These soft bread pockets are stuffed with a brightly-colored pudding made from stale bread, milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and a mother lode of red food coloring. Variations on the filling also include those made from ube and pineapple.WHY IS IT CALLED THAT?
While some describe the taste of kalihim as tasty but boring, its monikers (and the reasons behind them) are anything but. The word kalihim implies a secret, which in this case alludes to the bakers who processed the previous day’s unsold bread into pastry filling. Some citizens of Tondo also refer to this afternoon snack as pan de regla (literally, “menstrual bread”) because it looks like the cross section of a used sanitary napkin. For the polite (or the squeamish), however, they can ask their baker for a roll of ligaya(joy). Though as any female who’s gone through puberty will tell you, there’s nothing joyous about being on your period. Never mind what Anne Curtis says.
