When I was a kid in Canada, hairbrushes and hand mirrors with names printed on them were all the rage. Hunting the spinning racks in petrol stations, Jennifers and Sarahs were sure to see their names; Kristys were never disappointed either, although they might have to put up with an alternate spelling. I always thought, if I could just find one that said Pilar, it would be confirmation that I belonged in this country where I was born, and where people often asked me, “Where are you really from?”

Checking was like a compulsion, but I never found my name. Eventually I realised it was a fool’s errand and gave up, deciding to do what my migrant ancestors intended: assimilate. It wasn’t hard. The only other half-Filipino kid I knew was my sister; we exclusively spoke English at home and our experience of our mum’s food was insular, seemingly unique to our family. At home there was adobo with rice; at friends’ houses it was Kraft macaroni and cheese. We were masters at keeping the two cultures separate.

And that’s why, decades after I’d forgotten about those personalised hairbrushes, spotting a sign that read “turon” at Kariton Sorbetes in Burwood stopped me in my tracks. Here was one of my mum’s favourite snacks, proudly displayed for anyone to enjoy. It looked beautiful in its pozzetti under glass: a dessert of champagne-coloured swirls laced with chunks of jackfruit and citrusy saba banana. It was the first time I’d seen turon outside of my mum’s kitchen.

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Classic golden turon is made from saba (cooking) banana and jackfruit wrapped in a spring roll wrapper, deep-fried and topped with caramelised muscovado sugar. My mum often fried a batch for herself: one turon to have now, leftovers to pull out of the fridge and crisp in the toaster oven if she had a midnight craving.

My first taste of Kariton’s turon – which comes speared with a generous shard of caramelised spring-roll pastry – was everything I could have hoped for. You don’t have to have eaten turon as a kid to fall in love with the scoop, but that creamy banana gelato – with textural chunks of jackfruit – took me back in time. I heard the bright ding of the toaster oven, smelled the caramelised spring roll wrapper and saw my mum sliding our snacks onto two plates.

In Kariton’s reimagining, chefs John Rivera and Minh Duong are swirling muscovado butterscotch, caramelised sesame seeds and fruit through the icy dessert. The pair – who, together with business partner Michael Mabuti, also own four other Karitons and Melbourne’s Filipino fine diner Askal – finish all their scoops with a cheffy flourish. “We start a week in advance to let the bananas ripen before they’re cooked into a gelato base,” Rivera tells Broadsheet. “We only use fresh bananas as you can’t replicate that aromatic, honeyed flavour with purees or essence.”

Talking on the eve of Kariton’s Burwood opening in 2024, Rivera echoed my sentiments about our parents’ generation. “I think they kept their culture to themselves,” he said. “Growing up, we were taught to assimilate and fit in. Now we’ve found our own voice. Our generation has a desire to express who we are.”

A decade ago, I met a half-Filipina friend whose cultural heritage also straddled two worlds. I haven’t asked, but I bet she never found her name on a plastic hairbrush either. Our children are mates, and whenever we catch up, we always finish with a visit to Kariton. A lot has changed since we were little, but the thing I notice most is that for our kids, their Filipino heritage is a point of pride. It’s something to celebrate over scoops of turon gelato.

@kariton.au