The Purple Sweet and Sour Fish

We owe much our culinary knowledge to the people who have taught us in our growing years how to cook in line with tradition. Before we innovated our cooking, we followed the recipes our grandmas have loved for ages.

I grew up in a family where everyone cooks. We are not schooled in culinary nor exposed to any chef or cooking masters, we just needed to feed ourselves well. And it shows. ha ha ha. We helped in the family business at home in Sipocot and studied in the neighboring town of Libmanan during the weekdays. Living in a different place five days a week taught us to be independent even in our early years. Just like my older siblings, at the age of seven, I was already trained to cook rice. At ten, I can cook a dozen of dishes on my own. Our teacher in cooking is our Tiya Edad, my father's stepsister who took care of us since we were babies. She dedicated her life caring for us.

Under Tiya Edad's instruction, I learned to cook dishes with gata (coconut milk) and some pork dishes. Her Pikadilyo - tilapia or talusog (mud fish) cooked with tomatoes, petchay, eggplant and spices (garlic, onion, ginger and of course, siling labuyo) in gata still haunts my tongue. We wanted it "naglalana-lana" or when the gata slowly turns into oil, just like the way we cook natong (taro leaves) and Bikol Express. To achieve this we have to squeeze the grated coconut meat twice. In our times, we do not have the electric grater in the supermarkets. We have to sit down on the kudkuran to manually grate the coconut. After that, we extract the milk by adding water and squeezing. The milk coming from the first squeeze is the kakang gata or the thick coconut milk. Then the thin coconut milk from the second squeeze goes directly to the cooking pan along with the spices.  We'll bring the milk to a boil before adding the main ingredients. When the thin milk is almost drained, kakang gata is added as the fire is lowered. You have to wait for the gata to turn into an oily cream. Sometimes, Tiya would also recommend cooking the dish "palusag" where all the ingredients are placed in a cauldron and slowly cook them in gata. There is no need for the thin coconut milk. This manner of cooking is best in preparing langka (jackfruit, not the ripe ones) and ogob (breadfruit). Tiya Edad loved cooking talusog though my sister was afraid of the fish because it really looks like a snake. She would either fry them or make a pikadilyo, and my sister could not help but just enjoy it.

It was a happy feast for us when Tiya Edad would cook egado (pork liver stew), kandingga (sauteed pork lungs and liver with finely chopped kangkong), caldereta and mechado (pork stew in tomato sauce). She also had this pork adobo in salt and vinegar, and stored in a jar. She would preserve it for future cooking purposes, but we would always manage to steal some pork cuts like candies in a cookie jar.

Of all the recipe Tiya had taught us, it was the kusido I love the most. It's fish in hot sour soup of tomatoes, camote tops and calamansi. I would usually ask for this soup whenever I have colds.

Tiya also admitted she had limitations in cooking. She was not exposed to some recipes we know today. One time, when my cousin Cathy and I were about to eat the lunch Tiya Edad had prepared for us. What was served was a fish with an alien-like purplish sauce. We exchanged confused looks and asked Tiya Edad, what the name of the dish is. She said sweet and sour followed by an explanation that our house tenant Ate Bebot helped her cooking the dish with the suggestion of adding some food coloring. It was just unfortunate that the food coloring they added was not cherry red but purple. Though the dish was not appetizing to look at, it was really tasty. I just ate it with my eyes closed. And when we had finished the dish what was left was an anecdote.

Now that Tiya Edad is gone, we cannot help but savor the happy stories of her cooking and how she successfully passed down to us her kitchen knowledge.

The Anatomy of Kinalas

Kinalas is a comfort food shared by all citizens of Naga regardless of any social status. It is a poor man’s meal that found its way to the palate even of the most influential people in power. At first I thought that it is an ordinary noodle dish compared to the La Paz batchoy of Iloilo. I was proven wrong. Because as I dissect the whole dish, many things can be discovered from the experience of the people who have enjoyed this dish for generations.   

The term Kinalas actually refers to the meat which is removed or scraped from boiled pork’s head. The longer the hours of boiling the easier it is to scrape the meat, the tastier the broth. The broth is quite not cholesterol free so I advice you to eat kinalas in moderation if you are avoiding hospitals. Beef can substitute for pork. Actually, it taste better for me. Cordova's Kinalasan (Take note: kinalasan-that's how we call Kinalas serving eateries) serves the best beef kinalas in Naga. 
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Because Kinalas refers to the meat, it can be actually paired to any noodles or even rice porridge (goto). But it was a common practice that Kinalas is best paired with the wet noodles available in the supermarket. Many Kinalasan prefer this type of noodles because it does not become soggy immediately. 

