Necking and petting, too

Back in college, we had some terms for eating in the Manokan Country. Like, we'd say, we want to do some necking when we wanted to eat the neck part, which was often because that was what we usually could afford to splurge with our college money. ‘Petting' was the term we used when there was a little bit more money and we could afford the more meaty and larger “pecho.”

This isn't exactly science, but I thought it illustrated what we may not realize yet: how the Manokan has become so much a part not only our history but also of our culture, and how it stands as our collective celebration of our struggle to survive.

Manokan has not only enriched our cuisine; it has also contributed to the development of our culture – a fact that the new owners of the lot on which it stands now may not exactly appreciate when they transform it into the much-ballyhoed but short-sighted “development.”

We are being lured by the idea of ‘developing' Manokan, which means a new building housing it, with airconditioning and all, and the chicken served in the ways of a full-service restaurant. [I can't imagine being served atay and baticolon with greens on the side]

Many of us are tantalized by this idea of ‘development' for Manolan; I say that will kill the Manokan and all that it stands for in our history and culture: how we have struggled and in the process won on the back of our creativity, skills that allowed us to come up with the chicken inasal dinner that the world loves. I really doubt if that inasal will ever be the same as it is now when new owners take over.

First, it is a wonder if a new Manokan could approximate the taste of the chicken inasal as we know it. Next, that will kill the very personality of Manokan, which as of now is unique and unlike any other place in the world, noise, dirt, smoke and all.

I recall that sometime in the past, there was this very successful “Pala-pala” in Manila which attracted almost everyone to try its tasty take on fresh seafoods. The place was make-shift, it wasn't so clean – exactly like our Manokan Country -- but nobody cared then, the food was good and cheap.

Then some do-gooder had the brilliant idea that to further push the place, it needed to be redone: a building was constructed there, and there were now airconditioned spaces. The same food was served, but of course the prices went a little higher.

The place failed. Once a popular haunt for the yuppies especially after midnight, it became a ghost building: nobody wanted to eat there anymore, not in such clinical and antiseptic surroundings. Once a charming little place which stood amid the noisy and exuberant fish market, it became just another restaurant, something that there already are hundreds of others in the metropolis. By sprucing it up, the do-gooders in fact took away the very heart and soul of what it was and what people had gone there for.

I don't know how that place ended up, but the point is made: some things are meant to stay the way they are. ‘Development' and ‘progress' do not always have to mean concrete and steel buildings.

I pray and I hope the Manokan Country does not end up that way. By cleaning it and transforming it into a modern restaurant, we may in fact be reducing it to just another restaurant for which no one really has any reason to go and dine in.*

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