An Express Ride intoBicol Cuisine a Foodie’s Travel Journal
July 20, 2003 | 12:00am
MY TWO greatest passions in life are food and travel. Any excuse to get out of Manila is always welcome, more so when the agenda involves food. When Tita Marichi Francisco, a dear friend of my mother, invited me to her hometown’s Bicol Food Festival 2003, (organized by the Naga City Council for Culture and Arts), I accepted the invitation without hesitation, I blocked off my entire workweek for an immersion into the culture and cuisine of Bicol.
Day One, Monday: Egay’s Rude Interruption
My bags were packed. My enthusiasm and appetite had already built up when a certain Egay threatened to ruin my plans. All set and ready to spend a week in Bicol, my morning flight was cancelled due to typhoon Egay’s surprise visit. But the thought of not making it to Bicol was unacceptable to Tita Marichi. I was scheduled to cut the ceremonial ribbon, together with other guests, at the opening of the food festival.
So we rushed to the nearest ticket office to take a flight to neighboring Legazpi instead. Not only did we get a flight, we even got first row, window seats. But Egay still managed to flood the festival site, forcing organizers to move the opening to Wednesday.
Our hosts Lilibeth Guysayko (chairperson of the food festival) and her husband Colacho (Tita Marichi’s younger brother) are obvious food lovers. Within minutes of our first meeting, Tito Colacho immediately sensed my love for food, which quickly bridged the gap between a fifty-something Naga farmer and a city-bred twenty-something writer cum food stylist.
He asked if I ate snipes, small birds caught in the rice fields. I nodded, and the red pick-up we were riding pulled to a stop. Live birds from a roadside vendor were quickly bought and added to the planned dinner menu. As we passed the town of Bato, store signs all claimed to sell "D’ Original Pancit Bato." Tito Colacho explained that the noodles are locally made in this Camarines Sur town and sautéed like that of Quezon’s pancit habhab.
When we reached the Guysayko home, a spread of Bicolandia cooking welcomed us. Naturally, there was Bicol Express, a vegetable dish featuring sili cooked with gata, onion, garlic, ginger, balao (salted baby shrimps), pork belly and tanglad. In Manila, Bicol Express is a pork dish made spicy by lots of sili.
There was pinangat, the quintessential Bicol coconut dish with several variations in the region, made with fresh water shrimps or ulang, as they still do in Sorsogon. The Naga version uses saltwater shrimps as substitute. The shrimps, meat from lukadon or hard buko, onion, garlic and ginger are chopped finely then wrapped with two layers of gabi leaves, forming rectangular packets. The Sorsogon and Naga versions were both at the table, their rich, slightly spicy flavors perfect with spoonfuls of rice. It was not my tolerance for spicy vegetable dishes that surprised my hosts but my instant liking for linantang pili.
What appeared to be a giant duhat turned out to be the pili fruit. The oblong nut had multiple layers: a purple skin covered a husk that covered a shell that covered a brown skin that finally covered the nut kernel. The blanched fruit is dipped in water just below boiling point. The flesh is dipped in fish bagoong with coconut milk for a delicious sour delicacy perfectly complementing the fried fish served. Tito Colacho was surprised to see this city girl immediately fall in love with this exotic delicacy, an acquired taste only locals seem to have.
While having coffee, we tried the mazapan de pili from Camalig, which is a rich creamy confection of ground toasted pili, sugar and milk. Like eating peanuts, this dessert was highly addicting.
The rains subsided in the afternoon, but the cool wet weather still managed to whet out appetites. Along with Engr. Honesto Heneral (author of the Coconut Cookery), Tita Lilibeth and Tita Marichi, we tried for afternoon snack kinalas, a piping hot soup made with noodles and a flavorful broth using the whole head of the cow. Its name pertains to the strips of meat falling off from the cheeks after hours of boiling the stock. Served with egg, this dish is similar to La Paz Batchoy of Iloilo. A cheaper bowl of soup without the egg and meat pieces is loglog. These merienda soups are sold at eateries near schools all over town.
Day 2, Tuesday: Adjusting to the Provincial Pace
With the entire Guysayko household either in the thick of preparations for the food festival, back to school or back to work, the day took a mellow pace for me and Tita Marichi. It meant a lot of leisure time at the Guysayko home. Our native breakfast consisted of tsokolate-eh made from chocolate tablets and various Bicol kakanins.