There is nothing artificial in the broth. No cubes or granules can ever produce the meaty taste that has undergone the process of sloooow boiling. It is a rule that you can ask for extra broth as long as you bring your bowl to the cook and ask for some.

Aside from the tasty broth, what makes Kinalas unique is the special sauce. It was said that the first special sauce were left overs of the meat stew dishes like Caldereta, Pochero, Menudo etc. It eventually evolve into a paste like texture sauce made of (ssshhhh... this is a secret) crushed shrimp head, ground pork liver and corn starch. As to how it is prepared, i'll leave it with the cooks. They know better than me. 

The spices garlic and onions have been the dynamic duo in Filipino kitchen. But in Kinalas the garlic is sauteed separately and the onion, instead of the regular bulbs, are leeks cut and sprinkled on top of the dish.

Just like with goto, it is optional for you to add hard boiled egg. Some experimented on using balut (duck embryo) which is exotically yummy, but if your stomach cannot take it, just settle with the regular chicken egg. 

There are varieties of condiments to add to your Kinalas. It is up to you to decide which suits your taste. Siling labuyo or chili can be fresh or sauteed. We Bikolanos love our Kinalas burning hot in chili. We are eating fire according to some visitors. Some regular customers of Pan de Cielo in Sta. Mesa Manila, though they are not Bikolanos, have been accustomed to the hot chili sauce. In Kinalas Twins in Dayangdang, there's a mortar (water-filled ketchup bottles) for you to crush the fresh chilies. 

Eating Kinalas is not complete without a bottle of coke. It is a must to burp. Kinalas is also paired with toasted siopao (a local dumpling), maruya (fried banana) and turon (fried wrapped banana). For me Kinalas is best paired with Hopia bread.

If you are in Naga City, you can find the best kinalasan in Dayangdang and Barlin st. In the Republic of Dayangdang you will find Cordova's (famous as Tiya Kamot), Twin's and Cha Ced's. In Barlin, you'll find the famous Cely's, Bolofers and Gotobest. There's also Enteng's in Diversion road. Kinalas hours are between 3 to 5 PM. Better not be late, it's a first come first served basis. If you are in Manila, you can go to Pan de Cielo, in front of Lourdes Hospital in Sta Mesa where Kinalas hours extend up to 8PM. Tengo Hambre! See you there.

 

The Feast

The dreams of lovers are like good wine

They give joy or even sorrow.

Weakened by hunger, I am unhappy.

Stealing on my way everything I can

Because nothing in life is free.

Hope is a dish too soon finished.

The dreams of lovers are like good wine

They give joy or even sorrow.

Weakened by hunger, I am unhappy.

Stealing on my way everything I can

Because nothing in life is free.

Hope is a dish too soon finished.

I am accustomed to skipping meals.

A thief alone and hungry is sad enough to die.

As for us, I am bitter, I want to succeed,

Because nothing in life is free.

Never will they tell me that I cannot shoot for the stars;

Let me fill you with wonder, let me take flight

We will finally feast.

The party will finally start

And bring out the bottles, the troubles are over.

I'm setting the table; tomorrow is a new life.

I am happy at the idea of this new destiny.

A life spent in hiding, and now I'm finally free.

The feast is on my path.

-Le Festin, Michael Giaccino

Every time I go to class (Philosophy of Language and Culture), I feel like going to a feast. My disposition is very positive and excited. It’s not that I consider this subject as an escape from all other subjects I take this semester,  it’s just that I discover something new in every discussion that takes place in the small space of Arrupe 313. I love how language was compared to grapes and wines during past discussions. Whenever we press keys on the keyboard, our fingers turn into beautiful muses dancing on a wine press in a celebration we share with our selves. Then we wait for the next celebration, for when the wine finally ferments and is ready for others.  We savor every drop of it, as we have done in the waiting, before we let it let us be who we are.

