Eat local

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

There’s one thing we can all do to help Philippine agriculture: eat what our farmers produce. To put that in sexy terms, let us eat local.

What I am trying to say is, for our agriculture to grow and soar, we need to see the connection between our farms and our plates, between what our farmers plant and what we put in our mouths.

It is tragic how, when one goes to the supermarket these days, the fruits and vegetables that we see there are mostly imported, or if they are grown locally, foreign plants that we have forced to grow in our farms. Sure, there is now a section where our local produce are starting to be sold, but it is not enough, and we need to support it so that demand for our local fruits and vegetables hit a level where it will impact on the priorities of our farmers.

When I say eat local, I mean not just eating laswa and kadios-langka-baboy, but a deeper exploration of the culinary possibilities of our own produce. We cannot be eating laswa day in and day out, we need to use those veggies in other dishes to expand their use in the kitchen. Or better yet, we need to explore possibilities to create new dishes to serve from these old reliables.

It’s just like the good old market positioning strategy that promotes the use of products and services in more ways so the demand for them are expanded. These days, we see how Del Monte is selling their pineapples not just as salad ingredients but as add-ons to such dishes as adobo. There is also Lady’s Choice Mayonnaise being sold to us now as a great addition to scrambled eggs, and no longer just as a dressing for sandwich fillings and salads.

The sad thing about our culinary culture is we are losing many of our cooking traditions, our ways with our own local resources, and we seem to have shifted to using the things foreign cultures use instead of relying on what we have.

I must admit that laswa can be boring if taken regularly. But old folks used to have variations on this vegetable stew so that you can have laswa everyday without getting bored. The key is simply in the right combo of veggies, a culinary wisdom that is slowly getting lost. In fact, the art of preparing the laswa broth, the liquid to which we throw in all the veggies, has all but been lost, taken over by the more convenient but redoubtable, health-wise, flavor cubes and flakes.

While we are in this, a few weeks back, I had a recurring headache that was stopped only when I stopped using one of those magic flavorings in the market – I don’t have the scientific proof, but there it is, my headaches stopped when I stopped using it, and have never recurred since then. Besides, these flavorings are loaded with salt and sugar -- two culprits for hypertension -- aren’t they?

By turning to these packed flavorings, think also of how we have turned against one local agricultural produce, the guinamos, fermented fish or krill that our forebears had used to make their laswa broth in their time.

Really, we have barely scratched the surface of possibilities of our local farm produce. The kangkong, with its full-bodied dark green flavor, begs to be used in more dishes. Wasn’t there a time when we were serving crispy kangkong already? Let's do more.

There are also camote tops and kulitis, leaves that can be used in dishes sexier than just being thrown to the fish tinola broth, or in salads more exciting than being drenched simply in vinegar.

Aside from helping our agriculture, turning these local resources should also help us in the tourism front. After all, when tourists come to our place, they might be charmed by our version of the sauerkraut but will definitely go for our atchara because in these days of globalization, it's the local flavor they go for, not some bastardized version of theirs.*

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