According to Honesto Heneral’s book, there are 15 fruit bearing coconut trees for every Bicolano. Coconut is integral to Bicol cuisine, which uses the gata, meat or juice for cooking vegetables, meat, seafood, desserts and even merienda. So naturally, the suman called balisoso and binutong have gata. Balisoso is a conical suman made with either cassava or glutinous black rice, plus lukadon (buco meat) and sangkaka (panutsa) cooked in a pot of coconut juice. The binutong looks like a moneybag of banana leaves filled with a rich concoction of malagkit rice covered with coconut cream.
Our outing to Naga’s public market with Tiang Edith, the Guysayko’s family cook, proved to be an educational trip on the ingredients of Bicol cookery. The market had a huge selection of dried fish. The Bicol region being a peninsula always has a bounty of fish. The abundance of fish and lack of refrigeration gave rise to the business of drying fish. Salted fish makes a perfect alternative to meat in laing. As expected, the whirring sound of graters extracting the gata could be heard in many parts of the market. There was also a steady supply of dried gabi leaves called natong or laing. The finger peppers or sili were sold in mounds.
Later, my attempt to take a nap (an impossibility in the frenzied Manila way of life) was foiled by a constant banging that came from Ely, who sat on the floor with his bolo and a chopping board, having a battle with the tough pili nut shells. Fresh from the Guysayko family’s lone pili tree in their garden, the violet fruits resembling giant dark olives deceptively looked like delicate fruits. Yet, only a sharp bolo can cut through its stubborn exterior to get to the heart of the nut. Surrounded by a moundful of empty husks, Ely only had a small plate of pili to show for his hours of labor. I grabbed a piece, pulled off its brown skin and discovered that the taste resembles the flesh of mature coconut.
Day 3, Wednesday: The Food Festival
I was excited to finally cut the ribbon of Bicol’s first food festival at the Plaza Quince Martires (Naga’s monument to the 15 martyrs) at the center of the city, along with Mayor Robredo and other distinguished guests. Thanks to serendipity and Egay, the event fell on the 55th foundation day of the city. A celebration of culture and cuisine, Honesto Heneral educated the guests on the happy marriage of the richness of gata and the spiciness of sili. A fish dish, usually a sour broth of cocido (sinigang using calamansi instead of tamarind), becomes the perfect companion to the spicy rich vegetable served. The sour broth washes away the spiciness. Of course, all must be eaten with plates and plates of hot steaming rice, never bread or any other starch.
The festivities were marked with a buffet of traditional Bicol dishes, consisting of tinumtuman (river clams and bamboo shoots cooked in gata), pancit bato, various kakanin and suman, and pinangat. There were food stalls selling pili nuts and delicacies made out of pili: pudding, mazapan, tarts, cookies, macaroons, honeyed pili nuts and pili brittle; various ulam made of gata and native tsokolate-eh. There was even the exotic kurakding made from mushrooms sprouting from rotting trees. A pinangat expert, Mr. Heneral demonstrated his version of the dish made purely from laing and a piece of pork without the finely chopped shrimps as stuffing.
Day 4, Thursday: A Trip to the Lake
Filipinos’ fascination for the biggest is always featured in newspapers. The biggest shoe, the biggest salad, the biggest plate of sisig, etc. But we often fail to see the beauty in small things. Today, my mission was to discover the smallest edible fish in the world, the sinarapan, at Lake Buhi. The sinarapan is a transparent goby measuring from five to 12 millimeters in length.
The town of Buhi is 75 kms. From Naga. Thanks to Arthur Noblefrancia from the Mayor’s office, I had a guided tour of the town and a good glimpse of the lake from the best vantage point. A government-owned resort provides a spectacular 180-degree view of the lake with mountains for background. The tranquility of the lake had a calming effect. A manang in her tapis bathed in the banks of a river. A man was spear fishing some 20 feet to my left and a young starry-eyed couple whispered sweet nothings a few steps away. Only the graceful movement of a lone banca interrupted the stillness of the lake.
The sinarapan had seen better days in the 70s when the tiny fish were in abundance. The local folk would eat the tiny fish cooked in gata, fried, torta or sautéed with tomates and onions for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But the introduction of mechanized fishing methods and tilapia raising left little hope for the poor creatures of the lake.
The Buhinons’ life is so intertwined with the lake, relying on her for fishing, irrigation and power generation. Stopping at a house in Santa Elena, we purchased dried fish. For a hundred bucks, you get a hundred grams and thousands of fish preserved together in a flat sheet. If only preserving Lake Buhi were as simple as preserving fish.
