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I decided to use the phrase 'halo-halo' in my chapter on Black food culture & citizenship in the Philippines. It literally means 'mix-mix' (which is how I use it) but it's also the name for an AMAZING desert in the Philippines I'm now obsessively tracing historically. #halohalo 
Halo-halo appears to have its origins in the Heian period of classical Japan circa 900. Imperial kings would have ice stored in the winter and shaved for them during the summer. It was called a kakigōri (shaved ice) and eventually evolved into a shirokuma (polar bear).
The kakigōri variety is made with shaved ice, condensed milk, sweet azuki beans, and various other fruits and sweeteners. A version seems to have arrived in the Philippines courtesy of Japanese immigrants prior to WWII. They riffed on it and 'invented' the halo-halo.
