Noche Buena: Tacoma chef shares her family’s Christmas Eve tradition

Christmas Day may be the highlight of the holidays for many who celebrate. But for the tens of thousands of people of Filipino descent in the Puget Sound region, the big celebration takes place the night before.

Noche Buena is about family gatherings and food. One Tacoma chef shares her family's Noche Buena traditions.

Noche Buena is the biggest feast in the Filipino community. After midnight mass, families gather around the table — usually brimming with a wide variety of dishes.

“It was definitely a special night to be with friends and family,” said Jan Parker, chef and owner of Jan Parker Cookery in Tacoma. “The food was definitely a highlight for me.”

Parker is also a regular at the Proctor Farmers Market in Tacoma where she showcases Filipino food, a rich collection of centuries of Spanish, Chinese, and American influences. Parker invited me to her home to meet her mom, Lucy Garcia.

She showed me how she makes Filipino fruit salad, a holiday staple, similar to the American ambrosia.

“The main ingredients are the cream, some cream cheese and of course, our condensed milk,” Garcia said.

Garcia said the traditional fruit salad uses canned fruit, likely a holdover from the American settlement in the Philippines. Into the mix she added kaong, or preserved palm fruit, shredded young coconut and coconut gel. All can be found at Asian markets.

Every family has its own special dishes. Growing up, there was lechon, or roast pork for Parker’s family. Then there was her mom’s specialty, chicken relleno, where the chicken is deboned and stuffed with ground pork, boiled egg, ham, and cheese.

“Then you have to shape [the chicken] in its original form,” said Parker.

The dish is so time-consuming that Garcia hasn’t made it in a while. Parker remembers going to her mom’s church group as a kid. But the potluck that followed was her favorite.

“As a child, I was not so excited about going to church— sorry mom,” she laughed. “But the main thing was having fun and enjoying the food and the people.”

Parker’s mom grew up in the Philippines, and remembers weeks of preparation for the big day. Many families would go to mass every morning leading up to Noche Buena.

For some young people, that presented an opportunity. “In a lot of cases, pairs would elope!”Garcia said.

Garcia has fond memories of Noche Buena. Her dad, she explained, travelled a lot for work. But around Christmastime, he’d be home to help with holiday preparations, and that made it extra special.

“When he was home we would be so excited,” she recalled. “You can’t compare the feeling of happiness when he was there. You’re complete. The family was there.”

Parker said watching her mom and dad cook instilled her passion for food. But it wasn’t until she quit her job in mortgage banking that she started her professional cooking journey. It would take her to five-star hotels, private estates, and catering. When she and her husband, who was in the Army at the time, were stationed in Germany, she felt a strong pull toward focusing on Filipino food.

“I think this is where the ancestors were really calling on me… I was so homesick and the only thing I could think of was the food,” she said. “The food was the memory to close that gap, the feeling of family… and feeling that representation in food.”

That pull stayed with her when they moved back to the U.S. Today, it remains her mission to share her culture through food. Parker is among a growing number of local chefs putting a spotlight on their Filipino roots through their cooking.

After her mom added the last garnish to her fruit salad, Parker made her own rendition, using fresh fruits. The dressing is similar but she uses crème fraiche. Just like the Noche Buena table, dishes that reflect the old and new.

If you want to add Filipino fruit salad to your holiday dinner, check out these recipes by Lucy Garcia and Jan Parker below (expand the images for the full recipes). Buko (young coconut), kaong, and nata de coco can be found in Asian markets. Garcia said her fruit salad can be made and kept in your refrigerator up to a day before serving it.