As Ria Barbosa was on the point of open a restaurant in Hawai‘i, she was excited to prepare dinner with an entire new world of recent tropical fruit and veggies — however she didn’t understand simply how acquainted some can be.
When she moved from Los Angeles to Honolulu forward of opening Peso in July, Barbosa explored the produce stalls in Chinatown. She and her enterprise associate Robert Villanueva stopped to purchase some recent jackfruit from one vendor. “I began trying round, and I see these giant, darkish brown, virtually black tubers,” Barbosa recollects. “So I choose it up, and I exploit my thumbnail to scratch slightly bit, and I observed that it was purple.” She requested the seller what it was, and the girl responded by asking if Barbosa was Filipino. “And I stated, ‘Yeah.’ And he or she’s like, ‘That’s ube’” — actual, recent ube, one thing Barbosa had by no means seen. “I used to be like, ‘Oh, we now have to get this,’” she recollects.
Barbosa might be forgiven for not realizing what she was taking a look at. Ube taste could also be massively widespread, each in conventional Filipino sweets and within the numerous novelty gadgets offered at Dealer Joe’s, however in practically all elements of america, the merchandise are made with frozen ube, powdered ube, or ube extract (which generally incorporates no ube in any respect). The precise tuber that Barbosa encountered in Honolulu is actually unavailable within the continental U.S. The crops are sprawling perennial vines that flourish in tropical climate, and since they’re thought of an invasive species in Florida, ube isn’t commercially grown within the Decrease 48. Contemporary imports from the Philippines are additionally nonexistent.
Rising up in Los Angeles, the place Barbosa’s household moved from the Philippines when she was 6, ice cream was her favourite ube deal with. She lived in Atwater Village, not removed from Eagle Rock, lengthy the guts of Filipino Los Angeles, the place there have been Filipino eating places and Asian grocery shops that offered numerous sweets with processed ube within the many years earlier than it turned extensively widespread. After starting her profession in Las Vegas, Barbosa got here up cooking at LA eating places like Canelé and Sqirl (the place she was the opening chef). Each are the sorts of locations that worship the farmers market and make every thing from scratch; utilizing processed ube simply isn’t her type, so she by no means served it.
That hasn’t stopped folks from anticipating it. Ever since 2020, when Barbosa opened LA’s Petite Peso — her first restaurant as a chef-owner and in addition her first that was particularly centered on Filipino meals — diners have requested about ube. “It’s like, ‘Why don’t you do it with a polvoron? Why don’t you do ube no matter?’” she says. “‘Ube this, ube that. Do you might have any ube desserts?’”
The reply was all the time no. “If I used to be going to throw my hat within the ube ring, it’d need to be from the true stuff, that manner I can actually perceive its properties, the way it cooks,” Barbosa says. “I didn’t simply need to serve one other purple confection for the sake of being a Filipino prepare dinner anticipated to make adobo, lumpia, and ube.” Solely now, with entry to the recent crop, has she put ube on the menu at Peso.
Ube has been cultivated within the South Pacific for at the least 10,000 years. Within the Philippines, it’s truly a local crop, standing out among the many many components introduced into the nation with successive waves of colonization. Ube possible first arrived in Hawai‘i with the sakadas, Filipino migrant staff who got here to the islands beginning within the early 1900s to work on the rising cane and pineapple plantations; Barbosa’s personal great-grandparents had been sakadas, and her paternal grandmother was born on O‘ahu in 1921.
Immediately, Filipinos are the most important single ethnic group in Hawai‘i, with the majority of the neighborhood residing on O‘ahu, the place yow will discover not solely recent ube tubers on the market, as Barbosa did, however dishes constituted of recent ube, too. At Tali’s Bagels & Schmear in Honolulu’s Ward Village, you may get violet-hued ube cream cheese on the store’s hand-rolled bagels. And at Past Pastry Studio there are ensaymadas crammed with halaya, the traditional ube jam, and cream cheese. Past’s pastry chef, Cristina Nishioka, who’s initially from the Philippines, additionally often makes a two-layer cheesecake — ube on the underside, mascarpone on the highest — sandwiching a banana-mango-pineapple compote.
Nishioka says processed types of ube are frequent within the Philippines too, however she all the time makes some extent of working with the recent stuff. For her, it’s a method to join along with her tradition and heritage. “There’s extra appreciation whenever you truly peel, steam, grate, and prepare dinner recent ube,” she says. “For me, it’s showcasing and celebrating the essence of Filipino delicacies.”
Tali’s Bagels & Schmear gained’t use processed ube when recent isn’t accessible, substituting domestically grown Okinawan candy potatoes as an alternative. “They’re not as vibrant,” says Talia Bongolan-Schwartz, who runs the bagel store along with her enterprise associate and spouse Kelly, “however the taste of the schmear finally ends up very related and we all the time prioritize native produce.”
Each the schmear and the ensaymadas are very fashionable gadgets for Tali’s Bagels & Schmear and Past Pastry Studio, however recent ube doesn’t appear price the additional work to some Hawai‘i bakers and cooks when most diners have had solely synthetic or processed ube, which tastes extra just like the sweetened essence of the colour purple than something that got here from a plant. One Honolulu pastry chef who has used it prior to now advised Eater they aren’t more likely to prepare dinner with it once more, as a result of recent ube “has no taste of its personal,” and since clients count on ube to style just like the business and synthetic variations. (The chef prefers to stay nameless as a result of they don’t need to be often called the Filipinx chef turning their again on actual ube — despite the fact that many Filipinx cooks do use ube extracts and powders.)
With that first ube tuber, Barbosa didn’t know what to anticipate, however she knew precisely what she wished to make with it: halaya, a thick, sweetened ube jam that’s the idea of many Filipino desserts. After peeling, chopping, and boiling the ube, she combined the mashed purple chunks with sugar, milk (recent, not evaporated or sweetened condensed milk, as is extra generally used), and butter, and commenced to prepare dinner all of it down. “You need to stir it and babysit it,” she says, describing the sluggish means of cooking the jam down. “You stand there and stir it and hope the recent lava bubbles don’t get you.”
She had tried a little bit of the plain cooked ube earlier than including the rest, and located that it didn’t style like something particular. However when she cooked it for the second time, with the sugar and milk, “that’s when all of the nuances come out,” she says. As an alternative of plain candy potato flavors (boiled ube) or the colour purple (ube focus), the jam developed delicate notes of white chocolate, pistachios, and vanilla — the true, true taste of ube that she had been ready for.
On the restaurant, Barbosa’s halaya now flavors two dishes: an ube budino that’s served for dessert, and the ube-stuffed French toast on the brunch menu. Now that she lastly has an ube dessert, Barbosa needs to experiment extra with the tuber, exploring the vary of colours discovered within the completely different varieties grown on O‘ahu, and studying the way it works in savory purposes, like an ube gnocchi with kabocha-coconut cream sauce she plans on making an attempt out quickly.
However in doing so, she’s sure to run into extra frustrations from diners about their very particular notions about what ube can and needs to be. It’s one thing she’s already seen at Peso: One native farmer sells a stark-white number of ube, which Barbosa used for her halaya for a time when the restaurant first opened. “However folks obtained mad,” she says, “as a result of it wasn’t purple.”
Willy Blackmore is a contract author and editor who covers meals, tradition, and the surroundings. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
