Puso / Rice in a Coconut Leaf Pouch
Puso is one of those near perfect foods — a compact 
pre-measured and cooked portion of white rice in a natural wrapper of woven biodegradable coconut leaves. It even has a natural handle so you can take it home or anywhere without the need for a plastic bag. On a recent trip to Cebu, the site of a passing motorcycle laden with puso being delivered to various roadside food stands or carinderias brought a smile to my face. The bike was moving so fast and I was in a taxi in heavy traffic so I only got one fuzzy photo. What you don’t see are hundreds more puso in-between the rider and the driver and in front of the driver. This delivery had at least 300 puso on board! In the country’s second largest city with a bustling economy and growing population, it’s really nice to see that the puso still lives on. Folks having lunch or dinner at a roadside stall of barbecued whatever (chicken, pork, innards of all sorts) have one or two puso with their viand. Puso is not uniquely Cebuano… versions of it exist elsewhere in the country as well as in other Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, but for Cebuanos, puso equals home.
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It was introduced to the Philippines during the Spanish times and has spread throughout the Pacific (Guam, Micronesia, Hawaii, etc.). It was also introduced to Thailand and onto India where it is known as Manila Tamarind. A very common provincial tree, I associate camachile with drives through Tarlac, Pampanga and Pangasinan in the 1970’s on the way to Baguio and the Mt. Provinces. The trees lined the highways (if you could call the two lane roads that) and vendors used to sell the fruit from right under the shade of the trees. Sometimes the fruit was packed in bags that were hung from nails on the trunks of the hardy trees. I passed by these same roads just last year during the summer and the same trees and lots of vendors were still at it as they have been for the last 40+ years!
Considered the benchmark of locals’ well-being, the price of a kilo of galunggong is tracked by the the President and the press in the same way the Big Mac index is used globally. Galunggong or Mackarel Scad (Decapterus macarellus) can grow up to a foot in length and has a dark somewhat oily but tasty flesh. Fried galunggong and boiled white rice is the basic meal of that mythical seaside Filipino Juan, Jose or Procopio. At the market recently, I was accompanied by an old work colleague who is now based in the U.S. and who wanted to wander around a local wet market. The combination of Marketman and a nice white guy really sent prices soaring! One vendor had some very fresh looking baby galunggong about 5-6 inches long. Just a bit bigger than sardines, my guest asked if we could get some and grill them like fresh sardines in the Mediterranean. We bargained them down to PHP40 for half a kilo and I walked away knowing I had just paid 20% more than I should have, but what the heck.
(Artocarpus camansi) is very closely related to but not the same as Rimas or Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis). I didn’t know that so maybe some of you didn’t either. Kamansi has sharper points on its skin, more like a jackfruit (another close relative) while Rimas has a flatter outer skin. Kamansi has soft seeds and Rimas has no seeds. I spied these unusual little Kamansi from an organic vegetable seller that I frequent and decided they looked too interesting to pass up. I brought home three small Kamansi and hoped that the cook had heard of these before… she had, good Boholana that she is, Kamansi and Rimas grew in abundance in her native Bohol. Kamansi are believed to be native to Papua New Guinea and possibly Indonesia and the Philippines.
recipes for reef fresh seafood at beach side markets. The day I purchased the live shrimp in Batangas in my previous post, I also bought a kilo of small to medium sized squid for PHP130 a kilo (highway robbery, I know, but it was a holiday weekend and I am the equivalent of a target tourist who should be fleeced). For dinner that evening, I decided to make a very simple appetizer of calamares (fried squid) served with a tomato salad dressed with a basil vinaigrette.
Steamed live shrimp with several dipping sauces served with piping hot steamed rice is one such dish. As some people head out to the beaches on summer outings or home to the provinces for a holiday, I have tried to think of some dishes that can be prepared with reef fresh seafood, with minimal fuss and maximum flavor impact. Instead of carting instant noodles and adobo with rice made the day before to the beach, bring no cooked food and instead hit the local markets early to see what the boats have brought in.
consumed by perhaps 98% of the Philippine population. This naturally sourced salt usually has relatively large squarish crystals and ranges in color from grayish off white to almost white. It is usually a little damper than processed salt but the organic stuff comes chock full of important minerals such as sulfur, calcium and potassium. At the edge of several coastal towns in the Philippines you can spot salt flats that look like really shallow fishponds where sea water is made to evaporate (especially in the hottest of summer months) until salt crystals remain and these are scooped up into baskets and allowed to drain before they are packed in sacks and sent off to the market. I always wondered how they separated the salt crystals from the muddy bottoms until I went for a much closer look…