Cebu City - Have you come to think of why we always associate Holy Week meal with binignit. What does this snack have to do with this Great Week and why do Visayan mothers love to prepare this snack every Lenten season?

Binignit is a Cebuano dessert-snack that is like Luzon’s version of ginataan halo-halo and bilo-bilo. This dish is traditionally made with glutinous rice or pilit which adds greater texture to the stew and gives it a distinctive taste cooked in coconut milk with various slices of sabá bananas, taro, and sweet potato, among other ingredients. Among the Visayan people, the dish is traditionally served during Good Friday of Holy Week.

For most Cebuanos, the dessert evokes a nostalgic feeling bringing back their mother’s, aunt, lola’s special binignit recipe. It became a soul food that every Visayan craves especially during the hot days. They often think of this dish during the Holy Week.

Well interestingly, there’s no clear reason on how binignit came to be a Holy Week staple. In a feature article published in Cebu Daily News in 2016 by a travel writer and rural tourism advocate, Boboi Costas, he theorized that Filipinos have been eating fruits and root crops even before we were colonized by the Spaniards. Costas opined that binignit may have been around before they even introduced Christianity and the concept of Lent. The association of binignit is simply linked to the Catholic practice of abstaining from eating meat during this time of year. During this solemn time of devotion, Christians are encouraged to fast and abstain from eating any form of meat. Hence, this Cebuano delight is a perfect stew during the hot days of the Lenten season. // ND II James Aaron S. Perez, RND