Language is one thing we celebrate everyday. Language is a feast, a smorgasbord of surprises, inviting our tongues to dwell in it—to experience it and to live it. My chef brother once told me that the number of dishes that can still be discovered is as many as the stars that can still be discovered in the sky, and that is why gastronomy sounds like astronomy. I laughed at him then, but somehow it makes sense to me now. Some dishes can make us remember happiness or sadness or fright. Some texture can scare us to death on the first encounter, some can comfort our souls in solitude, while some titillate our palates in excitement. We sometimes judge by their color or presentation before we take a bite if we even take a bite or sip at all. Some food fool us with their appearance, some surprise us with their hidden delight. Most of the time we look for something that isn’t there—that taste our tongues try to figure out in confusion.  Of course, we have our favorite dish. We expect it to taste the same but there’s a different experience every time we taste it. We also try to avoid eating it everyday, because it might lose its power over us.

There is no standard recipe for every good food, we know the taste by heart. The measures are like the language structures we have. They are there so we have something to start with. If we stick to the taste preferred by others, then we will never discover things unique to us. In my whole kinalas experience, nothing was more sensational than discovering that supping beef kinalas is best while chewing pork hopia bread at Gotobest, but I would never have discovered how wonderful this new taste was, had I not tasted kinalas or hopia before. On the other hand, I really could not tell whether the Couscous and Ossobuco really tasted as they would in Italy when I first tasted them, but my tongue loved them. 

Tasting food is art. We do not gobble down food without savoring the flavors. It is not just a pragmatic human activity—like eating in a rush lunch break or feeding on a pack of instant noodles. That is why more than eating or gobbling down, we savor our food by letting it dance with our tongue. We chew it well so flavors come out.  We chew it well so the nourishment is easily digested and absorbed. Language is like food, we may find a small piece of fish more nourishing than a plateful of sweets. We cannot live eating sweets alone, bitter herbs and vegetables can enhance our dining experience. The food can be bland but if it offers more nourishment, sooner we’ll learn to love it and our taste will prefer it. Things do change. What has been delicious before, might not be delicious tomorrow.

One thing I love about Naga is that there are lots of restaurants and eateries that offer a variety of taste and culinary experience. Pancit alone has a hundred—or even a thousand—variations; Kinalas is reinvented and rediscovered every day; and the viands have the colors of fiesta.  Compared to a fast food joint, where burgers follow what the machine has programmed, these restaurants and eateries believe that food must be made in the slow process of cooking, like boiling kinalas in medium fire for many hours. You cannot just pressure cook the kinalas, else you will lose the meaty taste embedded between bones and tendons.

This variety of taste that restaurants and eateries offer makes you want to know the place further. Nothing excites me more when going to a place than trying their delicacies and gourmet food. The lechon of Cebu, bagnet of Ilocos, or longganisa of Lucban reflect the lives of people who have shared them over the ages. No one can own the recipe of Kinalas, it is something we Naguenos share. We have our share of personal stories of Tiya Kamot’s, Tiya Ced’s or Tiya Cely’s Kinalas recipe, because Kinalas has limitless possibilities of discoverable taste. We can always add ingredients to suit our palate. We can always rediscover.

To eat Kinalas is a gathering, whether we are in Dayangdang or in Barlin or even when it is served outside Naga. We will always find a way to search for it and have conversations. Sitting in my brother’s restaurant Pan de Cielo in Sta. Mesa, and listening to the words exchanged by customers amazed me. It was like being in Naga. Indeed, we are owned by our tastes, by Kinalas and by the language we speak.   

On the other hand, Sukang pinakurat tells a different story. To experience that Visayan gourmet vinegar is something sublime, that even when Datu-Puti mass-produced it, they could not copy the taste and experience. We have experiences that can never be captured, simplified nor transformed into something instant, just like an authentic emotion that can never be transformed into an internet meme. It can replicate, mutate, or transform but it will never come close to the original.

Just like language, food connects our tongues. We become friends, admirers, critics, or connoisseurs because we have the power to distinguish flavors and love the unique experience we share in dining.  

Just like gastronomy, we do rediscover language everyday as we give new meaning to an experience. Just as Chef Auguste Gusteau tells Remy in Ratatouille, “Everyone can cook”, I say “everyone can say something new”.  Language lets us discover a new dish or a new taste we can contribute to the stars we’ve known in the skies. Let’s bring out the bottles, the feast is on its way.

Kumusta? Nagkakan ka na?

Reflection paper for Philosophy of Language and Culture

How was toasted siopao invented?

No one can really claim to have invented the recipe of this Bikolano dumpling. According to stories, the steamed siopao were accidentally baked in a local bakery in Naga. It was a new discovery that eventually spread throughout the region. Then the dough for Pan Legazpi replaced the traditional steamed bread recipe. And now, toasted siopao is conquering tongues of unfamiliar territories.