Kesong Puti and Me

posted on August 14, 2017 by Bianca Garcia

This is an excerpt from my latest blog post for BOSFilipinos, which I co-founded and recently launched with two of my friends. Our mission is to help elevate Filipino culture, starting with the Greater Boston area. The original article is here.

I unwrap the cheese quickly, but carefully. I once did so haphazardly, greedily, and the wrapper of bright green banana leaves cut the skin on my fingertips. But now I do so gingerly, unraveling the six-inch logs of white cheese, pre-cut into little disks that are about half-inch thick, fresh from the local market, with the milk still dripping from the woven leaves. It is kesong puti, one of my very favorite foods in the world.

Kesong puti is a local Filipino white cheese made from pure carabao’s milk. It is essentially fresh buffalo mozzarella, but more tart, and softer than any other cheese I can think of, with a mildly pungent smell and a creamy aftertaste. I would often have it for breakfast with warm pan de sal (traditional Filipino breakfast rolls) and tsokolate (hot chocolate). Sometimes I’d spread butter on the bread, but I typically enjoyed my kesong puti plain and unadorned. I savored its flavor as much as I could, because I didn’t know when I could eat it again.

To read the rest of the blog post, please head over to BOSFilipinos. Thank you for your support!