Lutong Bahay at Harana Market
It all started with the lumpia.
As a kid growing up in San Diego, Christina Mauricio (who goes by the pronouns: they/them) spent their formative years the way many children in Filipinx-American households do: learning the ways of the kitchen by shadowing their mama (grandmother). “She never used recipes; there was no formal system of measuring,” recalls Mauricio of their grandmother. “She taught this really interesting mix of technique and intuition — cooking based on look, touch, and feel.” They watched as soy sauce and chiles and vinegar transformed into adobo (marinated meat) and pancit (stir-fried noodles) and, of course, lumpia, the beloved pork-filled spring rolls that vanish by the tray-full at every Filipinx family gathering.
Lumpia became a source of comfort while Mauricio attended culinary school in Oregon and nabbed restaurant jobs in the Pacific Northwest. And when Mauricio and their partner Eva Tringali (she/her) landed in Brooklyn after moving from San Francisco last year, lumpia-rolling dinner parties were designed to enlighten and sustain friends. Then came the coronavirus, a shelter-in-place order, and a scramble to find a parcel of land — a spot to breathe and cook and share — in the Hudson Valley. Through trial and tribulation, success and celebration, the lumpia was always there.
“It became very clear that, in spite of all of this upheaval, the thing that never went away for people was the nourishment of the table and the nourishment that food provides, both physically and spiritually,” says Tringali, a former corporate and private event producer. “We thought, Why aren’t we doing something with food? The lumpia was kind of the aha moment.”
So the couple ditched their day jobs, packed their bags, and headed north, bringing Mauricio’s grandmother’s orated lumpia recipe with them and making it the cornerstone of Harana Market, the Filipino deli and Asian specialty food shop they opened earlier this year. Set in a 1930s general store on an otherwise unremarkable stretch of Woodstock pavement, the deli features a rotating menu of lutong bahay, home-style dishes, or ulam, like chicken-and-long-bean adobo and arroz caldo inspired by Mauricio’s grandmother’s teachings and made with locally and ethically sourced meats and produce from family-run farms in the area. An alternative to the far-away Asian grocery stores in Albany or New Jersey that the couple once drove hours to reach to find their favorite delicacies, the shelves are stocked with essential and sometimes hard-to-find ingredients — think whole annatto and Szechuan peppercorns — especially those produced by Asian and BIPOC-owned companies.
“It’s about so much more than food,” says Tringali, noting that the store is as much an embrace of community-oriented values as it is a rejection of the traditional capitalistic business model. “Building Harana Market was an intentional decision of empowerment. We were tired of giving our blood, sweat, and tears to these exploitative companies owned by wealthy white men.” Adds Mauricio, “I struggled with supporting this system that’s not really built to uplift people from different socio- economic backgrounds.” In addition to mom-and- pop artisanal items, the shop’s display cases are filled with housewares, fabrics, and jewelry made by indigenous artists from Filipinx tribes, and the couple plans to reinvest a portion of their profits into like-minded, minority-owned businesses. “Doing something that does right by people felt like a good thing,” says Mauricio.
“I struggled with supporting this system that’s not really built to uplift people from different socioeconomic backgrounds. “
The community agrees. Though the Catskills might seem like an unlikely place for a bastion of Asian culture, the area was clamoring for something like Harana Market — and residents were vocal about what they wanted from the get-go, from authentic halo-halo (shave ice) to the homemade banana ketchup of their youth. “Living here can be really isolating,” says Tringali. “The amount of visibility that this has given other Asians, not just for themselves but of each other is huge,” says Tringali. “It’s so reaffirming for marginalized people to see themselves here.”
But that’s only part of the story. “This is food that smells like my grandmother’s house,” says Mauricio. “It’s very familiar and comforting for some but also new and interesting for locals who have been here for generations. We’re just as interested in starting a dialogue with those people. The human experience is what’s important to us.”
As the days grow longer, Mauricio and Tringali hope to keep the conversation going with a series of intimate weekly gatherings like the ones they’ve always planned for friends in their personal lives, whether that’s Filipino happy hours or barbecues or karaoke nights (especially fitting because harana means “serenade” in Tagalog). There will even be lumpia rolling parties. This is a love story, after all, and putting down new roots in the community means honoring their own.
Find @haranamarket in Woodstock
By Jennifer Fernandez
Photography by Casey Kelbaugh
Volume 6