Day Five, Friday: Marveling at her Majesty
On a clear day, Mayon could be seen from Naga. Each day as I awakened there, I prayed for good weather. Rain not only hinders my gallivanting, but it also prevents me from appreciating Mayon’s beauty. The sun rose bright and early on my last day in Bicol. Tito Colacho, sitting at the breakfast table, suggested a trip to Legazpi, Albay. Along with Tita Marichi and Tito Colacho’s daughter Ching, we happily headed to Legazpi with food on our mind. Traveling roughly a hundred kilometers was a scenic drive. There were several moments reminiscent of Amorsolo’s paintings of rural life. And as you get closer to the volcano’s presence, her majesty becomes hard to ignore. The road curves throughout, with the volcano seeming to move from left to right of the vehicle, as if constantly haunting you.
We decided to eat in Alamo’s even before leaving Naga City. Calling it a hole in the wall would not have been apt. It is even more hidden than that. It is a hunt tracking down this eatery hidden inside the looban of simple dwellings in some side street. It is most famous for its sinigang sa buco. Although it uses kalamansi juice for sourness (as most Bicolanos do), Aling Dominga Alamo’s version adds the meat of coconut to this dish. She only uses the freshest lapu-lapu weighing 3.5 to 4 kilos to ensure the best sinigang na isda. The weight she believes allows a tasty broth as well as firm meat. Everyday since 1985, her canteen has always been packed with customers.
No tourist left Bicol without doing the usual rounds of icons associated with Mayon Volcano. Many postcards show a beautiful steeple on the foreground, with the mighty volcano in the background. Ironically what now seems like a peaceful image is Cagsawa Ruins, remnants of the 1500’s church buried by rocks and lava during Mayon’s fury in 1814. The Baroque Church in Daraga built by the Franciscans in 1773, provides an excellent view of Mayon from a vantage point on top of the hill overlooking the town.
With a tip from my friend Cathy, this hot day deserved a taste of Bicol’s best halo-halo. We headed north to the town of Tiwi to DJC, near the municipio. The grated cheese on top of the mound of ingredients served on a glass immediately sets it apart from all the halo-halos I’ve tasted in my life. The combination of finely shaved ice, gulaman, beans, leche flan, ube, sago and banana was just delicious.
As the day neared its end, we got a beautiful view of Lagonoy gulf. The farmland, mountain and sea could all be seen at once in the picturesque barangay of Joroan. Before the sun could set, Mayon stood in full glory. She shifted from left to right as we drove away back to Naga. Before nightfall, I pulled out my camera and clicked one more image of Mayon, hoping to capture on film a lasting memory of this delicious Bicol sojourn.
You may email the writer at [email protected]
Day One, Monday: Egay’s Rude Interruption
My bags were packed. My enthusiasm and appetite had already built up when a certain Egay threatened to ruin my plans. All set and ready to spend a week in Bicol, my morning flight was cancelled due to typhoon Egay’s surprise visit. But the thought of not making it to Bicol was unacceptable to Tita Marichi. I was scheduled to cut the ceremonial ribbon, together with other guests, at the opening of the food festival.
So we rushed to the nearest ticket office to take a flight to neighboring Legazpi instead. Not only did we get a flight, we even got first row, window seats. But Egay still managed to flood the festival site, forcing organizers to move the opening to Wednesday.
Our hosts Lilibeth Guysayko (chairperson of the food festival) and her husband Colacho (Tita Marichi’s younger brother) are obvious food lovers. Within minutes of our first meeting, Tito Colacho immediately sensed my love for food, which quickly bridged the gap between a fifty-something Naga farmer and a city-bred twenty-something writer cum food stylist.
He asked if I ate snipes, small birds caught in the rice fields. I nodded, and the red pick-up we were riding pulled to a stop. Live birds from a roadside vendor were quickly bought and added to the planned dinner menu. As we passed the town of Bato, store signs all claimed to sell "D’ Original Pancit Bato." Tito Colacho explained that the noodles are locally made in this Camarines Sur town and sautéed like that of Quezon’s pancit habhab.
When we reached the Guysayko home, a spread of Bicolandia cooking welcomed us. Naturally, there was Bicol Express, a vegetable dish featuring sili cooked with gata, onion, garlic, ginger, balao (salted baby shrimps), pork belly and tanglad. In Manila, Bicol Express is a pork dish made spicy by lots of sili.
There was pinangat, the quintessential Bicol coconut dish with several variations in the region, made with fresh water shrimps or ulang, as they still do in Sorsogon. The Naga version uses saltwater shrimps as substitute. The shrimps, meat from lukadon or hard buko, onion, garlic and ginger are chopped finely then wrapped with two layers of gabi leaves, forming rectangular packets. The Sorsogon and Naga versions were both at the table, their rich, slightly spicy flavors perfect with spoonfuls of rice. It was not my tolerance for spicy vegetable dishes that surprised my hosts but my instant liking for linantang pili.
