06/05/2026
Keep scrolling to learn more about the Bahay Kubo song and vegetables. 🥬🫛🧄🧅🫚
Bahay kubo, kahit munti
Ang halaman doon ay sari-sari.
Singkamas at talong, sigarilyas at mani
Sitaw, bataw, patani.
Kundol, patola, upo't, kalabasa
At saka mayroon pang labanos, mustasa, sibuyas, kamatis, bawang at luya sa paligid-ligid ay puro linga.
"Folk songs like our folk stories are repositories of people's memories"
Stephen Acabado posted about the possible origins of the 18 plants. Our favorite singkamas in the atsara and lumpia for instance is jicama in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. It has its origin from Mesoamerica, and except for upo or wax gourd, the rest of the plants are from the Americas, Africa or mainland Asia.
Acabado said: "The idea of the pure Filipino, discovered and civilized only by the western colonizers must now be laid to rest. Instead, we should embrace that our identities like the mga halaman (plants) in the munting bahay kubo (small nipa hut) are results of long history of living interactions resulting to a sari-sari, a layered and diverse cultural group of people who continue to evolve, enrich, and emancipate."
Reference: Philippines Graphic, A new Bahay Kubo for the World (2021) by Kristian Sendon Cordero, poet, fictionist, essayist, translator, an academic, and an independent filmmaker.
