Cold, sticky sweat stuck the hair on the sides of my face. Every time the minibus lurched I clamped my mouth down, fighting the rising bile. I tried burrowing deeper into what recesses I can manage to dig under my jacket, but it made no difference—I felt like I was being boiled alive in ice water. I slipped in and out of reality, grateful for the darkness of sleep. And whenever I regained consciousness, I was transported in the hellish kaleidoscope of the minibus’ stomach—the acidic miasma of disco-colors mixing and giving birth to colors beyond the spectrum, glimpses of the razor Mohawk-hair of the punks alighting and getting off the bus, the heavy metal music hammering into my skull.
Me and my flu in 88 crazy kilometers in a minibus from Balingoan port to Cagayan de Oro City. I knew I was going to die.
The Situation
But obviously I didn’t die. And to this day I still swear that I am alive now because of a bowl of beef brisket noodles.
I was never a big fan of the Filipino merienda, beef mami. Beef mami broth was too scorching hot to eat. The slurping of the noodles made it a messy meal. The pieces of meat and the vegetables in the bowl seemed like an afterthought. It was a meal with no real identity—in the limbo between not quite-nilaga and almost-lomi. But I was 24 then and knew nothing of what life really was.
At the time I was working for a non-government organization specializing in community-based health insurance systems. We were in Mindanao looking at how our project can be applied to cooperatives. It sounds like a lot of technical stuff (and it is), but since we were in Camiguin (an island province) we decided to finish work early so we could steal a bit of R & R in the island.
I already had a splitting headache and a slight fever after we finished with the work, but I wasn’t going to let THAT keep me in our room at Paras Beach Resort while my teammates frolicked in the sun. No, I wanted to experience everything. Checking out the White Island sand bar, renting bikes to pedal up at Ardent hot springs for a warm, luxurious dip. Going to market, and of course, stuffing self with Pastel at the Vjandep store. I believed my tiny fever couldn’t get any worse if I engaged in such happy activities.
By the time I stepped into the ferry boat, I was near to having convulsions with the flu. It was a good thing we had a doctor and a nurse in the team, but even they couldn’t do much; we had to get back to our hotel in Cagayan de Oro City. They told me I could do nothing but survive the long four hour ride it would take.
I can barely remember how we got back to CDO. At Balingoan port after the ferry from Camiguin, there were long, impossible queues on buses. And everywhere we turned there were armies of motorella drivers enticing us to get a ride with them for usurious rates. A thunderstorm had also begun. Drenched, far from the safety of my hotel room and with seemingly no means to get there it took a lot for me to keep myself from combusting into a pile of brain and entrails on the road. But remember that I was with my team and I tried my best not to be a liability to them. I didn’t want to let them down.
Minibus from Hell
Finally, we caught sight of clunky minibus screeching to a halt in the distance, and when my teammates started running, I did so too—along with hordes of stranded passengers in the rain. I was literally running for my life.
My teammates would later on confirm what I saw in the “minibus from hell” while I was delirious. Apparently, there was a punk rock concert in CDO that same night, and in various stops along the way, Mohawked punkistas jump onboard, their sharp spiked crowns barely scraping the ceiling of the minibus. As minibuses go , the one we rode has a sort of strobe pumping out lights along with a 70’s display of bulbs that spewed out the colors of prunes, bruise-blue, magma, bile and acid green. The minibus was the king of the road, switching lanes and roaring through the highway all evening. While I appreciated the speed by which I was being transported to the safety of my hotel room, fresh waves of nausea would crash into my very being every time the minibus swerved to overtake. At the time, I honestly didn’t mind it if we slammed violently into an oncoming vehicle, and our bodies turned into the consistency of vomit. I wanted the pain to end; I didn’t care how as long as it did.
I don’t know how I survived three hours of the minibus ride, but my companions and I found ourselves at a street corner within sight of our hotel (I forget now which one), and I was about ready to do a final kamikaze run back into my hotel room. I would crawl back there and die. My bones and joints ached so hard it felt like I was coming off at the seams—my body was literally falling apart and I just needed a place to dump my body before it turns into a corpse.
I nearly wailed aloud when our project team leader declared that after that hellish ride, we needed to get some dinner. I was too tired to protest and we made our way to a cheap but authentic Chinese restaurant right beside our hotel, plunking into its swivel-type plastic seats. My jaws were clenched to stop my teeth from chattering from the chills. My face was literally squashed into the tabletop, so one of my workmates (probably Mia, the doctor), ordered for me. The others went for their favourites—chicken feet, spare ribs, hakaw. I didn’t particularly care whatever she ordered; I felt I had no more energy to eat anything. And as you know, I was brought a bowl of beef brisket noodles.
The Meal That Saved My Life
I had no particular love for the dish that was ordered from me, but neither did I have the will nor strength to care. Still shivering from the rain, the sweet, hearty aroma of beef broth awakened my senses—including my sense of hunger. I attacked the soup first, feeling the essence of the beef return the strength to my body; it was like having a sun rise inside my chest and pour light in all directions. I wolfed down the noodles next, appreciating its body and texture and its ability to enhance the taste of the whole dish rather than have the taste diluted by the carb, something which rice does when mixed with any viand. The broth nourished me while the noodles filled me. Then I picked through the oh-so-tender beef brisket, the soul of the dish, which melted immediately when I popped them in my mouth. Finally, I scrunched through the perfectly cooked bok choy, a bright green joy, the emerald at the heart of the meal.
I still remember that feeling of intense joy and relief after my first bowl of beef brisket noodles—a mixture of surprise, satisfaction, renewed strength and vigor. I emerged from the meal, sweat trailing down my face—not because of fear, anxiety nor illness—but because of the sheer exhilaration of enjoying the entirety of a meal.
From that day on I admitted that I had been wrong to shun beef mami my entire life. I swore henceforth to devote a considerable amount of attention to this dish—to explore its possibilities in every taste, region or culture—whether it’s Vietnamese pho, Far Eastern ramen. I search the world for every manifestation of beef mami, try to understand it more and become its champion. That’s why a part of this site will be devoted to beef mami.
Because after all… it had once saved my life.
