A guilty pleasure

I'm 38, and I have something to confess. I LOVE condensed milk. I've been in love with it ever since I was a small boy in Cubao, Quezon City, looking for something to eat as garnish to my plateful of rice. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there was plenty of food in our little house in 8th Avenue back then, it just didn't occur to me that the vegetables in the crisper could be delicious, and that the stinky buwad (dried salted fish) on the top of the fridge could be heaven when dipped onto vinegar. So I found the can of condensed milk in the fridge, put there by my nanay for sweetening a desert of fruit perhaps. Putting the two together in my mind (the white milk over the white grains of rice, hmmm) was a personal stroke of genius.

My cousin Eric, who was my next-door neighbor and who is of the same age as mine, loved putting Ricoa breakfast cocoa onto his condensed milk. I loved the chocolatey concoction, too, although because my family didn't have that much money (as my nanay said), Ricoa breakfast cocoa on our dining table is a memory I could not remember having. But I do have the memory of condensed milk over Milo, which is a much sweeter memory.

I confess this because I am currently eating an avocado as I write this. Like with most of the fruits I eat, I hummingly and longingly spread a large dollop of the sweet milk over the inside half of the avocado I am holding in my now sticky hands. My mouth waters as I scoop a piece of avocado with the milk. Sometimes, I stealthily sip the milk direct from the slits of the can, the wave of sweetness washing over the top of my tongue slowly.

Avocado with milk. Papaya with milk. Buko with milk. Mangoes with milk. Caimitos with milk. The list goes on. And those are just the fruits. I haven't told you that I love condensed milk with my bread, my donuts, my pancakes, and my Quaker oats. There is also boiled condensed milk in the can, a lovely brown when opened and spread with crayonlike consistency onto a piece of tasty (sandwich bread). I also inject milk into the soft, squishy core of my pandesals, which if you don't eat the right way (which is to eat it whole with your head faced towards the ceiling) will end up with milk on your chest and fingers.

And have I told you I love condensed milk on my rice?