Uraro, the ‘Obedience Cookies’ of Liliw, Laguna

by Ivy Regina Montesines Gura

Uraro cookies are those crumbly cookies shaped into bite-sized flowers and wrapped in cellophane or papel de Japon (Japanese paper).

Marinduque, Pampanga, Bataan, and Quezon Province have their own traditional ways of making uraro cookies and have all attained legendary fame in their own right and added richness to Philippine culture.

But let me tell you about the uraro cookies from the little town of Liliw in the province of Laguna, because it has a sentimental and permeating presence in our home.

My mother hails from Liliw. I vividly remember when I was a child, my mother would return to Metro Manila from her occasional trips to Liliw bearing uraro cookies. It was like an “uraro festival” in our home. A time for sweet indulgence without any qualms.

My brothers and I could finish bags of these goodies in one sitting, washing down the sweet, powdery morsels with glasses of cold milk.

I would often think to myself: “Really, you don’t have to be rich to enjoy such delightful luxury!”

Uraro cookies also sweetened our efforts of building and maintaining friendships with other people.

At Christmastime, street children who knocked on our door got uraro gift packs. We served them to friends and acquaintances who came to visit. Balikbayan relatives were welcomed with platefuls or bags of these delicacies.

As a child, there was a time when I shuddered at the crazy and childish thought that uraro could be the name of a weird wood made into cookies until my mother told me that it was the name of a local plant: the arrowroot plant, the source of flour used in making cookies.

“Farmers and botanists fondly call it the obedience plant because it is easy to control, resilient, and compliant, adapting well to tropical conditions without big demands,” she explained. And that is why I call uraro the “obedience cookie.”

Many years ago, Liliw was sleepy and uneventful. But look at it today: it has become a bustling town attracting tourists and traders in search of small-town wonders.

Fashionable footwear, mountain resorts, rustic restaurants and food products, including uraro cookies, have contributed much to its transformation as a tourist destination.

The most popular uraro cookies from Liliw are those known for their melt-in-the-mouth quality. They come from the closely guarded recipes of the producers.

Some folks presume the secret lies in the bigger ratio of arrowroot flour to all-purpose flour. Arrowroot flour has a low gluten content, which explains the delicate and powdery texture of the cookie.

As a nutrition and dietetics graduate, I know that arrowroot is rich not only in carbohydrates but also in Vitamin B6, thiamine, niacin, potassium and iron.

The arrowroot plant is used not only as a source of flour for cakes and cookies but also as a staple food like sweet potato and other roots and tubers.

In fact, in Liliw and other parts of the country where arrowroot is grown, the rhizome or tuber is boiled and eaten with salt and grated coconut, or even with fish and meat.

Using improved cultivation technology and modern flour processing techniques, and with ample support from the government, the uraro cookies producers of Liliw of the province of Laguna, Quezon Province, Marinduque, Pampanga, and Bataan have brighter prospects, now more than ever before, both in the local and export markets.

“What a better place it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk at about three o’clock in the afternoon,” wrote Rober Fulghum, author of “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”

Indeed, the world would be a better place if all children and adults in the Philippines and around the world could afford to have a snack of cookies, especially uraro or arrowroot cookies, and milk every day – and know no poverty and hunger.

IVY REGINA MONTESINES GURA has degrees in Nutrition and Dietetics and in Education. At present, she works as a public high school teacher. She is married to Francis Gura, also a public high school teacher; they have three children, namely Iris, Bea, and Xavier.