Local food champions

Where has all our local produce gone? Thanks to creative chefs like Claude Tayag and Chele Gonzalez, and holistic farmers like Hindy Weber-Tantoco, there is a growing patriotic trend of looking back to our heritage for inspiration.

When I was a child, summer afternoons were spent playing in the streets. To fuel our shenanigans we would sit on the pavements, the hot cement warming our bums through our shorts, and eat these tiny little Indian mangoes. I would expertly peel them almost like a banana and bite the ripe yellow flesh, the juices running down my wrists making a sticky, delightful, mango-scented mess.

On other days during my usual afternoon walk, my yaya and I would stop by our neighbor’s house and pluck a few bright pink macopas from the tree.  I enjoyed the waxy crunch and above all, the distinct fuchsia color. I secretly called it the Barbie Fruit.

At home my dad would have piles of kamachile harvested from our tree, which always reminded me of giant caterpillars, and my mom would go crazy whenever atis was in season. We would sit on her bed with trays in front of the TV and take mouthfuls of those tiny seeds and meticulously remove the flesh from each one with our teeth, the cleaned-out black seeds making a rhythmic “tink tink” sound on our bowls.

At my best friend’s house she always had piles of mangosteen that I enjoyed eating because my fingers and mouth would get all purple-tinged. Whenever we visited my lola she always had some santol or lanzones. I loved gnawing at a tangy, velvety piece of santol and every time I would pinch open a plump lanzones fruit I would sigh and think with much melancholy on how poor Ines had squeezed all the poison out.

Where have all these fruits gone? I walk around our usual grocery with my son and wonder why all I see are waxy apples from Washington or pears from China. Overpriced blueberries in whose trap I always fall in. Whenever I pass markets or see vendors selling gigantic bunches of lanzones or round little mangosteens I feel like I’m looking at a time machine, at artifacts from my past, a picture of nostalgia meant to be admired and not necessarily eaten. As much as I’d like to buy and eat some, I feel like I no longer know how to or that it might ruin a good childhood memory.

My palate has changed. My habits have changed. Without any real intent to do so, it has in many ways, over the years through food trends and subtle subversive influences of beautiful international cookbooks and food magazines. I feel like it’s not just me. When I look at my nieces and nephews and their peers, I don’t believe I’ve ever really seen them crave atis or have even tried santol. It’s like our palates have slowly been westernized over the years.

This is not an observation I’ve made only with fruits but with other produce as well. Why buy kale when we have beautiful sili or kamote tops? Sometimes it’s easier to find fennel than sigarilyas in a high-end urban supermarket. One can argue that this is a phenomenon that is only apparent in wealthy urban centers, but it is there where all the food trends are set and they eventually trickle down to everywhere else in one way or another.

“I grew up with a lot of makopa, aratilis, atis and native guava just growing wild around our house,” shares holistic farmer HIndy Weber-Tantoco. “It’s so difficult to find these fruits. I am constantly in search. When you look at supermarket aisles and even our local palengkes, they are filled with grapes, kiwi, apples, oranges and pears.”

Hindy’s Holy Carabao has had a constant challenge since its beginning in 2007. They’re aim was always to grow and market local veggies. “We wanted to sell our local veggies as a premium product like other imported veggies because we knew they were cleaner and healthier than their imported counterparts,” explains Hindy. “It was and still is an uphill climb.  Most people refuse to pay a premium for local produce even if it was grown organically, sustainably, responsibly, and even if they know it has more potent health benefits. Some people will not think twice about spending hundreds of pesos on chemically sprayed broccoli, apples and grapes. I suppose it’s leftover colonial mentality: ‘It must be better if it’s imported.’”

On the flipside, Filipino cuisine has been on the rise. It’s always the most saleable F&B concept and has finally gained international recognition. We Filipinos love our food but, even as the way we eat it has changed, so has the way we prepare it. Not too long ago I spoke at a conference on nutrition through clean eating and asked an audience of about 400 people from all across the country two questions: “who has had sinigang in the past month?” and “who has had it made from scratch?” The former question solicited a hand-raise from everyone; the latter only had a measly three or four.  Powders are replacing good old techniques, convenience is taking precedence over quality and there is an increasing amount of sugar and sweetness in almost everything.

A few days ago I broke bread with fellow STAR columnist and chef Claude Tayag, who explained that the traditional Filipino palate is sour and salty, not sweet. The cloying sweetness has come from recent years of westernization through what I would like to call “fast foodization.” Because they’ve cut corners on techniques, on using real produce and the patience to do things old-school, food manufacturers resort to adding lots of sugar and flavor enhancers to make its tasty and addictive. It’s sad.  It’s also sad that most of the time we only see our local produce within the scope of local cuisine: sili tops in tinola, sigarilyas in gata and shrimp. I often fall victim to this and admit it takes an effort to think out of the box and incorporate these local veggies into a more global palate.

Thank goodness for the creative chefs and holistic and local foodies who have been championing local produce. “The fitness and wellness buffs, yoga practitioners… were looking for the likes of kale or wheatgrass but are naturally more open to local substitutes like malunggay, kamote tops and ampalaya,” shares Hindy. “There has also been an upswing among chefs and restaurants taking sincere interest in local produce.”

She also noted the influence of foreign chefs. Perhaps it is still sort of this residual colonial mentality that we need to see our produce through the eyes of outsiders and in this case it’s a good thing. One of my dearest friends, chef Chele Gonzalez of Vask, has wholeheartedly adopted the Philippines as his home. I see him as a modern gastronomic conquistador but in the most positive sense possible. He’s been to places I have never even dreamed of in the far inner reaches of our country in search of the most unique indigenous ingredients and cooking techniques. “In my travels I have found many indigenous ingredients that nobody uses in the restaurants today such as alibangbang and pingol bato or begonia leaves,” he says. “These are magic things that are unknown.”

His work and his connections with world-famous chefs like Elena Arzak, as well as the efforts of many other local chefs like Margarita Fores, Myrna Segismundo and the like have done so much to help glamorize our local produce. He does affirm, however, that it’s still a challenge to push these ingredients on a menu.

“For many people here they still understand good food as imported ingredients. For me, whatever is close, seasonal, fresh, sustainable and here is what is best. I discover indigenous and unknown ingredients to the global market as a curious chef and I feel like the luckiest chef in the world to be able to create from what I discover and learn from the Philippines.”

With local food champions like these it brings comfort to my heart that things are changing. There is this growing patriotic trend in all creative industries, from fashion to design and architecture, of looking back to our heritage for inspiration. Small acts like choosing kangkong over kale or supporting local producers can make a difference. One step at a time, moving forward while remaining connected to our past and our earth, positive change can take root in our soils and bloom in a plateful of pride.