Filipinos eat rice. This is an undisputable fact. Even those who have embraced a more western lifestyle continue to look for the distinct satisfaction of eating rice, especially if there is adobo or daing on the table.

It used to be that people liked the whitest rice available, and that it did not really matter what variety it was except that it should be fragrant and soft when cooked. Now with health issues coming to the fore, we are beginning to learn that it is healthier to eat the brown unpolished rice. People are also taking a fresh look at the old rice varieties for their nutrition value. Fancy red rice and organic unpolished rice are priced double the hybrid fast-growing varieties.

We may eat rice everyday but most of us don’t really know what process the rice has to go through before it ends up in our dining table. In central Luzon and other rice-growing areas, we see rice mills with large drying areas outside where they sun-dry the grain before processing. Rice has hard husks that need to be removed for the grain to come out. A machine processes the rice the way we want it: polished or unpolished, super white or still with some of its bran.

Our forebears did not have the same luxury. I remember my mom telling us stories of their life during the Japanese occupation in the 1940s when they had to manually pound the rice grain before cooking. How she at 8 and her brother who was a year younger, sometimes had to take turns in smashing the long and heavy wooden pole into the hollowed out wooden mortar that contained the husked rice.

Relief from this arduous chore would arrive in the form of guerilla fighters asking for some of the grain. In exchange, my grandfather would ask them to pound rice for the family. I know first hand that this is not a light or easy task. When I was about 10, my brothers (aged 11 and 8) and I tried using the old lusong and hal-o (Hiligaynon for the huge wooden mortar and pestle that is used to pound rice) that was stored at the back of our kitchen.

Just turning the heavy wooden mortar right side up required all three of us to do the work. Made of hollowed out hardwood timber which was about two feet wide and three feet long, it was probably more than 30 kilograms in weight. The wooden pole was at about 3-5 kilograms and at least 6 feet long. It was a rounded straight pole that tapered in the middle where an adult hand could easily grasp it with one hand. In our case, we had to each hold it with both hands. We had planned to use the husked rice the maid weeded out from the white rice but we found such a measly amount we decided to raid the rice bin and take out another cup just so we will have more grain to pound.

To make a long story short, we ended up exhausted with a cupful of broken rice, blistered hands and a scolding for playing with the rice. I don’t think we even unhusked any of the few grains for all our efforts.

Pounding rice to remove the husk is backbreaking and time-consuming work, even for adults. It was probably enough incentive for the people to think of innovative ways to mill rice in a less strenuous manner.

Today, in this age of electronic and motorized equipment and gadgetry, tools that require a lot of manual labor like the native rice pounder is something that one might see in museums or interactive exhibits as an interesting relic from the past. We should be thankful that we don’t have to go through such lengths just to have rice on our tables.