of my own and the result was a disaster… thank God it was only a dream.
The name
I didn’t really know that there is an English name for pusô until I heard about it a few years back. Pusô, when translated to English, is called “hanging rice”. It’s actually a fitting name since stores that sell pusô often “hangs” them so that it’s easy to distribute. One can instantaneously guess that there is a barbecue on sale when they see pusô in a certain store. Of course, it’s not only barbecue that goes along with it. There’s also the “lechon baboy” (roasted pig), “lechon manok” (roasted chicken) as well as grilled and fried goodies. You may notice that the pusô goes really well with that “smoky” type of food.
So much for its proclaimed name of “hanging rice”. I don’t know though if it’s singular or plural. Heck, no matter. When it comes to food, Cebuanos don’t finish last.
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