Lesley Tan-Rice sifts through a hate-turned-love relationship with lugaw, or rice porridge, and explores how this humble meal feeds the soul amidst time and change.

I HAVE A CONFESSION TO MAKE: I used to dread eating lugaw or rice porridge. It was the equivalent to a “sick meal” – being force-fed lumps of watery rice for days until any signs of fever or stomach upset passed. Never in my four decades would I have guessed that I would now actively crave for it, especially during cloudy days or whenever I feel under the weather, or am just plain lazy. Oh, there are so many stretches of hours of this feeling of languishing. Perhaps it’s a result of pandemic sickness, a residue of the flu-

like symptoms that made my muscles ache and clouded my brain? Or possibly a kind of manifestation of grief, because my mother used to make me porridge, slow-cooked on a stovetop, until later on, when she used an electric rice cooker she purchased in Hong Kong, painted in her favorite seafoam hue with only two settings: cook and warm. 

Whichever case it may be, whenever I slurp rice porridge and inhale the steam wafting from the slushy grains, I feel like I’ve been hugged from inside. It’s funny how I now crave for this simple meal of rice and water, when I used to shudder feeling the slop hit my tongue. My porridge preference is thicker texture, with chicken strips or minced pork, and a splash of sesame oil and soy sauce.

While we think of the popular term congee with Hong Kong-style rice porridge, the root word actually comes from the Tamil kanji, referring to the porridge and the water used to make the porridge. Different communities around the world have their own version of gruel or a grain and water mash equivalent. In the Philippines, we have so many words for it: lugaw, pospas, arroz caldo, goto, even champorado (a mix of hot chocolate with rice pudding). Lugaw is the umbrella term for rice porridge, used in most if not all island groups. Pospas refers to rice porridge with chicken. Goto is lugaw with beef tripe, a Luzon staple. Arroz caldo may be Spanish in name, but it still refers to the same rice porridge, with the addition of saffron or kasubha (safflower), to give the porridge a warmer tint.

Aside from rice, salt and water, the standard ingredients for lugaw include toasted garlic, chopped scallions or green onions, white pepper, thin ginger slices, and hardboiled egg. Patis or fish sauce is tossed in to taste, with a squeeze of calamansi. Chicharon (pork crackling) bits, tokwa’t baboy, or kasubha (safflower) may be added in too. For more flavor, one can substitute water with chicken broth (homemade is best) or add chicken bouillon to water for instant broth. According to the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, lugaw is among the earliest documented Filipino food. Proof is in its listing in the 1613 dictionary Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala, describing it as rice mixed with milk or water or both.

In China, rice porridge, or zhou in Mandarin, dates back to 1000 BC during the Zhou dynasty, maintains cookbook author Eileen Yin-Fei Lo.

Lugaw can be paired with almost any kind of meat. Chicken is the most common in neighboring cultures. Fish, in particular seabass, cod, grouper, flounder, or other fleshy white fish is a popular condiment in the Cantonese congee,

known as jook. The Cantonese version is thick and velvety, and can also include minced pork, meatballs, fishballs, offals (such as chopped intestines, tripe, liver), or a combination of the aforementioned. The Japanese prefer salmon in their okayu, together with umeboshi (pickled plum) and nori (crisp seaweed). Koreans have their beloved dak juk. Indonesia has its bubur ayam (chicken rice porridge), or bubur ikan (fish rice porridge). Thailand has khao tom, with ground pork, shrimp, spinach, garlic and ginger. Laos has khao piak khao. Both the Thai and Lao rice porridge have an extra layer and aroma of herbaceousness thanks to the ginger, onions, lemongrass and kaffir leaves included in the mix. 

The humble and comforting porridge can be prepared in different ways, depending on the cultural tradition. Most recipes call for simmering the porridge for an hour, while pouring in stock or water according to one’s preferred thickness, but according to the authors of TheWoksofLife. com, it’s possible to cook congee within 20 minutes by washing the rice, draining it, and placing the washed grains in a sealed bag in the freezer for at least eight hours. It appears that the moisture in the rice freezes, expands, and breaks the rice kernel into tiny pieces to dramatically reduce necessary cooking time. 

In most cultures around our region, congee or lugaw is served with long crullers or deep-fried doughnuts, twisted lengthwise and dunked in boiling oil. These savory crullers are also known as youtiao in Mandarin; bicho or shakoy in our local tongue. Our version is sprinkled with white sugar or dipped in thick condensed milk. Some restaurants in Manila like North Park use deep-fried mantou buns instead of crullers, with more watered down condensada to dip. Whether youtiao or mantou, these deep-fried bread chunks can sop up the porridge or be eaten on its own with various filling. My memories of shakoy were from my ah-ma. As a frugal person, she  would ration each oil-soaked, sugar- coated shakoy among the grandchildren,  but I would sneak in more, to eat after having lugaw – yes, I ate these separately, as I thought the sweet and greasy shakoy was a treat, while lugaw was a punishment.

Well, how incongruous is it now that I make my own lugaw to remember my childhood, to honor my mother and my grandmother, to make me feel like all is right in the world. In a New York Times essay, Zoe Hu sums up how we feel when we eat congee (or its equivalent) in an eloquent yet pragmatic way: “Communities everywhere seem to each have their congee equivalent: porridge, grits, mazamorra. I don’t put stock in many universals, but I do believe in the enduring combination of grain and water. I believe in human ingenuity in the face of hunger. And I believe that most people have a certain yearning for formlessness, for food that looks the way they want to feel: gooey, warm and capable of seepage through existence’s most stringent boundaries.” 

WHERE TO GET YOUR CONGEE FIX:

IN SINGAPORE: Mui Kee: 01-12 Shaw Centre, 1 Scotts Road

Hong Kong style congee, silky and smooth. The sliced garoupa congee is refreshing. For a  traditional experience, get the century egg and shredded meat congee or the homemade pork meatballs. If you want to taste the wok hei, go for the threadfin belly.

Crystal Jade Palace: 04-19, Takashimaya Shopping Centre, 391 Orchard Road

This Crystal Jade branch gets quite full during weekends particularly during brunch. Go early and order the traditional sliced carp fish congee or the pork meatball or giblet congee.

Old Shifu Charcoal Porridge: 58 Seng Poh Road, #01-17, across Tiong Bahru Food Market & Hawker Centre

Thick, smoky rice porridge cooked over charcoal. Order the mixed pork congee with minced and sliced pork, intestines and liver. Or the fish belly congee with some ginger chicken and youtiao on the side

IN CEBU: Check out Jang Soo Chon (Eel Restaurant) in The Promenade Mactan right across Shangri-La Mactan. While the grilled eel is a must-try, another recommended dish is the dak juk, with the dukot or scorched rice at the bottom scooped like a crepe on top.