Three Sweet Maidens

My next entry is my favorite stop.

I’m not really fan of sweets, I don’t have sweet tooth, so when I learned that our next stop is a famous pasalubong sellers of the place, I groan inside because I know that most pasalubongs are all sweets.

Before we get down out of the bus, Mr. Poch, our tour operator, imparted us the story of how the owner of the place learned about the recipe. By the way, I haven’t introduced yet the delicacy - or delicacies, should I say, and it is, my favorite, Turones de Casuy and Sans Rival.

According to Kuya Poch, the “origin” Turones de Casuy and the Sans Rival in the family, goes back as the olden days of the Spanish occupation in the Philippines. The story?

Characters: 1. Three maidens (tatlong Maria)

                  2. Friar

Setting: Philippines under the Spanish occupation in a church.

             Once upon a day from long ago, a friar living alone began to tire in attending and maintaining the church all by him. The church is used by all people hence; imagine the vast space this church occupies and an old, fragile, lone friar maintaining the place, all by himself.

         One day three beautiful maidens suddenly appear. Asking for nothing, these tatlong Maria volunteered to help the friar in looking after the church. They cleaned, swipe the floor, wash the chalices, wipe the dust off every pews, the crucifix the table, wash and iron the friar’s robes and see to it that before every mass, the place of worship is worthy of Christ’s blessing.

                                                           the Three Maidens

                                                             (charot lang! :P)

              They accepted no money from the friar. But the friar feeling ill inside, accepting something but giving nothing insisted on the three maidens to teach them the recipe of Turones de Casuy and Sans Rival averring that it is not money but an added skill is not hurting their faith. They accepted.

Thus, three generations after, we could still taste the heaven sent desert that the friar had taught the maidens as they passed this recipe from their sons and daughters and theirs sons and daughters to their sons and daughters as well.

            Such a beautiful story imparted to us by Mr. Poch. This is only the story of their origin and for my next blog entry, I will tell ya’ll how our stop went and describe to ya’ll the ‘no rival’ taste of Sans Rival Ocampo Lansang style and the Turones de Casuy.