Stirring Maja Blanca When The Earth Stirred Too: No Warning, No Signs

If you ask anyone in Northern Cebu, they will say the same thing about the night of September 30. It was a peaceful and ordinary night—no warning, no black aura, and no sign of disaster. Everybody has a story to tell about that evening, about how everything collapsed in just a glimpse. And here is mine.

Before the disaster, my family was in our kitchen, doing our usual late-night activities. My sister was studying, my brothers were sleeping, and my mom and I were cooking delicacies for our midnight snacks.

The kitchen was peaceful, and I could only hear the sound of my sister’s writing while I helped my mother carefully pour the ingredients for each recipe. We were cooking sticky rice cake and atchara that night, and the last to cook was maja blanca—a coconut milk pudding. There were no signs of warning; we didn’t even feel a hint of negative wind, so we did our cooking as usual. With all honesty, these foods will always remind me of the traumatic experience I had with the earthquake, especially whenever I come across them again. Foods have memories, haven’t they? Regardless, I want to share how it is cooked.

Maja Blanca is a Filipino coconut pudding dessert made from sugar, cornstarch, and coconut milk. It is popular in our town and is often prepared during feasts or birthdays. It reflects the rich food traditions of Filipinos in using coconut milk as a main ingredient, encapsulating the origin of this delicacy.

The main ingredients of this pudding are coconut milk, sugar or condensed milk, cornstarch, kernel corn, salt, grated cheese, and toasted coconut, which is optional.

I tried cooking this during my mother’s birthday last year, but I couldn’t get the taste I wanted—nothing like my mother’s maja blanca. While cooking that night, she was beside me, teaching me the right measurements and how to add the ingredients to the pot. Sometimes she would replace me if I couldn’t follow her instructions.

The first thing to do when cooking maja blanca is to prepare all the ingredients, of course. This is not to crowd the table but to make sure the cooking process goes smoothly.

I got the pot and combined the coconut milk, sugar (but we used condensed milk), half of the corn kernels, and salt in it. For some, the kernels are added after mixing the starch into the pot, but we had to cook it quickly because it was late at night. The coconut milk we used wasn’t manufactured—it was freshly extracted. We have coconut trees here that are perfect for this delicacy, and we had plenty of coconut milk after our harvest. I guess this added to the flavor of the maja blanca after we cooked it.

We brought the pot to a gentle boil, ensuring the right start to the cooking process. In a tupperware container—because bowls are harder to clean afterward—I dissolved the cornstarch in some coconut milk I had set aside for this step. It was just a little cornstarch because half of it had already been poured directly into the pot.

My mother poured the mixture into the pot while I was taking photos for this blog. She slowly poured it while stirring continuously to avoid cornstarch lumps. It had to be dissolved evenly.

I mixed it continuously, and after a while, I asked my mother to pour in the grated cheese. It adds a salty flavor that complements the sweetness of the maja blanca.

I kept stirring at the right speed until it reached the perfect consistency and color.

While my mother continued stirring, I transferred the already-cooked atchara into bottles and containers. It turned out to be a lot, and I didn’t expect it to be that much.

For your information, atchara is a Filipino pickled dish made from grated unripe papaya. It’s a side dish that enhances appetite, but instead of eating it as a side, I eat it as a main viand. It’s sweet, nutritious, and slightly oily.

After stirring, when everything was done, I transferred the mixture to foil containers and poured it slowly, making sure the top was smooth for presentation.

We let it cool naturally on the kitchen table and waited until it was just warm. When it was, I sprinkled another batch of grated cheese on top. I should have added toasted coconut, but it was too late to prepare it.

This is biko, a Filipino sticky rice cake, which we made together with atchara. It is sweet and often cooked during Holy Week to honor the dead by offering this kind of delicacy.

The main ingredient is glutinous rice mixed with caramelized sugar. Topping it with coconut curds is optional but should be mandatory—it makes the delicacy much more flavorful.

Here’s a bag of mangoes my aunt harvested from her house. I was about to peel one, but my mother asked me to get her phone from the bedroom. Eventually, I forgot to eat the mango—which I only remembered while writing this.

I let the maja blanca cool completely before putting it in the fridge. I waited in the bedroom while writing a blog about the Serenity Bayside Resort I posted days ago.

It was peaceful and tiring because of all the food we cooked. It was calm and normal.

Suddenly, I heard a bang outside the house and ran immediately to the door to check, thinking someone might be trying to raid our house. But before I could reach the door of my bedroom, the lights completely went out, and the shaking started aggressively. As I ran toward the door, I bumped into my brother and managed to lift him before we both fell to the floor as the shaking grew stronger, tilting our house left to right and back again. It was a nightmare—I didn’t even open my eyes while the earthquake was happening.

I only remember how loud my voice was as I shouted for my family, and gradually we met in the living room without even counting. We left the house through the kitchen door at the back and counted ourselves. There were seven of us—and we were complete. I burst into tears knowing we were all safe when we got out, but then the shaking started again.

The rest, I could say, is shown through these photos. Our situation was bitter and traumatic. Everyone in our neighborhood gathered on the road, crying and searching for their families. It was chaotic because the aftershocks kept coming, each with a loud bang and violent shaking.

I didn’t expect it to be that aggressive—it blocked my mind and I couldn’t think clearly. I was in panic, and the least I could do was beg the Lord to stop it. It was just an ordinary night, but what seemed ordinary changed the trajectory of our lives—destroying our homes, taking lives, and depriving us of our basic needs.

The dawn after 6.9 magnitude.