the tabagwang is way better than kuhol (as said to me, cause i haven’t eaten kuhol yet), we call it susong-palipit and they’re collected mostly from rice paddies and streams during rainy season. sarap yan, ginataan with a little luya and malunggay leaves.

rey

on rare occasions, i see this type of snail available in pasig palengke (together with other exotic food such as native chicken, duck, catfish, and the like). but i’m wary buying it coz i don’t trust if it’s sourced from a clean place.

to nina: the pili fruit looks like that: it’s plum and oval. the pulp is blanched til soft. then, the meat is dipped in a mixture of soy sauce and calamansi. the pulp has been proven to be very nutricious and is said to be the reason Sorsogon (where pili vegetation is densest) has a very low malnutrition rate despite pervasive poverty there.

pili nut, btw, is said to be the “best-tasting nut in the world” according to foreign research. this local exotic nut, which has been exported to several eastern and western countries even before WWII, is said to be superior to walnuts and even to macadamia, which is considered the number one nut in the world at the moment. sadly, we have never really exploited the commercial potential of pili nut, our very own. what we have in the market are merely the old stuff: sugar-glazed, marzipan, pastillas, and the like.

i hope some of us will invest in pili development soon.

rachiel