Market Manila

I wrote about eating swaki even FRESHER than the ones in these photographs, taken while on a trip to Bohol several years ago, and while on a huge sandbar, one of the bangkeros pulled some sea urchins out of the sea and opened them up and let us eat the bright orange yellow roe right then and there… they were superb. But these sea urchins weren’t too shabby either, just 10-20 minutes out of the water and still very much alive, I spied them being opened for someone’s lunch appetizer not far from the Bogo market and close to the sea shore.

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“Good God Damn!” was the unabashed and spontaneous reaction of an American tourist clad in a stereotypical plaid shirt. He had just stepped up to a massive “halter,” the “star” of the utterly stunning collection of pre-colonial gold that has ever so quietly opened to the public at the Ayala Museum. I will explain why his comment was a good one, and not intended to be blasphemous at all…

I was privileged and extremely grateful to have been invited to, and given what was tantamount to the finest private tour of the new exhibit : “Gold of Ancestors,” Pre-colonial Treasures of the Philippines. But this wasn’t supposed to be any special treatment whatsoever; a casual text invitation, a holiday lunch with friends, no formality in dress, then we slipped anonymously into the exhibit that had officially opened to the public just hours before. There were just 3-4 other visitors in the gallery at that point. It just so happens that the friends who gave me the tour, are members of the family that collected the artifacts and who have now permanently placed the pieces in a museum, available for the public to view. And while we were there, I was introduced to the curator of the exhibit and one of the authors of an upcoming book on the collection. Let me tell you, I had goosebumps for an hour, maybe more. It is rare that I would feel so incredibly proud to be Filipino, to think that many of these pieces were crafted and had come from an area geographically so close to where my own ancestors called home, (who were probably drying fish on the shores of Bohol and Cebu) unaware of the wonderful pieces that were being crafted and worn in Northern Mindanao, out of a yellow metal that spewed out of mountainsides and were panned for in pristine rivers in and around Butuan and Surigao.

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They call these small, 8-12 inch saltwater eels “bakasi” throughout the island of Cebu. They are particularly abundant near the town of Cordova, in the Southern part of the island, where they even have an annual festival in August to celebrate this local “delicacy.” I have never eaten them before, or even seen them in markets for sale alive. So when I ran into them in droves at the Bogo market, I was certainly intrigued. All I knew for sure was that they were eels, they were caught in the sea, and that the locals cooked and ate them. But there was a part of me that was hoping these weren’t baby moray eels. I had seen far too many enormous moray eels for sale at the Pasil market just days before, and while I understand that moray eels are not endangered and are a good source of protein, I felt they should be spared from being eaten… why morays and not lapu-lapu or talakitoks, I can’t explain, nor am I being rational about it, I agree… Plus to complicate logic, I have eaten angullas in olive oil and garlic, a Spanish delicacy, and I also love unagi, that japanese eel with a sweetish sugar and soy sauce, so what is the big deal, anyway?

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Continuing to the extreme on the theme of salt and fish, first a relatively mild concoction of anchovy fry with some salt that was left to intentionally partially ferment/decay in guinamos, post here, and now, fish that was sun dried and literally buried in salt in the form of tuyo. With quite an abundance of fish in the Northern Cebu waters around Bantayan, Malapascua and Bogo, there was also an abundance of dried fish, presumably preserved to be enjoyed at a later time, or exported to other parts of the country, or consumed when there was less access to fresh fish or other foods. Salt is considered a brilliant preservative because it appears to be the enemy of many types of bacteria that just so want to attack recently deceased animals or organic materials… the salt draws out moisture from the fish, thereby reducing the ability of bacteria to thrive. It is absolutely the same concept that is applied to many types of hams… have you ever wondered how a salt-cured ham, made from a fresh bloody ham leg simply treated with salt and left hanging in a cool barn for a year or so can taste so good?

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Cebuanos consume quite a bit of corn. I suspect that is because there wasn’t much rice grown on the island, so to supplement rice which was “imported” from other islands in the archipelago, locals turned to corn during difficult times and eventually it became a natural part of their diet. They had to get their carbohydrates from somewhere… Some folks in Cebu mix corn and rice in one pot; and sometimes, they simply boil up some corn meal, somewhat similar to grits or polenta, though polenta is a much finer grind of corn…

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I don’t smoke. But I stopped in my tracks at the Bogo market when I passed by a stall with bunches of whole dried tobacco leaves and what looked like pre-made cigarette wrappers which nearly the color of the tobacco and not white or pale like commercial cigarettes… An older lady, who looked like she had enjoyed her share of tobacco for several decades, explained that the dried tobacco leaves were sourced in Mindanao, and she was selling them for PHP5 per leaf…

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My father was a HUGE fan of guinamos, all manner of small fish (sometimes shrimp), mixed with salt, and allowed to rot to the desired level of pungency. It was the color of death, and death in a bad way, or at least I always thought so as a squeamish kid, but was smart enough to never say it out loud. It sounds like a horrific process, the slow decay and disintegration of a fish in salt, not to mention the naturally gray color… I believe what you don’t see made, bothers you less… and this supports my personal theory why almost everyone loves patis and that less than 5-10% of the readers of this blog have seen it made, which can sometimes make one’s stomach turn inside out… But my recent post on small fish with beady eyes, which I also think are anchovy fry, set off a lively discussion in Mrs. MM’s Cebu office and one of her crew mentioned that he had a “tita” that made a fantastic guinamos sinabado… and like magic, a week later, while I was in Cebu, this small but incredibly pungent container of the stuff showed up on my desk at the office in Cebu, made just a day or two before…

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I found these unusual, frilly light and tasty seaweeds at the Bogo market. Didn’t catch the appropriate local name (had no ballpen) but they seemed to lump them all together with other seaweeds such as guso and lato. If I am not mistaken it was something like “saang bulaklak” and they said it only grew on a particular type of specimen sea shell. It looked exactly like a seaweed I had recently enjoyed at the Tsukiji restaurant on Pasay Road so I was rather excited to see it at the market. In Manila, a top quality mixed seaweed salad fluffed up with lettuce and a good sesame seed dressing can run upwards of PHP650 for a tiny bowl, so how I wished I had brought the other ingredients for this salad as I would have had these for breakfast as well!

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