Featured as part of our Cooks and their Books series.
Lumpia, a popular snack, may be ‘fresh’ or fried. Fresh lumpia means that the filling is enclosed in a lettuce leaf and egg roll wrapper and eaten without additional cooking, while fried lumpia is similar to a spring roll. There are many versions of lumpia, each featuring a main ingredient — for example, lumpia labong (with bamboo shoots), lumpia with peanuts, and the most sought after, lumpia with ubod. Ubod is the heart of the coconut palm and has justly earned its reputation for being food for millionaires, because a whole tree has to be sacrificed to obtain the tender, nutty, creamy white heart-of-palm. Here is a basic recipe for lumpia. To this you may add chopped bamboo shoots or crushed roasted peanuts for variation. If you yearn to taste the heart-of-palm filling, cut tinned hearts of palm into matchstick strips and mix only with an equal quantity of diced cooked prawns or lobster, then season with salt and pepper, to taste.