Our childhood breads with Kuya Juluo and Zoey
Memory-laden breads
Breaking bread:
Conversations over goooood bread, and even better company.
An interview series that centers around our favorite breads, and the personal histories and memories baked into them.
The question of home is like foregone gratification, akin to reading through a verbose Javier Marías paragraph or finishing a Lav Diaz film. It’s a question that asks a lot of you, and rightfully so.
I think of myself as a student of the concept of home — the plausible entry point into why I studied architecture and, more broadly, the built environment. The concept of home holds inherent weight, gesturing towards something deeper because it is generational. It is a perpetual fascination because, as someone living outside my homeland, and as these two conversations reveal, home is at a distance.
My favorite filmmaker, Agnes Varda, said: “If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes.” The landscapes inside my mind are what I consider my first encounters with the concept of architecture. The pastel-colored concrete walls of my grandparents' home, clusters of low-rise bungalows and sari-sari stores scattered throughout the provinces, and well-tended patches of orchids and hibiscus flowers in my grandmother’s front yard—all in her very pink house.
These collected memories are carefully tucked away until I sense a pang of recognition from others, where being homesick is part of how they move about in the world. Memory-keeping, or the conscious act of remembering, is an unquestioned part of our lives.
These two conversations with Kuya Juluo and Zoey are centered around the breads of our childhood. And because we cannot physically share them, they make the physical distance from home obvious.
Breaking bread took form because of my desire to remember and sketch out these simple conversations, no matter how mundane it seems to ask people to share their favorite bread and why. There are encounters we might let slip us by and the ones we keep because of the indelible mark they’ve made. This project is an attempt to give form to the latter — the small conversations that open up worlds we recognize and that recognize something within us.
Breaking Pinagong and Spanish bread with Kuya Juluo
BREAD OF CHOICE
Because of the limited availability and geographic barriers (6,000+ miles away) of pinagong, we shared pastries and coffee in Kuya Juluo’s office during this interview.
Pinagong is a delicacy that is only available in Sariaya, Quezon province in the Philippines.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BREAD? WHY?
My two favorite breads are, first, Pinagong - you can only find that in my province, in the Philippines, actually - and second is Spanish bread, also known as star bread, which we call here in America.
FAVORITE MEMORY WITH THIS BREAD(S)?
Pinagong
With Pinagong specifically, I have a very vivid memory of me always walking down the streets, usually about like eight to ten minute walk away from my, house, and then I would usually pay like five pesos just to get, like I think, one or two pieces, and then, I go back home, I try to heat it up in the microwave and like it's so soft and buttery, and I remember, every time my parents were finally able to leave the country and go home, I always asked them to bring me a ton of them, and I think that there's always that moment that I, whenever I eat it, I just feel like it brings me back to being in the Philippines.
You know that scene from Ratatouille. It's kind of like that when the food critic eats it and then it has a flashback of how it was when he was a kid. So that's what I love about it. It reminds me of my grandparents because my grandma, specifically, would also eat it with me. So it's my way of remembering home.
Spanish bread
The second one is Spanish bread. What I love about it is that in the Philippines, as you know, we have merienda, which is like typically you would snack in the middle of the day, after lunch or so on.
What I would do is I would walk to the wet market, the palengke, and then I would ask, my uncle or my godfather for some money, and usually they give me five pesos or ten pesos, and then I would get coke and put it in a plastic bag- and it would be super cold usually- and then I go to the store and buy Spanish bread or star bread, whatever you want to call it, and then I would always share it with my friends, and that's what I love.
Everytime I have food, I always share it with them, but it was that specific snack or bread that I would always enjoy with them, because I mean, usually I remember the pack came with about eight or ten pieces, and you know I could never really finish that.
So then I would just share it with them, and it was really nice because in the province, it's really really hot, so then we'll find somewhere there’s shade. We just eat it, we just enjoy the day, and then, when the sun is starting to come down, then we'll play again and run around the neighborhood.
Is eating bread, or eating these breads more of a collective shared memory, or is it more individual and personal to you?
I would say it's both. Like when I was younger, I typically would share it with my community, right? But now as an adult, whenever I eat it by myself, those are the memories that I keep thinking about over and over and over. Because whenever my mom brings it here, of course, I always eat it alone in my apartment and she usually buys a lot. So then I usually would bring some to my friends, like, oh my God, this is from my province, you need to try it, X, Y, Z, X, Y, Z. But typically now, I like eating by myself and then when I have more later on, then I share.
HOW DO YOU LIKE IT MADE?
Do you like to have a specific palaman or things you like to pair it with?
With pinagong, I remember my grandma would always cut it in half and we would have it with coffee. That's where my coffee addiction derived from. I'm just kidding. But I remember we would do that in the mornings on the weekends. But typically, like I, I like eating it by itself. When I was younger, I used to be so addicted to sweets, too, that I would put in condensed milk. So I would heat it up in the microwave and dip it with condensed milk.
With Spanish bread, it's also super sweet. Usually after I eat three, I'm good.
