Tablea and cacao start off my 2020

Growing up my mom always made champorado when we were still in the US. She would make it with tablea, or dried molds of ground raw cacao, which she would bring from her home province of Bohol from time to time. With 2020 up and running, I happened to finish artwork dedicated to these brown delectable doodads of deliciousness. In the midst of Taal volcano blasting and a new coronavirus, I whipped out my pens and pencils and started reminiscing on good times and good food to block out all the bad news albeit temporarily.

When I did my lightweight research on tablea, it turned out that it had its roots all the way back in ancient Mexico when the Aztecs and Mayans still ruled the areas. I share more about this history at Filipino Food Art. I also did some research on how tablea is made. The process is fairly simple, but details here and there differ from each recipe to the next. I took the general process on how table was made and created my first infographic using Baybayin!

I also made a coloring book of the same art and process with the Tagalog and English translations. I’m hoping it’ll make for a nice children’s activity for young Filipino-Americans.

The high resolution digital poster, and the coloring book, are available for those who become Patrons here! It was really fun to create art highlighting one of my favorite imports growing up, which now happens to be one of my favorite local ingredients now that I live isle-side.