People who travel to the Philippines will immediately notice the heat. It surrounds you and sticks to your clothes and your skin, rises up from the cracks in the concrete and causes the less-hardy tropical plants to shrivel up with thirst. This is the reason why you will find a lot of cool treats in the Philippines. With the heat and with most people unable to afford air conditioned homes, the next best thing is something cool that you can put in your mouth.
The halo-halo is one of the most popular desserts in the Philippines. The word literally means 'to mix' and this is the perfect description of what this dessert is. Halo-halo is a mix of fruits, usually those that are in season, milk, shaved ice, beans, and milk flan. Put together, this produces a delicious summery dessert that is perfect for fighting off the Philippine tropical heat. A typical halo-halo comes with cubes of mango, slices of jackfruit, papaya, macapuno meat, nata de coco, beans, cereal, candied bananas, and jelly. All the ingredients are placed in a tall tumbler before a layer of shaved ice is put in. Next comes the evaporated milk before milk flan or ube paste is placed on top. You can also request to have one or two scoops of ice cream instead of the ube paste or milk flan, or you can have all three.
One of the best things about eating halo-halo is the distinct crunch that you hear as you mix the fruits, ice, and the rest of the ingredients together. Halo-halo is best eaten using a small spoon with a handle that is about 4 to 5 inches long. You use the spoon to dig in to the deepest part of the tumbler to bring all the fruits and other ingredients to the top, so that the shaved ice gets spread evenly. Some like to set the scoops of ice cream aside so that it doesn't get mixed in with the rest of the ingredients. Others prefer the extra creaminess that comes with the added ice cream, since the halo-halo becomes thicker when ice cream is added.
No matter how you want to eat your halo-halo, there is no denying that you will have fun eating it. Try eating this cool summer dessert after a long sight-seeing trip, and you will definitely see why halo-halo is such a best-seller in this corner of the world.
