Fried baby stingray

It is one of the rarest foods I have ever tried, so rare that I had mine only yesterday -- after over half a century of existence, I never reckoned there was a dish as divinely delicious as this.

Call it, simply, fried baby stingray, very young, table-size pagi – that's about half the size of a plate -- that is cleaned thoroughly and then deep fried. Aside from our cultural aversion to things local which has led to the disappearance of our native eating traditions, fried baby stingray seldom appears on the dining table because well, it is rare.

First, it is said that most of our fishermen refuse to take them to shore when they stray into their nets. It seems like in a rare display of some code of honor, these fishermen return the young stingray back to the sea when they accidentally catch them. On the rare times the baby pagi does slip through and gets to the market, it does not reach the retailing tables; the crowd of fish mongers and other hangers-on in the market, especially the aged ones, snap them up right away. Sometimes, a fight would ensue as to who saw it first.

For something so delicious, it is a wonder why our fishermen would send the baby stingray back to the sea, but perhaps, the market for it is really limited only to the old ones, who still hang on to the eating traditions of the olden times. In other words, only the few who have tasted this will go for it; it does not really attract everybody like say, bangus, or galunggong.

The price says it all: baby stingrays, if they are available, go for P110 per kilo, a huge difference from the bangus or the galunggong. But there is a catch to this. Not all stingrays are this delicious. The best one, folk wisdom goes, is the kind with dots all over that those in the know, call “bolok.” The others don't do well for frying.

And then there is the problem of preparing it. Given that it is not a popular fish – some people would call this exotic – it is not exactly an easy fish to prepare. Good Friend J, who got it yesterday, washed the fish in vinegar and salt, and thoroughly scraped the slime off its skin.

Once cleaned, he made cuts on various parts of the fish and marinated it in vinegar, soy, salt and calamansi. After it had absorbed the marinade – which can range from 30 minutes to an hour, the longer the better – it was fried in hot oil, like any fish.

But this isn't just any fish: the flesh was tender and fat, like perfectly marbled beef, the bones soft like cartilage. The best part was its sapay, or fat deposit, that was -- how do you describe this -- divinely delicious. This part was small, like a small teaspoonful, but it packed plenty of rare flavors you would want more. Except that there isn't more of this, and one has to wait for more propitious circumstances to taste it again.

Later, reflecting on the baby stingray meal, I kept asking: just how many of the eating traditions of our grandparents have we already lost? Who keeps these ways that, if you come down to it, are really what defines us?

The whole process of frying baby pagi is one of those things that make our culture so rich, and so unique – somehow we have to find a way to pass it on, to teach our young how to recognize the “bolok”, how to clean it, how to cook it, and yes, how to eat it properly. This Jollibee generation should know and appreciate the fact that there is a delicious life beyond fried chickens and hamburgers out there.*

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