A spaghetti and ‘gulaman’ Christmas

Chef JR Royol cooks a budgetfriendly “lechon” belly for Christmas. —JR ROYOL FACEBOOK

Growing up, chef JR Royol’s Christmas family dinners looked like any other dinner.

There was no feast to partake of—no ham, queso de bola, or leche flan. A Noche Buena spread? He didn’t even realize back then that the occasion called for special holiday recipes. They made do with whatever they had, bought whatever they could afford, and gave thanks that they had anything on the table at all.

“I came from a humble background. Payak. We didn’t have the means to celebrate it the way others did. I wasn’t conditioned that there were certain standards. There was no custom of us serving certain dishes. For us, it was just about going to church, reflecting on the things we’re grateful for.

“And that was pretty much how I understood Christmas,” Royol told Lifestyle at a recent gathering for the upcoming 25th year celebration of the GMA 7 morning show “Unang Hirit,” where he’s a resident host and chef.

It also didn’t help that his family led a life that could be loosely described as nomadic.

Royol was born to an Igorot mother and Bicolano father in Benguet, where his early years were spent. But in 1989, when he was 5, their house burned down, forcing the family to relocate to Batangas. Some time after, they found themselves in Oriental Mindoro, and then in Las Piñas, and much later, in La Union.

While his cultural heritage and exposure to such places in the Philippines would eventually lay the foundation for his culinary career, his family’s constantly changing zip codes didn’t allow for a defined holiday food tradition to take root.

Of the childhood Christmases he could remember, there were only two or three instances, he related, when they had anything remotely close to traditional holiday fare.

Innocent days

JR Royol (center) with cohosts Jenzel Angeles and Anjay Anson in a past Christmas-themed “Unang Hirit” episode

In Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro—one of the many places Royol once called home—they had Filipino-style spaghetti, served with a fair bit of ground meat; sweetened and reddened by dollops of banana ketchup. And for a spark of sweetness, they had gulaman—freshly made from agar seaweeds gathered from the nearby waters.

“This I will never forget because we did the picking ourselves. We lived some 50 feet from the aplaya, the shore. And during low tide, there we would find seaweeds. We would leave them under the sun for days. Once they’re hard and dry, we boil them and turn them into gulaman,” he said. “We didn’t have the money so we had to turn to our surroundings.”

The variety of seaweeds he used, he recalled, were pale green in color and had stiff branchlets. And looking back, it dawned on him—and this may be a bit of a stretch, he laughed—that the seaweeds actually looked like leaves of a Christmas tree.

“If you ask me what my idea of a Christmas delicacy is, that’s what comes to mind,” he said. “And that already made me very happy.”

But a lot of things have changed since those innocent seaweed-hunting days.

In 2013, Royol won the first Philippine edition of the reality cooking competition “MasterChef.” With the title, he gradually built up his resumé, landing jobs and eventually taking top positions at restaurants and hotels. He served as executive chef at Hotel Kimberly and Hotel Monticello, both in Tagaytay City; and at the Golden Phoenix Hotel in Pasay City.

With his “Bigorot” cooking style, which explores he interplay of smoky Igorot and spicy, coconut-y Bicolano flavors, Royol’s creations have delighted many celebrities and even foreign dignitaries. But while his creations draw heavily from his heritage, the chef, through the years, has broadened his horizon to include influences from other regional cuisines, like that of the Tausug, one of his favorites.

Building Christmas tradition

Royol with daughter MJ, son Matteo, and wife Ma-ann —@JRROYOL INSTAGRAM

Last February, he opened his restaurant, Anihan Sustainable Gastronomy, in Laguna. On television he hosts the GTV cooking show “Farm to Table,” which has him sourcing locally produced ingredients from different farms and rural communities. In “Unang Hirit,” which he said gave his craft a bigger exposure, he features small food businesses and whips up easy-to-cook meals.

Now, he can finally work on building the Christmas food tradition he didn’t have.

“It was when I started to earn my own money that our Noche Buena started to look a bit more festive,” said Royol, who used to front the underground rock band Israfel before professional cooking beckoned.

These days, the spread usually features roasted pork belly, his wife’s baked macaroni, or a nice seafood dish if he could find a good deal on them. Once in a while, trays of cheese or cold cuts would make their way to the table. And in the rare, more special celebrations, the sizzling sound of Tomahawk steaks being seared fills his home.

Still, he prefers to keep things simple as much as possible. Three dishes are more than enough to make his family of four happy and keep their bellies full. Anything more than that is a chore. Perhaps it’s the carefree former rock singer in him doing the talking, but no dinner, Royol said, is worth ruining your day over.

“Don’t make it too complicated. Don’t stress yourself out. Cook with the resources you have, with the skills you have. But just make sure you do it from the heart,” he said.

But more than the workload, the idea of excesses makes Royol a bit wary, uneasy even, perhaps because he feels like it goes against the meaning of Christmas that he has always known.

“Christmas dinners are now more filling, but nothing lavish or grand. It feels off to me… It’s not the essence of Christmas for me,” he pointed out, adding that he hopes to introduce Christmas to his young son as a time of giving, and more importantly, a time for family.

“We didn’t have the ability to give as much as we wanted back in the day. But now that I’m working, I would like to think that God courses through me gifts and blessings that are meant to be shared with others.”

After all, he said, in the presence of people you cherish—once laughter is shared and memories created over dinner—the food, no matter how fancy or delicious, becomes secondary.

“Christmas is all about spending time with the people we love, regardless of what you have on the table—lechon man ‘yan o tuyo,” Royol said.