LIVING, PAST, OR FUTURE — WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO BREAK BREAD WITH?
If I can go back in time, my grandparents, obviously. But I think that if I could share bread now, I would just keep it simple. I would share it with the people I love just because it makes me happy. And I want to be able to share that happiness, feeling with others around me.
Breaking Pineapple Cake and Dutch Crunch with Zoey
BREAD OF CHOICE
Zoey’s bread of choice is the Dutch Crunch, but we ate Pineapple Cakes during this conversation. We also talked about other breads from Zoey’s travels after moving from her hometown — from Kartoffelbrot in Germany to Dutch Crunch in San Francisco.
PERSONAL MEMORIES WITH BREAD
There's a story that mom used to work for a travel agency and they have a lot of travel lines to Taiwan, so this is always our must-have in the house, because she always brought pineapple cakes.
My mom was always making bread for me. My breakfast is all made by my mom. Before, it was more Chinese style, but she loved to make Hokkaido toast for me. It's based on some recipes she learned online. She would upgrade it based on her understanding of me. For example, she would ask if I liked the softness of the bread.
My dad started to pick up the habit of eating bread at breakfast. Like at the beginning, my dad only eats Chinese style breakfast, but now he can accept the bread.
BREAD AND HOMESICKNESS
I'm curious, since you talked about how you moved away to Germany earlier: do you bake or do you cook anything that reminds you of home? Or when you're homesick, do you go to a restaurant? I'm just curious if there's a connection between memory and food for you, especially since you studied abroad and lived in other places besides your hometown.
When I was in Germany, I was super fascinated by all the new things because it was my first time getting out of China to study. So, I actually ate a lot of pretzel bread at this moment. I still remember the taste because it's always in our school dining hall that I can pick up in the morning.
But after I came to the US, especially during the pandemic, I got really heavy homesickness because I couldn't go back home and I miss all my family. I haven't really been back home for four years before my last visit, which was last year in November.
I would cook something and try to find some ingredients that my mom used to cook for me and I love to go to Chinese bakeries. I bought a lot of Chinese bread. I like the corn bun, maybe some like American style Chinese bread, and sausage bun, just like the ingredients that my mom used to use in her cuisine or in her bakery.
BREAD AROUND THE WORLD
Throughout your travels, what was the most unique bread you tried?
It's potato bread called Kartoffelbrot in German. I always found that in the farmer's market because I was staying in a relatively small city, Stuttgart. There’s a farmer's market every weekend. It’s chewy in texture. I went to the Oakland farmer's market and found really good pretzel and potato bread.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BREAD? WHY?
So when you ask me about my favorite bread, I had a hard time because there are so many things I love — mochi bread, banana cake, Chinese bread, pretzel, and all these things.
But the Dutch Crunch — the impression still lives in my head. I always order Dutch Crunch with a meatball and barbecue sauce and tomato for my lunch. This recipe is from one of my friends, Neal. I ordered it several times in the market near my office. I still didn't find my favorite bread before I got to know this recipe because you need to make it yourself. And after I got that recipe, I was obsessed with it.
Every time I have this bread, I talk with different people and I get to know their story. I was not originally from this area. I moved from China. And I was living in Germany and Boston, but this is my first time staying in San Francisco. And I feel so lucky to be part of IDEO, and I think through this kind of lunch chat, like small chat, when I have food and when I talk with my friends in the office, I was making a deeper connection with them. And I feel like the food experience has been influenced by this interaction between people. It’s tied to a lot of my memories.
QUESTION OF HOME AT 3PM IN THE AFTERNOON
You mentioned how you moved from different cities and countries. Just curious, for me, this is something I think about a lot as someone who's originally from the Philippines. How do you think about home? Is home a place, a feeling or being around people?
I always have this question because I was moving all the time. I went back home last year with a bunch of my friends to China for three weeks. I was staying with my mom.
So there's a fun memory. One of my friends, he's a filmmaker and he interviewed my dad. My dad and I don’t really share common hobbies growing up. I'm the only child, born in the only child policy period of time. Me and my mom have a more sister-style like type of communication.
Hearing my dad’s interview, it was a very interesting feeling. It redefined my way of thinking about home. Home to me is more about communication. It's more about the invisible relationship between people — the untold story. It's actually very interesting. We are far from each other. Home, in my mind, is more like a symbol for that.
LIVING, PAST, OR FUTURE — WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO BREAK BREAD WITH?
I'm just curious, who do you want to break bread with?
Like, break bread?
Yeah, just who you want to spend time with eating bread.
Just one person, or it can be a group?
Okay, I'll make an exception for you and you can say a group.
I want to eat the bread in a housewarming party. Because I'm planning a housewarming party now. It's a very functional idea.
BONUS BREAD MEMORY:
Also, I think you should interview Tanja as well. She's the first person that shared bread with me here. She baked me mochi cake. I visited her one time at her house. And she was making some mochi bread, and she taught me how to make it. I did make it one time, too.
Later that night, Zoey and I shared dumplings with a few of our other friends at IDEO.
