Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

Cashew brittle

In several scenes, cashew brittle making occupies center stage. Each step is deftly shown: the cashew nuts are shelled by hand, using a shell crusher, split open to reveal the raw cashew, roasted in the wok, and then, with added sugar or muscovado, made into brittle. Relationships are like cashew brittle-making.

The shelling of the cashews is akin to revealing a part of one’s self, an opening of one’s heart to the other, a sharing of one’s thoughts and feelings. In the process of shelling, one encounters cut fingers, the calloused hands and even bruises from pushing down on the shell crusher.

Just like friendships or human interactions, one’s feelings can be bruised, one’s sensibilities can be stepped on, and in some rare instance, trust can be breached, similar to the shelling of cashews. But, in the fragmented relationship, a coming together, a blending again can happen, as in raw sugar with cashews to make them into a smooth brittle. But if one remains closed in the shell, he stays isolated, unable to be part of a seamless piece of brittle, unable to provide sustenance to another, much like a person in a relationship who is unable to share his innermost feelings.

There is no one there for one to relate to, and there is no one there to connect to, and the cashew still in the shell stays isolated from the rest. Yet, the opposite is also true, if the cashew is roasted with too much heat, bitterness sets in, just like a relationship: too much togetherness with very little solitude or "alone time," the resentment surfaces.

So, a harmonious relationship requires just the right interplay of solitude and togetherness; even friendships are that way, too much distance and there is no more friendship bond to connect to, and too much time spent together sometimes become the gossipy link, where we bring out the worst in each other and in others.

In Ploning, the cashew brittle-making involved the solidifying of friendships amongst women. The best part of the movie for me was the exchanges of their insights, derived from their experiences, discernment so to speak, of life’s learned lessons:

" If I was not weak in love, I would not be strong in life. "

" If I did not marry for looks, then, I will not realize outward appearance has no value. "

" If I have been smart, I would have been shallow and happy. "

"A person who loves, trusts. I believe that one who loves also gets hurt, if you do not get hurt, then you are not loving. It’s like telling yourself that you will not love again because you are afraid of getting hurt."

The cashew brittle in a bottle, with its logo of a mother and child, recalls the love between now grown Digo, at 30 years old, and the father he comes to know. He is saved by Tsuy, a Taiwanese fisherman who gives him a life at sea. Yet, Digo feels incomplete and is compelled to search for his roots, and for Ploning.

Now grown, in search of Ploning in the island of Palawan, Digo buys a bottle of a cashew brittle, remembering the love he once felt, while Ploning cared for him when he was a 6-year-old boy. Digo gives the cashew brittle to Tsuy, the father he comes to know, as his gift, asking him to remember his love, a love of a son to his father.

Food has now become a language of the heart, a symbol of affection between a Cuyo native and a Taiwanese, and also a bridgeway to a past, to a memory of a mother’s love, his mentor.

It is a clever use of metaphors on the part of the director to contain human relationships in a bottle of cashew brittle. The cashew brittle alludes to and encompasses the town’s stories -- the women’s stories as they make cashew brittle, the story of a love between mother and child, a son bidding farewell to his adoptive father to find Ploning and a father, and a Cuyunon in search of his own identity and impliedly a new love interest!