MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines’ rich culinary heritage is the focus of a series of Manila Hotel food festivals featuring dishes from all the regions and islands from Northern Luzon to Mindanao. Launched Monday is the first of the series, a week-long fiesta that showcases the Ati-Atihan tribal dancers and Aklan’s unique food preparations.
Last Monday, while devouring a plate of rare Diwal (angel wing clams) and Inuburang Manok (chicken with banana trunk pith), I realized how far I’ve gone from the culinary illiterate that I was when I first came to live in Manila 50 years ago.
I entered college, and life in the city, with culinary naivete typical of probinsiyanas of the era. A very Tagalog upbringing shielded my taste buds from what my grandparents considered unusual meals. Our own table, meanwhile, served only food items harvested in the Cavite-Las Pinas-Paranaque corridor, including many items that others consider unusual: bayawak (monitor lizard), palakang bukid (rice paddy frogs) and pan-roasted salagubang (large beetles from siniguelas trees).
Although no specific recipes were followed, there were strict rules in our kitchen. Hito (rice paddy catfish) adobo had to be cooked with luyang dilaw (turmeric); alagaw leaves were absolutely necessary when preparing sting ray, shark and eel. Lola used coconut milk exclusively for desserts and meriendas, never for viands. Her vegetables, meats and fish were sautéed with garlic, onion and tomatoes and nothing else. Ginger was used mainly for tinola-style soups; tanglad (lemon grass) was as unknown as the climbing alugbati.
We did not believe rumors that Visayans, “poor ignorant souls,” cooked and ate tiniban (banana trunk). Tagalogs felt superior to island-dwellers who ate only boiled green bananas and yams instead of white rice. We basked in the bliss of our ignorance.
Travel and hotel festivals changed all that.We are now familiar with Pampanga’s stuffed frogs, can distinguish between the empanadas of Vigan and Batac, and have learned to prefer Leyte’s lawot-lawot to Bicol’s laing.
While much of our culinary exposure came from travel for journalistic assignments, we also learned a lot from regional food festivals held by Manila’s five-star hotels many decades ago, when it was the rage to fly in dance troupes, mat weavers, carvers and chefs to wipe away the gastronomic ignorance of Manilans. However, hotel festivals slowly dwindled and died, leaving city folk’s kids more familiar with American fast food than with Filipino fiesta fare.
Foodies, do not despair; there is good news in the air: Regional Food Festivals are coming back to Manila. The Manila Hotel, in connection with celebrations for its 100th anniversary, will bring in to the newly-refurbished Café Ilang-Ilang the dances, culture and food from all over the Philippines.
Anticipating a whole year of food festivals, I can almost feel and taste the kinulob na kalabaw (carabao pot roast) and hardinera (steamed ground pork casserole) of the Pahiyas Festival from Quezon. Also to be expected are Mexico-influenced empanada, igado (stewed pork innards), langgonisa (spicy garlic sausage) and bagnet (crispy-skinned deep fried pork belly) from Ilocos. Mindanaons could offer piyangga (meat stew blacked with burned coconut meat), pyuto (steamed grated kamoteng kahoy) and shanglag (stir-fried leftover pyuto).
Aklan’s Ati-Atihan, the first of the Manila Hotel’s festivals, was a big hit on its first day. People in the know flocked to the seafood station to fill their plates with Diwal, a type of long-necked clam with very fragile shells that resemble angel wings. Aficionados prefer the Diwal simply grilled and seasoned with a touch of lemon, calamansi or vinegar with onions. Tender throughout and not too strongly flavored, the Diwal also takes well to a dip in melted butter with a squeeze of lemon.
One could tell who the Visayans were in the coffee shop by the amount of Diwal shells on their plates. They ate Diwal to their hearts' content, knowing that the bivalve is not only rare, it is also very seasonal. A campaign to protect the Diwal ensures that only mature bivalves are gathered; licenses and permits are also issued to qualified gatherers to limit the amount and quality of the harvest.
Among Aklan’s main courses, most popular is the inuburan, which is chicken stewed in coconut milk with slices of banana trunk pith (ubud). Executive Sous Chef Roberto Bulawit explained that he substituted ubud with the innermost part of coconut heart of palm.
“Coconut ubud provides a welcome contrasting texture to the creamy coconut milk gravy and the tender chicken flesh,” explained Chef Amang, who learned to prepare food from all over the Philippines in his 35 years with the hotel.
Another chicken stew, the Binakol, was flavored with tender noodle-like strips of young coconut, whose juice gave body to the gravy.
The buffet also showed off a freshwater fish and an ocean behemoth: grilled hito (catfish) and skewered cubes of yellow fin tuna, to be dipped in either coco sap (tuba) vinegar or calamansi with soy sauce.
The vegetable dish featured was linabog nga langka (green jackfruit in coconut cream) which Chef Amang flavored with peeled prawns.
“At home, in the province, this dish uses salted dried fish. But for special visitors and fiestas, prawns are used,” he pointed out.
Next is a labor-intensive dish that’s really a labor of love: tinumkan. It calls for river shrimps to be pounded with young coconut meat, then wrapped in gabi (taro) leaves and simmered in coconut milk for several hours. Bicolandia’s pinangat pales in comparison.
The Aklan food festival is ongoing daily for lunch and dinner at the Café Ilang Ilang until January 21. For reservations, call 5270011.
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source: mb.com.ph
