GREAT FOOD, GREAT FUN: MEMORIES OF MAMA SITA

When the women of Malolos defied the all-powerful friars to secure the right to education, they did so by using a combination of feminine charm and cunning. Teresita “Mama Sita” Reyes, herself a true-blooded Maloleña, must have inherited the guile and appealing savvy from her forebears because it is said that she can sweet-talk her way into the hearts of even the most apathetic vendor.

“She loved buying things for a bargain,” Corito Reyes, Mama Sita’s niece, says. “She’d find things at a really cheap price and buy a whole truckload of them.” For Mama Sita, the thrill of the purchase was much more important than how much money she would inevitably make. “She loved to horde—so much so that she never actually considered the cost,” Corito explains. “She was just naturally happy, buying things!”

Divisoria was naturally one of Mama Sita’s favorite shopping haunts and trips to the chaotic bargain center inevitably caused a lot of hassles and many anxious moments. On his first trip out to the famed shopping destination, Mama Sita alighted from the car without telling Te (Teodoro Pagdanganan, Mama Sita's driver and reliable alalay for so many years) where and when to pick her up.

Hopelessly perplexed by the dizzying streets, Te found himself driving around and around the same place aimlessly. When he finally found a spot to park the car, he had no clue where to find Mama Sita in the maze of shops. Surprisingly, when he asked one shop-owner if she had seen the elusive Mama Sita, the woman told him that everybody in Divisoria knew who Mama Sita was. Conveniently, Te eventually found his employer deep in the heart of barter heaven trying to cop another bargain.

Mama Sita would also take extreme measures to find a cheap buy. “She would travel all the way to Cavite just to buy sacks of ube,” Corito tells. After her out-of-town excursion, Mama Sita would drop by the office and proudly show her loot to anybody who was interested. “The restaurant never actually needed all that ube, so Mama Sita would end up going home to make some haleya for herself.”

Cooking was Mama Sita’s passion and she assiduously worked to try different recipes. “Mama Sita loved to experiment with leche flan,” Corito recounts. She would experiment on different types of leche flan, from the thin Bulacan variety to the denser, thicker tocino del cielo. The office constantly smelled like caramel,” says Corito.

Car rides were an adventure in themselves, Te comments. There was never a permanent route for Mama Sita because she loved making unplanned stops at any stalls she would find, selling fresh fruits. “Singkamas! Hinto mo!” or “Ayun, pakwan—hinto mo, Te!” were words that were not unfamiliar to Te.

Because she was exceptionally loving and sociable, Mama Sita was the perennial victim of the tricks and practical jokes from her mischievous siblings. “San Jacinto was Mama Sita’s favorite restaurant,” Sylvia Reyes, another one of Mama Sita’s nieces, remembers. “Her brothers used to invite her to eat there, and trick her into footing the entire bill by leaving her at the table saying they were going off to buy some champoy and never coming back!” Mama Sita would hilariously slam her fists on the table, upon realizing she’d just been had, again.

One particular shenanigan had gained so much infamy in the Aristocrat Reyes clan that it has come to be known as “The Sting.” “Nora Daza’s restaurant, Au Bon Vivant, was extremely popular at that time, and the Reyes boys told Mama Sita that she was personally invited by Nora Daza for a taste test. Mama Sita was so excited about it that she even called one of her brothers to join her. She got dressed up (Mama Sita was always pusteryosa, never without her favorite dangling topaz earrings) and headed over to Au Bon Vivant,” Corito retells.

“She got to the restaurant and insisted that she had a personal invitation from Nora Daza herself—the staff, of course, disagreed. Mama Sita was so adamant about getting in—pag dating ba naman sa pagkain, makikipagpatayan talaga siya! Eventually, when the staff was able to get a hold of Nora Daza, she told Mama Sita that there was no such invitation for a taste test.” Embarrassed and livid over the hoax, Mama Sita told on all her brothers to Auntie Nene, who in turn gave all the Reyes men a big lecture.

Despite the many practical jokes played on her, Mama Sita always remained to be good-natured. “She could never hurt anybody,” remarks Corito, who says that Mama Sita never got into a tiff with anybody. Almost equal to her love for food was her love for children and for her kin. “Her bedroom was long and shaped like a dormitory,” Sylvia recalls. “She loved to ask her children to lie down beside her—she loved being surrounded by them.”

On a trip to Batangas for some bulalo, Mama Sita heard the distant ring of a sorbetero’s bell, and was immediately up on her feet with all the children—she treated practically everybody to some dirty ice cream that afternoon. “It was part of her nature to want to be surrounded by people all the time—she constantly wanted the atmosphere of a fiesta around her.”

“Mama Sita loved food and she also loved people,” remarks Sylvia. “Maybe she loved food so much because she loved people—or the maybe the opposite was true, her love for people sprung from her great love for food.”

Even in her sickness, Mama Sita was still constantly involved in laughable mischief. “When she was going through dialysis, my father would always visit her,” Sylvia recalls. “Whenever he would go into her room, she’d tell him to feel his way through the top of her cabinet because her secret stash of Belgian chocolates was hidden there!”

Mama Sita’s favorite line, “Ano pagkain natin?” speaks volumes about her motherly nature and unprecedented love for food and people. “Mama Sita is exactly what her name depicts her,” Sylvia comments. “She is first and foremost, a mother. She always took care of everyone’s needs, especially when it came to food.”

In truth, the legacy that Mama Sita left behind extends beyond the reach of her family—she wasn’t just thinking of the needs of her children and siblings, but the Filipino people in general. Her passion to get authentic home-cooked Filipino food to Pinoys all over the world inspired her to work long hours to create the famous Mama Sita’s line of sauces and mixes—her way, perhaps, of warming the hearts of Filipinos beyond her reach and time.

 

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