Skyflakes

One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes, a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach.

Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house.

Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom, that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spent his/her childhood in the Philippines and/or has Filipino parents. I thought that this is a good theory to test... and I had the opportunity to do so when I went to school with two packets of Skyflakes. In this class, I'm the only one who grew up in the Philippines but I wasn't sure who else had a familial Philippine connection.

During the lunch break, I started munching on my crackers. Two people immediately lit up with recognition, the TA and one of my classmates. They have Philippine ancestry but they grew up in the USA; hence, they could understand Filipino but could not speak the language. Skyflakes became a talking point among us until my classmate took out his lunch... lo and behold! he brought Skyflakes too!

At the end of lunch, I discovered that my theory was true in two cases. It may take a few more reactions from other people before I start believing that it's correct. In the meantime, I'll continue munging and crunching  data while munching on fruits and veggies.