Popular Summer Drinks and Refreshments - Sago at Gulaman video & description .

Sago is a starch extracted from the pith of sago palm stems, Metroxylon sagu. It is a major staple food for the lowland peoples of New Guinea and the Moluccas, where it is called saksak and sagu. It is traditionally cooked and eaten in various forms, such as rolled into balls, mixed with boiling water to form a paste, or as a pancake. Sago is often produced commercially in the form of "pearls". Sago pearls can be boiled with water or milk and sugar to make a sweet sago pudding.[1] Sago pearls are similar in appearance to tapioca pearls, and the two may be used interchangeably in some dishes.

The name sago is also sometimes used for starch extracted from other sources, especially the sago cycad, Cycas revoluta. The sago cycad is also commonly known (confusingly) as the sago palm, although this is a misnomer as cycads are not palms. Extracting edible starch from the sago cycad requires special care due to the poisonous nature of cycads. Cycad sago is used for many of the same purposes as palm sago. In Sri Lanka it is known as sawu or sau, and is used to prepare a porridge named sawu kanda.
Gulaman, in Filipino cuisine, refers to the bars of dried seaweed used to make jellies or flan, as well as the desserts made from it. Agarose or agar is made of processed seaweed, mostly from Gelidium corneum--one of the most common edible alga,[1] dehydrated and formed into foot-long dry bars which are either plain or coloured.[2]

The gulaman jelly bars are used in the various Filipino refreshments or desserts such as sago at gulaman (aka gulaman at sago), buko pandan, agar flan, halo-halo, the various Filipino fruit salads, black gulaman, and red gulaman.

It has also come to refer to the refreshment or dessert, sometimes referred to as samalamig or sago't gulaman, sold at roadside stalls and vendors. This drink consists of gulaman cubes and/or sago (tapioca pearls)[2] suspended in milk, fruit juice or brown-sugar water flavored with pandan leaves. It is most likely a cheaper local version of the Chinese conjac jelly (which is served floating in cold tea).