Market Manila

Essentially brined lemons, these preserved lemons are used in all sorts of Moroccan tagines and other slow cooked stews. They add a salty, tangy hint of citrus to the dishes, but without the harshness and bitterness associated with fresh lemons. They keep for ages and you only use a teeny weeny bit each time so this recipe should be more than enough for a year’s worth of occasional cooking in the Moroccan style. The recipe is from Gourmet Magazine, and I made this batch with the intention of trying out a recipe they featured with crab meat, sambal oelek and preserved lemons on spaghettini pasta, link here.

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Daing na danggit is one of my favorite Pinoy comfort dishes, eaten at breakfast or any other meal, with lots of spicy vinegar, chopped tomatoes and often, fried or scrambled eggs. I have enjoyed this delicacy probably hundreds of times in the last 40+ years; but as with so many other pinoy favorites, I had never seen it made from scratch. Besides wondering how they deboned the fish, I always wondered who in their right minds was (thankfully) responsible for the task of preparing these fish for appreciative diners like myself… Now I know, and if you read the rest of this post, so will you.

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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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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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A couple of weeks ago, Marketman & Company went off to Malapascua, that small island on the Northern tip of the island of Cebu. The next dozen or so posts shall chronicle highlights of our terrific trip up North. A leisurely three hour drive plus 30 minute banca ride from Cebu City, Malapascua is a diver’s paradise and sometimes hailed as a “mini-Boracay” or “Boracay -15 years ago”. Heading North out of the City of Cebu, at the early hour of 5 a.m., we passed Mandaue, Liloan (where the famous Titay’s rosquillos are made), and through more and more rustic towns along the Eastern coast of Cebu. We kept our eyes peeled for roadside bibingkas that one of my crew recalled enjoying on previous trips along this route. Finally, in the outskirts of Catmon, we ran across some roadside street vendors whose stalls were just letting off a phenomenal amount of smoke.

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I am a white plate kind of guy. In fact, when I envisioned and subsequently constructed our beach house kitchen, it was stocked with white plates of all sorts and clear glasses. A bit basic. But so easy to work with. It was that way for many years. Then we started using the place as a “storage place” for city cast-offs, for kitchen stuff I inherited from my parents and grandparents, for odds and ends that we purchased on trips around the country and the world. And when I am really bored, I troll through all this stuff and occasionally feel inspired to pull together a table with a bit of color.

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Pinoys are notorious for eating 5 meals a day, including a morning and afternoon merienda. So why am I unable to permanently stick to 5 smaller meals a day as suggested by so many dieticians today to regulate my blood sugar levels and ultimately reduce weight? Because my 4th and 5th “meals” include such calorific wonders as these salty, sweet, crunchy, rich and addictive snacks! This is just a sample of some of the stuff we were munching on at the beach… Up top, some fresh peanuts being fried with whole cloves of garlic and siling labuyo.

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It must be nearly 100F outdoors at the moment, roughly 37C, and very humid. Wickedly hot weather for Manila, even during the summer months. It is so debilitating that I actually considered going to the mall just to enjoy some free airconditioning! I wonder if one burns more calories just by being so hot, sweaty and bothered. One would think that the oppressively warm weather would dampen one’s appetite, but I don’t think it has affected mine… However, in the midst of writing a post on pepper, I set the unfinished post aside and decided to do this one on a cool chilly buko lychee shake instead. Have you ever wondered why restaurants are so aggressive about pushing fruit shakes when customers sit down to a meal? Are they really thinking of your health, concerned about your nutritional intake? No, most likely, it has been drilled into the waiters brains that most fruit shakes have a huge mark-up and a tremendous profit margin for the restaurant and thus one should sell, sell, sell them. Many folks couldn’t be bothered to blitz a fruit shake at home, but would readily pay P100-140 for a tall glass with a bit of fruit and herbs on the side, in the same manner that millions of consumers pay somewhere around PHP100 for a cup of hot water and a tea bag at Starbucks (approximately a 300-400% mark-up!)…

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