Friday, July 27, 2018

BEBUT’S TRAIL XVIII: Jute Leaves

IT IS ALWAYS A GOOD THING to go out of your comfort zone, hike outdoors and do dirt time. Yeah, dirt time. That is what we called our activity in the Camp Red Bushcraft and Survival Guild. We stay in one place and make wonders. Dirty your hands, do manly work, use a blade or cook something unfamiliar using indigenous material.

After meeting up with the guys at the parking lot of Our Lady Guadalupe Parish today, August 13, 2017, and buying the ingredients we need for our cooking session, we hiked towards that hill which I liked to call as “Heartbreak Ridge”. It is not heartbreaking when you are hiking down it in the afternoon. Just do not do that uphill starting 07:30 and upwards.

 
At 08:30, the hill was very warm. The rising sun is at its most intense here because it is bare. The secret to surviving “heartbreak” is to take it slow. Do not mind the heat and ignore it. It is at your back anyway. Just do not hurry. It would help you much if you travel light. Bring just a day pack. If you heft a big one, make sure you start early.  

The hike on a very warm day on a very bare hill, gave me the opportunity to test my theory on food preservation, especially of leafy vegetables. I bought a bundle of jute leaves (Local name: saluyot). For those who do not know about this plant, jute leaves has antibacterial property. It is also anti-convulsant, anti-oxidant, anti-inflammation, antipyretic, anti-obesity, anti-fungal and anti-microbial. (Source: StuartXchange)

A hundred grams of jute leaves yield 43-58 calories; 80.4-84.1 g H2O; 4.5-5.6 g protein; 0.3 g fat; 7.6-12.4 g total carbohydrate; 1.7-2.0 g fiber; 2.4 g ash; 266-366 mg calcium; 97-122 mg phosphorous; 7.2-7.7 mg iron; 12 mg sodium; 444 mg potassium; 6,410-7,850 µg beta-carotene; 0.13-0.15 mg thiamine; 0.26-0.53 mg riboflavin; 1.1-1.2 mg niacin; and 53-80 mg ascorbic acid. Leaves yield a significant amount of mucilaginous polysaccharide, therefore, a source of energy.

 
Forgive me for speaking Russian but jute leaves are my favorite and I will be cooking this later when we reach Sibalas. Meantime, I have to protect it from the wilting power of the sun on vegetation that is cut from its main stem. What I did was sprinkle water on the leaves and wrapped it with leaves from a parasol tree (binunga). Then I turn it upside down and place it inside a plastic bag that I hand-carried.

When we reached the safety of the woods, the pace of our walk began to slack a bit. We simply enjoyed the cooler ambiance that a shaded trail offered to superheated homo erectus. We do not have a timetable for this day hike. We just have a destination and that is it. We sit there, stay for two or three hours, prepare our food, cook it and eat it. In between will be the tales about the recent activities and of future projects.

The woods would also lessen exposure of the jute leaves against the heat. That also goes with the other vegetables, sold and already sliced in bite sizes, like red squash, string beans, okra, white squash and shreds of cabbage leaves, ingredients for a soon-to-be Cebuano culinary called sinagol-sagol (English: mixed vegetable soup). Once we get to Sibalas, I would personally supervise the cooking.

We arrive at 09:50. A shed welcomed us and we rest for a while on its split log seats. A center table accommodated the things from our bags that we unloaded. Blades are normal sight for us and they are handled with so much care, not for its sharp edge but because these are special properties which tell so much about the owners. These are extensions to our personality.

I set up my Swiss Army Wood Burner and went on the process of collecting as many dry twigs as I could for fuel. Boiling of water for coffee came first and is mandatory. Coffee, whatever its form be, and whatever weather, is always perfect outdoors. Then rice was next.

My companions prepared a hearth on the ground and started a roaring fire with firewood. Stones are placed along each side and an iron grill is laid across the fire. While waiting for the coals to glow hotter, the meat are immersed in a mix of soy sauce, vinegar, crushed garlic and sliced onions. Once the coals would be ready, marinated meat would be grilled over it.

The jute leaves remained fresh although the moisture I provided has already evaporated. Its being loosely encased in a layer of bigger leaves from the parasol tree helped its preservation. The same with placing it upside down as all the water it preserved went to the extremities of the leaf capillaries.     

I picked the leaves one by one from the stems and it should be about 75 grams in weight. When the rice got cooked, I replaced it with a small pot containing water and the raw vegetable mix, with a piece of ginger and slices of onions, green pepper and tomatoes. I let boil for eight minutes before I placed salt and black pepper.

When I got the taste right, I add the jute leaves and leave it simmered for just a minute before I remove it from the burner. The soup and the rice are now ready for the eating. The grilled meat is now almost at its last pieces and, probably, we would have our lunch at 13:00, which is just about fine. By now, everyone should be hungry.

After the meal, we washed our pots, spoons and plates from a nearby well. For the rest of the day we just talked and enjoyed the wonders of the outdoors. The shifting shadows under a forest are so strange to watch. Sometimes, you get small doses of filtered sunshine and it does not hurt you. The forest heals your body, mind and your spirit.

Sitting for most of the time, feeling and examining the edges of your blades, is a relaxing moment for me. Perhaps, for the others too as I see one of them finishing a chunk of wood into slender pieces and another one having a grand time shaving feathersticks. What would be your afternoon be like in the outdoors?

When 15:30 came, we packed our things and walked a different trail going to Baksan. We reach a road and followed it for 45 minutes until we arrive at the Sapangdaku Spillway. A small Suzuki Scrum is parked in the middle of stream while children are around it, splashing water into the tires, underchassis, hood and everywhere. An adult seemed nonchalant of the turbid color of the water.

Fortunately, there is a new pedestrian bridge constructed and we walked it instead of crossing the stream on the spillway which we did in the old days. In another 45 minutes we arrived at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish. We called it a day and that is the trademark by which I and the Camp Red Bushcraft and Survival Guild spent our weekends.    

Document done in LibreOffice 5.3 Writer

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