What appeared to be a giant duhat turned out to be the pili fruit. The oblong nut had multiple layers: a purple skin covered a husk that covered a shell that covered a brown skin that finally covered the nut kernel. The blanched fruit is dipped in water just below boiling point. The flesh is dipped in fish bagoong with coconut milk for a delicious sour delicacy perfectly complementing the fried fish served. Tito Colacho was surprised to see this city girl immediately fall in love with this exotic delicacy, an acquired taste only locals seem to have.
While having coffee, we tried the mazapan de pili from Camalig, which is a rich creamy confection of ground toasted pili, sugar and milk. Like eating peanuts, this dessert was highly addicting.
The rains subsided in the afternoon, but the cool wet weather still managed to whet out appetites. Along with Engr. Honesto Heneral (author of the Coconut Cookery), Tita Lilibeth and Tita Marichi, we tried for afternoon snack kinalas, a piping hot soup made with noodles and a flavorful broth using the whole head of the cow. Its name pertains to the strips of meat falling off from the cheeks after hours of boiling the stock. Served with egg, this dish is similar to La Paz Batchoy of Iloilo. A cheaper bowl of soup without the egg and meat pieces is loglog. These merienda soups are sold at eateries near schools all over town.
Day 2, Tuesday: Adjusting to the Provincial Pace
With the entire Guysayko household either in the thick of preparations for the food festival, back to school or back to work, the day took a mellow pace for me and Tita Marichi. It meant a lot of leisure time at the Guysayko home. Our native breakfast consisted of tsokolate-eh made from chocolate tablets and various Bicol kakanins.
According to Honesto Heneral’s book, there are 15 fruit bearing coconut trees for every Bicolano. Coconut is integral to Bicol cuisine, which uses the gata, meat or juice for cooking vegetables, meat, seafood, desserts and even merienda. So naturally, the suman called balisoso and binutong have gata. Balisoso is a conical suman made with either cassava or glutinous black rice, plus lukadon (buco meat) and sangkaka (panutsa) cooked in a pot of coconut juice. The binutong looks like a moneybag of banana leaves filled with a rich concoction of malagkit rice covered with coconut cream.
Our outing to Naga’s public market with Tiang Edith, the Guysayko’s family cook, proved to be an educational trip on the ingredients of Bicol cookery. The market had a huge selection of dried fish. The Bicol region being a peninsula always has a bounty of fish. The abundance of fish and lack of refrigeration gave rise to the business of drying fish. Salted fish makes a perfect alternative to meat in laing. As expected, the whirring sound of graters extracting the gata could be heard in many parts of the market. There was also a steady supply of dried gabi leaves called natong or laing. The finger peppers or sili were sold in mounds.
Later, my attempt to take a nap (an impossibility in the frenzied Manila way of life) was foiled by a constant banging that came from Ely, who sat on the floor with his bolo and a chopping board, having a battle with the tough pili nut shells. Fresh from the Guysayko family’s lone pili tree in their garden, the violet fruits resembling giant dark olives deceptively looked like delicate fruits. Yet, only a sharp bolo can cut through its stubborn exterior to get to the heart of the nut. Surrounded by a moundful of empty husks, Ely only had a small plate of pili to show for his hours of labor. I grabbed a piece, pulled off its brown skin and discovered that the taste resembles the flesh of mature coconut.
Day 3, Wednesday: The Food Festival
I was excited to finally cut the ribbon of Bicol’s first food festival at the Plaza Quince Martires (Naga’s monument to the 15 martyrs) at the center of the city, along with Mayor Robredo and other distinguished guests. Thanks to serendipity and Egay, the event fell on the 55th foundation day of the city. A celebration of culture and cuisine, Honesto Heneral educated the guests on the happy marriage of the richness of gata and the spiciness of sili. A fish dish, usually a sour broth of cocido (sinigang using calamansi instead of tamarind), becomes the perfect companion to the spicy rich vegetable served. The sour broth washes away the spiciness. Of course, all must be eaten with plates and plates of hot steaming rice, never bread or any other starch.
