Good Friday binignit and hot cross buns

I feasted on my good old friend binignit (ginataan) on Good Friday. I missed this wonder-of-the-world creation for more than a year (perhaps even longer). That is why when my mother says the Good Friday family menu features my old time fave, I declared the lifting of Holy Week fasting abruptly to an end.
Oh, the indefatigable binignit—that sweet medley of staple food like sweet potato, cassava, plantain, taro—cooked in coconut milk with tapioca pearls and sago.
In my boyhood, binignit is a usual fare. Not only at home on weekends when mother makes the kitchen her art canvas. Today, mother is but the mentor. Slowed down by age but still sharp as ever with her cookbook-precision instructions, she is a manual at the kitchen. My sisters were a disaster at the kitchen but we all are the best ‘evaluators.’
I probably got to have a little of mom’s culinary mastery.
I feasted on the bowl of binignit just at the right temperature when the heat was blown away by the summer afternoon breeze. Living a few steps away from the waters of the Pacific has its own advantage—a good morning walk, a glorious sunrise. I just hate the motorcycles that speed their way into what could have been the best baywalk view in my hometown.
Halfway across the world in the Land Down Under, people bake hot cross buns on Good Friday.
Ju know what Hot Cross Buns are? These bakery bounty is a seasonal yeast bread traditionally served on Good Friday. These sweet buns are nicely spiced with ground cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves, and are studded with currants (raisins) and candied fruit. What makes them instantly recognizable is that the tops of the buns are marked with a ‘cross’ which symbolically represents the Cross of Christ and the Crucifixion.
There are many stories as to when the first Hot Cross Buns were made. According to my ‘partner across the miles’, the buns are related to the Anglo Saxons. It comes from Alan Davidson’s “The Oxford Companion to Food”. According to Davidson, the buns were first made in honor of the goddess of Spring, Eostre, from whom the name Easter is derived. Today they are traditionally served at Easter and there is a superstition that Hot Cross Buns baked on Good Friday never became moldy and it was good luck to save one bun until the next year’s buns were made.
I told her to keep the bun until the next Good Friday. For good luck.
As to my binignit, Good Friday is just too little time for the cauldron-full to see its content disappear in hours.