I survived a mugging with a broken rib and a stolen wallet. I arrived home at dawn with grandpa feeding on cheddar cheese. That was good. Everybody would still be asleep. The siren of the ambulance that brought me home from the hospital blared and mom woke up. Trouble. I told her what happened. She wobbly stood up, went to the kitchen and started preparing breakfast.

Grandpa's eyes were slender as pearls. He mumbled an excerpt of the Passion play when I asked him about the pain that Jesus suffered as Mediator. At about that time, a scent materialized from the kitchen along with mom's barbaric yawp, "Mayang na! [Come here, for breakfast.].

The sauted shrimp paste was all it took to give me a good disposition, although my rib warned me from time to time.

This simple delicacy is inexpensive: its ingredients very common, yet very delicious. I heard Andrew Zimmerman say once that to understand the creativity of a culture, one must study what that culture does to its most basic food ingredient. For Nabua (an agricultural town in the Philippines) "balaw" or shrimp paste is one of the basic ingredients.

Ingredients:
6 tablespoons of shrimp paste (alamang; Bikol, balaw)
1/4 kg of tomato
good amount of onion
chopped garlic
2 bulbs of onion
5 peperoncino peppers
canola oil
3/4 cup of diced meat loaf

Instructions:
1. Squeeze the sauce out of the shrimp paste onto a cup. You may store the sauce for other menu.

2. Heat wok and pour oil.

3. Put garlic, onion, tomato and shrimp paste; saute and wait for the tomato to liquify. You can do this by squishing the tomato on the wok.

4. Pour diced meat loaf and chopped peperoncino.

You're done -- that simple.

This meal is best served with a steamy rice. Makes one forget broken ribs.