Guyuria - Who brought it to Guam? - June 28, 2018

I love sharing our Chamorro culture through food and story. In the last several years, I have become fascinated with the origin of our foods, and how our foods tie us to other countries. Can you tell? When I first worked on A Taste of Guam, I was 32 years old and thought the Chamorro foods I ate as a child and teen growing up on the island was the food my grandparents consumed as well. I was partially correct. What I have learned since I started to post videos on YouTube in 2008ish -- courtesy the many comments of people sharing their knowledge -- was that food too was different before World War II. And so the inspiration to learn about our food's history began.

That said, I learned to make guyuria -- pronounced guw-dzu-ree-ya -- from my mom, who had been taught by my dad's mom, Nieves Lujan Cabe. I remember putting the fried guyuria into large paper grocery bags. It's a long process -- 5 hours to shape and fry with 3 more hours to coat and dry the sugar -- but it's a tradition worth sharing and preserving. The first person I taught to make guyuria was my best friend, Mel -- that was in the early 1990s. She still makes it too! The recipe for guyuria is in the video below as well as in A Taste of Guam.

One of the most frequent comments on my YouTube videos goes something like this, "...that's Mexican..." or "...that's Filipino..." or "...that's Spanish..." I love research so I started digging. Turns out, many of our supposedly Spanish or Filipino foods could very well have originated in Central America and India -- before the Spanish conquered those countries. The Spanish colonized the Americas -- Northern, Central, Southern -- to build their empire from 1492 to 1832. This means that foods such as guyuria and eskabeche may very well have been from the native indians of Central America, and lumpia and siopao were probably from the native folks in China -- brought to the rest of the world by the Spaniards as they continued their colonization.

With that said, here's what's pretty cool about guyuria. Or is it guguria? The reknowned guyuria maker on Guam, Mariquita "Tita" Calvo Leon Guerrero, spells this cookie as guguria. Once upon a time, guyuria on Guam were called jaw-breaker cookies because they were rock hard, the dough made only of flour and coconut milk. With the contemporary addition of butter to the dough, the Chamorro guyuria are not as hard as they used to be.

I discovered that the Filipinos have their version called golloria/gorgorya/gurguria -- looks the same but they use additional ingredients such as eggs and baking powder. Note, however that golloria may be a derivative of the word golleria. According to Paleric.blogspot.com, the original Spanish word is golleria -- a delicacy or special treat. In Spain, there is actually a place called Guyuria, Pais Vasco, or is it Goiuria -- with the spelling changed in Google's translation/maps?

I also found that there is a cookie called kulkuls/kalkals/kidyo/kidiyo -- sweet dough curls, originally from Goa, India. There is even a place called Gurguria in West Bengal, India. Some Indian recipes use eggs and baking powder, while other Indian recipes use only flour, butter, coconut milk, and a bit of salt. One of the cool things I learned is that where Chamorros use a fork or wooden board to shape the cookies, Indians use a fork or a comb -- yup, a clean hair comb -- the resulting cookies look pretty neat!

According to National Geographic, the migration patterns/evolution of humans included a pattern from Africa > Yemen > Persia/Iran > tip of India including Goa > Malaysia > Indonesia > Southeast Asia > Oceania. There is also another migratory pattern that runs through and along West Bengal, India. The original settlers of the Philippines and Guam are believed to have come from these migrations. Current findings show that early humans reached the Philippines before Guam.

• Did the guyuria in Guam come to the island via our ancient peoples, or did it come via the Philippines?
• Was there even a similar type of flour 4,000 years ago or earlier -- predecessors of all-purpose flour?
• According to the book, "The Story of Food" by DK Publishing, wheat was cultivated around 9500 BC, reaching India around 6000 BC.
• Between 2500 and 800 BC, wheat reached China, Japan, and Korea.
• The Spanish brought wheat to the Americas in the 1500s.
• Do we -- Guam/Philippines -- have a closer relation to West Bengal vs. Goa as there is a similarity between the spellings of guyuria and Gurguria/gorgoria?
• Did we on Guam have an easier time pronouncing guyuria vs gurguria/gorgoria -- and that's why the spelling changed from the Philippine spelling?
• Was this cookie introduced to India/Philippines/Guam via the Spaniards?

It's a long post that took me several days to write -- but food for thought. Chime in if you have answers to the questions -- or even more questions. Research and learning are never ending so stay tuned and perhaps one day we can find out how guyuria got to Guam!

Here's how Chamorros make guyuria:

:-)

paulaq

www.paulaq.com.