MOTSIYAS...COOKING WITH WHAT YOU GOT

COOKING WITH WHAT YOU’VE GOT

Motsiyas is one of my favorite dishes and a traditional one here on Guam, yet I have no recollection of it being served in my childhood home. I imagine the reason I can’t remember ever eating this dish while growing up is that, with nine kids and the proliferation of canned goods in the cupboards of the early 1960s, my mother dismissed the individually wrapped morsels as just too time consuming to prepare. 

The first time I actually tasted this dish was when I returned to the island in the 80s.  It was at San Dimas Fiesta in the southern village of Malesso and after just one bite from the greasy tinfoil packet, I began my investigation—if you can call badgering old men for their recipes at parties an investigation.  

I visualized how one might prepare for this dish.  I saw myself running to catch a wild chicken, and within only seconds of scurrying, I managed to twist its neck, slice through its quivering throat, and drain its blood into a pot of boiling water steamed, a reminder of my slow pace.   This macabre fantasy was not my invention, but rather a memory.  

In 1960s Barrigada, walking home from elementary school, I passed a scene exactly as I described.  Except it was a crooked old man, tall and lanky, sweating, with a cigarette in his mouth.  He knocked the rooster against a post and twisted its neck right out of its misery.   I ran from that grotesque scene as fast as I could, glimpsing a big black pot roasting over a tangantangan fire as I took one last peek through the leaves of a pink hibiscus bush. It didn’t occur to me that the recipe I would spend years seeking and countless hours perfecting had just happened upon me!

Each time I prepare Motsiyas, some other memories come back as clear as the drops of water that roll gently on my face off of the leaves I pick early in the morning to ensure freshness.  As I begin the leaf gathering, washing, and chopping, I wonder why the traditional preparation of the dish’s ingredients are gizzards, feet, livers, and all the undesirable parts of the chicken.  And then, I ask myself why only the leaves.  Why not the fruit of the pumpkin, or tomatoes?  And stuffing them into the necks?     I began to recollect the stories my Mom, Dad, my teacher Mrs. Antonia Perez at San Vicente School, stories during the days of the Japanese Occupation in 1941 till the Liberation in July 21st 1944. 

The one story that stirs as I cook this dish is of Mrs.Antonia Perez’s.  She began with how as a 9-year-old, she walked around with one red shoe, because she found only one, and thought that it was better than none, most exiting still, that it was patented red and can easily slip her right foot in. The story of the war told through the eyes of when she was that little girl, remained so, despite that now she’s my teacher.   As I listened, all ears, feelings of pain welled inside of me.   It is the cruelty she elaborated on as the soldiers paddled away at children, women, and old men’s back to execute the perfect vegetable and fruit gardens, food for the Japanese army.  

Unfortunately, the perfect garden is for the plates and palates of the enemy.  The Chamorro’s were to eat only the leaves, the roots, the undesirable parts of any food.

Still, Motsiyas, forever remains a mystery for me and do ask any old-timer its methods of preparation.  Indeed, it is always the same.  After hearing all its ingredients stuffed into the neck then wrapped in banana or pumpkin leaves, I began to theorize that this dish was a creation from one’s survival art technique.

Truly the delight when it is served is with a heartfelt love of eating, and more so, cooking with what you’ve got. 

Here’s the recipe. Pay close attention to the ingredients:

Gizzards​donne & donne leaves​onions garlic

Liver​pumpkin tips​& leaves​sea salt

Chicken feet​tomato leaves​lemon juice *

coconut milk

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Boil down wild chicken

Add meat mixture chopped with onions garlic, salt.    Add leaf ingredients on for a few minutes then drain mixture saving the chicken broth.   Stuff ingredients down the chicken neck, plug ends with more leaves, drop into the broth with added lemon juice *optional, coconut milk

So when my mother decided right out of the blue that she was going to serve us for dinner one evening in 1980, I paid close attention.  Here is her easy way of preparation.

Let’s start in the garden.  Here’s a shot of our donne.  I use all the above ingredients but replace feet and gizzards with only chopped chicken breasts, salt pepper seasoned with fresh coconut milk and pumpkin tips placed in a palmful you fit in fresh steamed banana leaves wrapped and tied pillows.

to drop into hot boiling chicken broth. A dish known in Chamorro as Motsiyas.

I remember clearly what I learned from my Mom that one time!  And that is the easiest way to prepare this old recipe passed down from family to family.