The festivities were marked with a buffet of traditional Bicol dishes, consisting of tinumtuman (river clams and bamboo shoots cooked in gata), pancit bato, various kakanin and suman, and pinangat. There were food stalls selling pili nuts and delicacies made out of pili: pudding, mazapan, tarts, cookies, macaroons, honeyed pili nuts and pili brittle; various ulam made of gata and native tsokolate-eh. There was even the exotic kurakding made from mushrooms sprouting from rotting trees. A pinangat expert, Mr. Heneral demonstrated his version of the dish made purely from laing and a piece of pork without the finely chopped shrimps as stuffing.
Day 4, Thursday: A Trip to the Lake
Filipinos’ fascination for the biggest is always featured in newspapers. The biggest shoe, the biggest salad, the biggest plate of sisig, etc. But we often fail to see the beauty in small things. Today, my mission was to discover the smallest edible fish in the world, the sinarapan, at Lake Buhi. The sinarapan is a transparent goby measuring from five to 12 millimeters in length.
The town of Buhi is 75 kms. From Naga. Thanks to Arthur Noblefrancia from the Mayor’s office, I had a guided tour of the town and a good glimpse of the lake from the best vantage point. A government-owned resort provides a spectacular 180-degree view of the lake with mountains for background. The tranquility of the lake had a calming effect. A manang in her tapis bathed in the banks of a river. A man was spear fishing some 20 feet to my left and a young starry-eyed couple whispered sweet nothings a few steps away. Only the graceful movement of a lone banca interrupted the stillness of the lake.
The sinarapan had seen better days in the 70s when the tiny fish were in abundance. The local folk would eat the tiny fish cooked in gata, fried, torta or sautéed with tomates and onions for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But the introduction of mechanized fishing methods and tilapia raising left little hope for the poor creatures of the lake.
The Buhinons’ life is so intertwined with the lake, relying on her for fishing, irrigation and power generation. Stopping at a house in Santa Elena, we purchased dried fish. For a hundred bucks, you get a hundred grams and thousands of fish preserved together in a flat sheet. If only preserving Lake Buhi were as simple as preserving fish.
Day Five, Friday: Marveling at her Majesty
On a clear day, Mayon could be seen from Naga. Each day as I awakened there, I prayed for good weather. Rain not only hinders my gallivanting, but it also prevents me from appreciating Mayon’s beauty. The sun rose bright and early on my last day in Bicol. Tito Colacho, sitting at the breakfast table, suggested a trip to Legazpi, Albay. Along with Tita Marichi and Tito Colacho’s daughter Ching, we happily headed to Legazpi with food on our mind. Traveling roughly a hundred kilometers was a scenic drive. There were several moments reminiscent of Amorsolo’s paintings of rural life. And as you get closer to the volcano’s presence, her majesty becomes hard to ignore. The road curves throughout, with the volcano seeming to move from left to right of the vehicle, as if constantly haunting you.
We decided to eat in Alamo’s even before leaving Naga City. Calling it a hole in the wall would not have been apt. It is even more hidden than that. It is a hunt tracking down this eatery hidden inside the looban of simple dwellings in some side street. It is most famous for its sinigang sa buco. Although it uses kalamansi juice for sourness (as most Bicolanos do), Aling Dominga Alamo’s version adds the meat of coconut to this dish. She only uses the freshest lapu-lapu weighing 3.5 to 4 kilos to ensure the best sinigang na isda. The weight she believes allows a tasty broth as well as firm meat. Everyday since 1985, her canteen has always been packed with customers.
No tourist left Bicol without doing the usual rounds of icons associated with Mayon Volcano. Many postcards show a beautiful steeple on the foreground, with the mighty volcano in the background. Ironically what now seems like a peaceful image is Cagsawa Ruins, remnants of the 1500’s church buried by rocks and lava during Mayon’s fury in 1814. The Baroque Church in Daraga built by the Franciscans in 1773, provides an excellent view of Mayon from a vantage point on top of the hill overlooking the town.
With a tip from my friend Cathy, this hot day deserved a taste of Bicol’s best halo-halo. We headed north to the town of Tiwi to DJC, near the municipio. The grated cheese on top of the mound of ingredients served on a glass immediately sets it apart from all the halo-halos I’ve tasted in my life. The combination of finely shaved ice, gulaman, beans, leche flan, ube, sago and banana was just delicious.
As the day neared its end, we got a beautiful view of Lagonoy gulf. The farmland, mountain and sea could all be seen at once in the picturesque barangay of Joroan. Before the sun could set, Mayon stood in full glory. She shifted from left to right as we drove away back to Naga. Before nightfall, I pulled out my camera and clicked one more image of Mayon, hoping to capture on film a lasting memory of this delicious Bicol sojourn.
You may email the writer at [email protected]
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