Will these recipes be in a book? The recipes were from a cooking competition that was part of a project called “My City, My SM, My Cuisine.”
That question was asked of Millie Dizon, SM vice president for marketing communications and project head, and Cora Alvina, project consultant. They invited me to be a judge in some of the contests held in towns and provinces where there is an SM mall.
Little did I know that a book was really part of the project, and was launched Feb. 25. “My City, My SM, My Cuisine” documents all the events in each place, the winners as well as the heritage recipes contributed by prominent families and well-known cooks.
What I liked about the project was that the competition involved traditional food, and those who competed were people who thought they could cook the best of it—grandmothers, tricycle drivers, carinderia owners, culinary students. It was very grassroots.
I judged three competitions. The first was held in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, with my friend Chit Lijauco, who has been active in preserving the town’s cooking.
Contestants cooked tinadtad, which is sinigang na baka (beef in soured broth) but where the beef is hand-chopped (tadtad); and another dish of puto maya (rice cake) with kilawing puso ng saging (pickled banana heart). The presentation of the winners had a roped-off area where a big table held some of the treasured heirloom recipes of Sta. Rosa families.
The awarding of Batangas contestants was held in an area that recreated the home of the Pastor family, including the black and white tiles and grand staircase. The competition food was goat kaldereta (tomato-stewed). The judges were amused that the kaldereta recipes invariably had canned liver spread. A coffee dessert yielded a turon (banana roll) with a syrup of sugar with barako (Liberica coffee variety) as winner.
During the competition in Marilao, Bulacan, the province was celebrating the Singkaban Festival, the art form that uses bamboo to make curly fibers for décor, or cut into pieces to be assembled as welcome arches in fiestas.
Marilao’s ‘pancit’
But Marilao is also known for its pancit, very much like the pancit palabok in other places. I had researched in Bulacan several times, but there were still some dishes discovered during that event. One was paksiw sa tuba done by lighting the hot toddy of just-harvested nipa palm until all the alcohol has evaporated and then putting in the ingredients to be cooked such as frogs and small crabs. The other was lumlom, fresh tilapia that is buried in mud to make it rot for a day and then cooked as paksiw sa tuba the next day.
The book also gives an opportunity to introduce dishes. For instance, there is perdis of Cebu, also perdiz (Spanish for partridge) which is chicken stew flavored with sangke (star anise) with a local liqueur called Mallorca. The recipe is from Luz Mancao San Diego. From my own research, perdis is also known as kim ke or tim ke, the Chinese name probably because of the sangke. There is the pinaryaang manok, native chicken stewed with ampalaya (bitter melon) leaves from Susan Yap of Tarlac.
Ampalaya is called parya in Tarlac. Learning the local terms for ingredients is another information provided by the book. During the launch, Olivia Balajadia of Baguio City told us about kiniing, another name for etag or the Cordillera salted pork which flavored the soup full of watercress.
Not everything is explained, however, such as the hipong pinugot which might mean headless shrimps in the Sta. Rosa recipe of Pancit Grade One. That pancit name made me laugh the first time I heard it, but it’s just a way of telling people that it’s a simple noodle dish that’s easy to prepare.
The launch was a reunion of those who participated in the project. Many of them became friends when I did my own research on regional cooking. And then some of the food prepared brought me back to those kitchens and the cooks who educated me about ingredients, the local tastes, unique names for the dishes and their way of cooking.
Smiles and yellow rice
The first person I saw that day was Claude Tayag of Pampanga who showed me the smiley face his staff made on the bringhe (yellow rice) he brought, eyes made of hard-boiled egg slices and strips of red bell pepper for lips. He and his sisters, Meng McTavish and Doren, contributed patang mole (pig’s knuckles in tomato sauce), begucan babi (pork in shrimp paste) and Claude’s Dream (buko pandan), respectively.
Bulacan was well-represented at the launch. Dez Bautista brought the pavo embuchado (roast turkey) all dressed up with feathers. The family of the late Mila Enriquez (son Bong and grandniece Rheeza) brought hamon Bulakenya (Bulacan ham) and gurgurya (cookie). Luz Ocampo showed her food art of carved fruits and cut pastillas wrappers.
Other friends like Eileen San Juan planed in from Cagayan de Oro and brought the family dessert of manteca-o, a cake with cinnamon as its main flavoring. Jomi Gaston of Bacolod arrived from Bangkok, where he works, and contributed cocido for the book. Dindo Montenegro of Taal brought adobo sa dilaw (chicken and pork braised with turmeric) while Antonio Pastor of Batangas shared his family’s adobo recipe. From San Pablo, Ado Escudero shared his pancit buko (noodles made of young coconut strips) while Patis Tesoro gave her pako (fern) salad.
From nearby Quezon, pottery artist Ugu Bigyan brought his kulawo (banana heart salad in toasted coconut cream). And how good to see once more the Gordon sisters of Olongapo City, Barbara de los Reyes and Cecille Mullen, who brought fish en croute, or fish wrapped in pastry dough.
That may not be Filipino but then the book includes many recipes that aren’t, such as Maridel Padilla Uygongco’s potato praline cake (Iloilo), the tempura of Mariano Ponce (Bulacan) who was one of the founders of the Propaganda Movement, and Gerry Austria of Matutina who shared his restaurant’s best-selling buttered-crab recipe (Pangasinan).
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