I never cooked laing before I came to Canada, even though it’s one of our family specialties. (My parents are both Bicolanos.) That’s because cooking it the traditional way can be so laborious. First, the fresh gabi leaves and stalks have to be dried in the sun for a few days, and cut into small pieces. Then, you need to grate the coconut (using the old fashioned grater where you have to sit on a wooden contraption) and squeeze the grated coconut by hand. Then, you can start cooking the gabi in the coconut milk.
Here in Canada, you can buy dried, cut gabi leaves and frozen or canned coconut milk, and all you have to do is put together the ingredients. So laing has become really easy to cook.
I can now understand where my old folks learned the value of hard work. They needed to exert effort to come up with something good. And it was well worth it. Nothing beats the taste of laing cooked the old-fashioned way.
Today, we are so used to a comfortable life that we like to take shortcuts or the least painful route. We prefer convenience over hard work. Look at how it has affected the way we view situations. If something doesn’t work, we throw it rather than fix it because fixing requires more time and effort. (And this applies as well to relationships.) If a task requires some sacrifice from us, we hesitate and make up an excuse not to do it.
Sadly, in a culture where personal comfort takes precedence, the important values of hard work, sacrifice and commitment get lost along the way.
Anything you can turn your hand to, do with what power you have; for there will be no work, nor reason, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the nether world where you are going.... (Ecclesiastes 9:10)
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