What Halo-Halo Reveals About Filipino VAs

Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at working with online Filipino specialists. This is episode 171, how Filipinos beat the Heat Food Edition. So I have a friend that lives in Chile and the other day he sent me a photo of his kids in front of his house and it's all snowed over in South America right now. They have snow and it's cold. At least in some parts of South America. He lives way down south near Patagonia. Everywhere else in the world right now it seems like we are dealing with world record heat all over the US and Europe. It's hot. So here are a few typical Filipino desserts that they have when it is hot outside, which is most of the time in the Philippines. And this is all according to Julia. So number one, Halo Halo, this beloved dessert. And I'm going to read this from Julia. This beloved dessert is now known worldwide thanks to jollibee and Filipino restaurants. But the mass produced stuff still doesn't compare to the cheap Halo Halo you can get from neighborhood stalls. Stalls that are only open during summer afternoons and use authentic Halo Halo ingredients. The neighborhood Halo Halo stall is where you hang out with your friends to cool down. So of all these things, Halo Halo is the one that I've seen and heard of and maybe I've eaten it. Eaten it. I don't know. But yeah, that's definitely a worldwide thing at this point. Next, Sorbetes, which this is not unique to the Philippines, but you know the Sorbetes card is coming. When you hear the sorbetero, it's the the sorbettis vendor, which is ice cream, call out his wares and ring his bell. Sorbettis is traditional Filipino ice cream made with coconut and or carabao milk and sold in roaming carts. So in Brazil when I lived there, they had the same thing. They were selling popsicles. Very often roaming carts, walking around yelling out about popsicles or blowing whistles or ringing bells. Same thing, Julia continues. Each cart can hold three to four metal bins of ice cream, each a different flavor. Sorbetti's usually comes in tropical flavors like mango Ube, which is sweet yam, avocado, pandan, Asian vanilla or coconut. You can also find other flavors like strawberry cheese, which is Julia's favorite, and tabla Philippine chocolate. You can have your ice cream on a sugar or wafer cone or as a sandwich. Next up is the Iskrambol which is cramble or ice scramble is shaved banana flavored frozen evaporated milk topped with powdered milk, chocolate syrup, marshmallows, candy sprinkles. This candy colored Filipino version of a slushie is a favorite among school kids. So in terms of the name of this, Iskrambul, my son right now is learning Tagalog as a missionary, and it's interesting to hear all of the words that, that he's learning that are either English origin or Spanish origin. And then in the Philippines, they, they've changed. They changed them slightly to be a little bit more simple. So we have ice scramble and they just stuck the two S's together. And that is scramble. Yeah. There's a lot of words that my son has come and said that were like, o understand what you're saying? How do you spell that? And then it's spelled differently. It's spelled a more simplified, shortened version of the Spanish word como esta? To say, hello, how are you? They would say como esta in Filipino. So anyway, I'm getting off topic here. From the desserts. Next, maize and sagging coniello, though not as fancy as Halo Halo Maize conyello, which is sweet corn with shaved ice and evaporated milk. Let's see. And sagging coniello, cooked sweet bananas with shaved ice and evaporated milk. Our perennial favorites because of their simplicity. It's not as sweet as Halo Halo, but to Julia, just as comforting. The last two are ice candy and samala mig. Ice candy. If you're craving something cold and sweet on a budget, you can go to your favorite sari sari store and get ice candy. Ice candy is just frozen juice in a plastic bag, but sometimes people add their twist to it by adding fruit bits or sweet beans. Before the world was introduced to boba drinks, the Philippines already had a version of it. Salamig Samalamig is a chilled drink commonly sold by street vendors. It comes in different fruit flavors and typically has chewables like nata de coco, tapioca pearls, gelatin, coconut meat and sugar palm fruit at the bottom of the cup. It's a refreshing drink and snack in one package. So of all these things, I have heard of sorbettis before just from being in different places. I mean, I've. I've seen that in Costa Rica and in Mexico and in Brazil. Different but similar. And even in the US we have the. We have the ice cream cart car that drives around playing music and selling ice cream. It's a lot less common today after the probably 1980s, 1990s freak out about kidnappers so that's that. That business model has significantly declined in the U.S. still around, though. But of all these, my son, who again is studying or is getting ready to go to the Philippines and studying Tagalog, has been told by multiple people about Halo. Halo. That's the one that he hears about. That's the one he's. People keep telling him about. Oh, you got to try the Halo. Halo. That's an exciting one for him.