walkman

walkman – /wok'-man/ (Tagalog delicacy) [n.] pig's ear barbecue. 

Other local names:

• a.k.a. taenga ng baboy BBQ or tenga ng baboy BBQ in Tagalog. BBQ here is read as "barbecue".

Walkman is a popular colloquial name for tainga ng baboy barbecue from the 1980s until the early 2020s. 

The ears of pigs are scalded, shaven well, and the outer skin scrapped off. This process is often done while the slaughtered pig is still at the abattoir. But barbecue makers would and must clean it further well. 

The cleaned ears are then sliced into bite-size and soaked in the marinade for at least an hour or allowed to stand overnight in the refrigerator. The marinade could be a simple solution of vinegar, soy sauce, pounded peppercorn, and crushed cloves of garlic. The flavor could be enhanced by adding some muscovado or brown sugar, juice calamansi juice (Philippine round lime), and laurel leaf. 

The marinated ears are then skewered in sharp-pointed bamboo stick, then grilled over red-hot charcoal embers, occasionally turned over, and basted with basting sauce, oil, or with the remaining marinade, until the barbecue are seared.

Pig's ear BBQ got its colloquial name “walkman” after it alluded to that an iconic pocket-size portable-listening gadget popularly known by the same name "Walkman," paired with a set of wired earphones, first invented in Japan in 1979 and reached the United States in 1980 and into the Philippines a year later. The Sony Walkman of Sony Corp went popular in the Philippines in the early 80s and was a fad in the streets of Metro Manila and then to the rest of the country. It was then that tainga ng baboy BBQ (pig's ear barbecue) was named walkman alluding with a jest to one's ears that listen to Sony Walkman.

 

Eventually, the popularity of the Sony Walkman gadget and the walkman barbecue waned when iPod was introduced in 2001 and then the iPhone in 2007 which eventually put Sony Walkman away as a thing of the past as years went by. Walkman as a colloquial name for Filipino pig's ear barbecue also faded its usage in the co-terminus with the Sony Walkman gadget. Filipinos gradually forget walkman and the barbecue got back its vernacular name tainga ng baboy BBQ and that is what it is fondly called again now. 

Tenga ng baboy BBQ of Victoria's Grille. I got this at the Mercato Centrale one weekend at the Bonifacio High Street parking area in Bonifacio Global City (The Fort), Taguig City.

Cooking tip

To help soften the meat of the BBQ, add the marinade with few drops of extracted juice from pounded ginger roots or the extracted whitish resin that comes out from the skin of pricked fresh green papaya fruit. These extracts can also be used in stewing or braising hard-to-cook meats. It will effectively loosen the meat off the bones and the tissues to separate. 

References:

• The New Yorker, "The Walkman, Forty Years On," Matt Alt, June 29, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-walkman-forty-years-on

All photos by Edgie Polistico are copyrighted. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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