Unimaginable abundance,
unforgettable flavors

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

One solid proof that we have barely scratched the surface of the possibilities of our local food source is the fact that they have not really penetrated the hotel and restaurant circuit in the scale that will impact on local agriculture.

Sure, a few of our restos are now selling laswa, our garden vegetable stew like Business Inn and Bar 21. BI has also introduced a different take on the kangkong apan-apan, leaves sautéed in guinamos or fermented krill and vinegar; it has removed the guinamos and replaced it with black beans with success. Those who cannot stand the smell of ferment in the guinamos can go for this black bean version.

There’s ampalaya and radish salad served as sides at Chicken Deli. I don’t know if it is still there, but Aboy’s once served soup with nylon shell and pepper leaves, two of our most common food produce that delivers a punch, flavor-wise.

Sure we see pinakbet in many of our restos and they use local veggies but this is a Tagalog dish that we have taken in. A brilliant use of local veggie is done at Bob’s, where they use patola slices in their pancit guisado.

But hey, this is Negros Occidental and we are supposed to be more exciting and daring, adventurous even in our search for new flavors and taste experience. We’ve proven this in the sweets section, where we have found a million and one ways with sugar, using it in a myriad of ways, in textures that sometimes surprise even the most discriminating.

A culinary culture that produced the delicate Napoleones, especially the one of Roli’s, and the exotic piaya like the one at Varmont, should be able to turn those fruits and vegetables and root crops, fish and livestock into exciting dishes that the world will bowl over.

I just cannot understand why we seem to be shedding our culinary traditions involving these local food sources and instead go for the fast food taste. I am aghast at how some people think cooking fried chicken that tastes like Jollibee’s Chicken Joy is a culinary achievement. Or how our standard of the taste of pancit guisado is the way Chow King does it. Good grief, we are more blessed than this.

Surely, our local sources and cooking traditions offer more exciting tastes and flavors than what these fast food joints could offer? Surely, the chickens in our backyard can give us unforgettable flavors cooked simply as adobo?

I recall how urbanites slurped their way through bowls of green shell soup, which had nothing in it but the liquids of the fresh shells that oozed out into a small quantity of water and a few grates of very fresh ginger. The kitchen must have cooked a pail of green shells for that glorious and unforgettable, but hey, we have them in unimaginable abundance, we should be able to cook them into dishes of unimaginable deliciousness.

Never had river shrimps tasted as sweet and flavorful as the ones that were cooked live, and were heated only for as long as the smell and slime were removed.

And then, of course, we have also slowly and I pray, not surely, lost our cooking traditions. Who, in your neighborhood, could still cook linagpang the way our old folks did in their time? Or maybe we can ask: when was the last time you had linagpang? Or, worse: do you even know what linagpang is?

There was also tinum-anan, which I think was cooking meats – maybe fish or shell food or fresh mushrooms harvested after a thunderstorm – wrapped in banana leaves and then cooked over live coals.

These were cooking processes that allowed food to give out its true and honest flavors, unencumbered by flavor flakes or magic dust, and so were inimitably exciting in their goodness and yes, now, in our memories.*

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