Surprise of my life: ‘Misua’ isn’t Chinese

It had confounded me that I couldn’t find a package of misua in four shelves of what looked like an all-nation variety of Oriental noodles at our neighborhood Chinese-run produce store here in Vancouver. My frantic state of mind must be blinding me, I had thought—as the clock over the garlic/onion/ginger/yam/potato bins clicked fast to suppertime—or maybe, it’s going by a different name in Chinese, I also wondered.

When I turned around, the fresh array of greens in the veggie bins began reworking in my mind the recipe that Vicky, my sister, had “ordered”—ginisang patola na may misua. With tempting packs of bak choy (pechay) it had occurred me that I could also whip up another dish of ginisa the way my grandmother did it, and didn’t I glance a package of shrimps in the seafood freezer? But I waved off the idea, recalling how a kababayan recommended a better choice for shrimps from Ecuador sold fresh and not for much at T&T Supermarket in Chinatown.

Another possibility turned up in the same bin with an overstuffed plastic bag of pepper leaves—not really the same silky siling labuyo leaves that almost melt in tinolang manok—these broad leaves, apparently of the fist-sized red and green pepper we use for afritada, remain full-bodied even after minutes of boiling. And so, I had thought of going back to the freezer bin to grab a box of half-shelled clams from New Zealand for ginisang tahong na may dahong sili, the way Brenda, our long-ago precious kadkadua, or kasambahay (househelp), made it. But then, it would dismay my sister not to find ginisang patola on our table, the sweetish aroma of which by then, she must have started to relish.

One more distraction turned up, though, in another plastic bag of greens with tendrils “that couldn’t be but talbos ng sayote,” the Filipino in me leaped. Not really the same though, as the Pentel pen-scrawled label identified it as “pea leaves”; just then I recalled Vicky telling me that, far from sayote, these prove too tough for guisado with squash and again, shrimp. I mulled over another alternative: “What about string beans and kalabasa?” As we know so well, beans could be had in Chinese restaurants sautéed in tausi with beef strips, and squash tempura in Japanese nooks that both proliferate here. But in our kitchen, these two could make another guisadong gulay, or as we have since innovated with kalabasa use it in place of ground peanuts to thicken and enrich kare-kare.

Ayyy…but I have frittered away the time by then. Hence, as much as I pride myself in knowing where to find what I need for almost all the Pinoy recipes my sister and I insist on recreating from kitchens back in the Philippines, I crept up meekly to the store owner at the cashier’s wicket and asked where to find misua if there was one. As if she had not expected it, she yelled, “There, on the top shelf,” pointing full-armed to where I hovered earlier; sensing that I still felt lost, she added, “beside the bijon!”

But I did see the bijon earlier, I silently protested. Finally, she came over and reached for the package I had glossed over, “Buena’s Misua” from Bulacan.

“It’s not Chinese,” I said, rather mortified.

“Of course it isn’t,” she replied, adding that they don’t cook it, and don’t even know what it is. As I turned to leave, I summarized how we cook it, raising up to her a huge sing kua, or patola, that I had taken from a bin, “with this!”

As she said, “Maybe I could try it sometime.” Her eyes had sparkled.