Chocolate Pig

VERA, my youngest, aged 3, loves to eat what she called "chocolate pig". She often requests that I buy the ingredients whenever she learned that I'm going to the market. I can't recall exactly how she invented those words. "Chocolate pig." Have you heard about it? I seldom prepare Dinuguan (Blood Stew) not because the kids don't love it but due the fact that we make it an option to limit our pork consumption to only once-a-week.

Lately, the request has turned into demand, and I’ve had to devise means to lessen the frequency without dampening her joy. Sometimes I distract her with White Rabbit candies or a slice of cassava pudding, but she circles back, determined. To her, “chocolate pig” is not a dish—it is a promise, a ritual, a taste of comfort.

I smile at the thought: how language reshapes food, how a child’s tongue baptizes tradition with new names. Dinuguan, once a dish of restraint, has become in our household a symbol of persistence, of Vera’s stubborn delight. And I, caught between health and happiness, find myself negotiating with a three‑year‑old philosopher whose wisdom is simple—if it tastes good, why not call it chocolate?