angkak

angkak – /ang-kàk/ (Tagalog and Capampangan food coloring and fermentation agent; dw Chin. Hokkien an khak [reddish leaves used in fermentation] < an [red] + khak [shell or husk]) [n.] red yeast rice (sc.name: Monascus purpureus)

I found this angkak rice in the public market of Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija in July 2017.

Angkak is a Mandarin orange food coloring. A Chinese tangerine food coloring obtained from a plant with reddish leaves, or rice treated with species of red mold. 

This angkak rice is priced at PHP320.00 a kilo when I found it in the public market of Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija in July 2017.

Angkak rice is not for cooking into kanin (boiled or steamed rice), but can be added to cooking rice as a food color. 

The Capampangans, Bulaqueños, Novo Ecijanos, and Tagalogs are fond of using angkak in coloring and as a fermentation agent for burong isda (fermented cooked rice with fresh fillet of freshwater fish, i.e. tilapia, bangus, ayungin, etc.), and in bagoong alamang (shrimp paste, a.k.a. balaw-balaw).

Angkak rice

Angkak produces bright pastel pink color, a classic food coloring that is now fast disappearing because of artificial instant food colorings.

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Encouragement and enthusiasm are not enough. I also need moral support, prayers, and anything else that can uplift my spirit and keep my good reasons. Keep them coming. All I know is that I am happy with what I am sharing and giving away. If you are pleased and happy with what I am doing, just smile and please share the happiness. Keep sharing and include to share the PHILIPPINE FOOD ILLUSTRATED. I feel energized when my blog becomes one of the reasons why you are happy and smiling. 

Edgie Polistico

For more about Filipino food, see  this Philippine Food, Cooking, and Dining Dictionary. It is OPEN and FREE.

daludal

Bundles of daludal in Santiago City Isabela public market.

daludal – /da-lú-dal/ (Ilocano vegetable) [n.] taro runner.

takway in Negrense, Capizeño, & Tagalog

pusaw in Maranao

 

It is the long stalk of a young taro runner that grows away sideward from the mother plant. A newly sprouting stalk of gabi (taro) that is slender with an unopened young leaf.

Dadulal is often taken and used in cooking as a vegetable and is referred to as the Philippine native asparagus. It is harvested and cooked into a variety of vegetable dishes, much like that of Ilocano aba.

In Negros and Panay islands where it is called takway, it is often boiled and then seasoned with suka (vinegar) and asin (salt) or included in making Ilonggo laswa (boiled assorted vegetables).

A vendor cleaning some takways she is selling at Silay City public market during one of my travels in the province of Negros Occidental.

 

A heap of takway being sold on the sidewalk of Silay City public market in one of my travels in Negros Occidental province.

The stalks can also be cooked with coconut milk to become ginataan or made into adobo by simmering the cutlets in vinegar and soy sauce with or without sagpaw or sahog.

The peeled takway. Just wash them clean and they are ready for cooking

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wild chili ale

wild chili ale – /wayld tsi-li a-le/ Tagalog  beverage; dw Eng. wild + chili + ale)  [n.] chili-flavored craft beer. Chili beer.

 

a.k.a. chili beer in Tagalog

Craft beers are those manufactured in a craft brewery (a.k.a. microbrewery), a brewery that produces a small amount of beer. Craft beer brewery in the country actually uses imported grains (barley, hop, etc.) for brewing.  For chili beers, the wild chilies are sourced locally that may include our very own intensely spicy hot siling labuyo (Philippine bird's eye chili).  Other ingredients, such as sugar, yeast, water, and herbs can also be sourced locally.

The label suggests this beer is served better with those familiar Pilipino delicacies.

A bottle of Bicol Express Wild Chili Ale served for sampling during the McKinley Hill Beer Festival in 2014 at the Venice Piazza in McKinley Hill, Bonifacio Global City (BGC), Taguig City. Other craft beers are the (+63), a single hop IPA beer that represents Philippines using the Philippine international telephone country code +63, and the Poto Pale Ale. All three craft beers are manufactured by the Great Island Craft Brewery in Parañaque City, Metro Manila.

Related posts:

Siling labuyo

Taguto

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chicharon buchi

A serving of chicharon buchi or buchiron with a dipping of sukang Iloko from a participating food stall during the launching of Mercato Centrale's Mezza Norte in Trinoma, Quezon City - May 3, 2013.

chicharon buchi – /tsi-tsa-rón but-tsé/ Tagalog delicacy; dw Span. buche [crop]  [n.] crisp fried chicken crop.

also spelled as tsitsaron butse in Tagalog 

a.k.a. butse, butse chicharon, butseron or buchiron in Tagalog

Buchi is the Tagalog word for the chicken crop or craw of fowls and other birds. It is the small pouch-like gullet of fowls and birds, a part of the esophagus where freshly swallowed food is temporarily stored for later digestion in the gizzard or for regurgitation as when feeding the nestlings.

It is also in the butse that swallowed food is lightly fermented or softened by gland secretions before it passes through the gizzard for grinding. 

Pinoys would collect butse, clean it thoroughly then deep fry it to become chicharon also known in Tagalog by the same name, butse or chicharon buchi.

Because you can harvest only one butse for each chicken, several dozens of chickens have to be slaughtered to get a heap of this another Pinoy favorite pulutan. The mass production of fast-growing chickens provides an ample supply of chicken crops as another by-product of chicken meat. Pinoys transformed this what used to be a waste and dirty offal into a tasty and sought street food in the country.

Chicharon buchi is also called butse, butseron, or buchiron in Tagalog. Butseron is the short name for butse chicharon, (likewise, buchiron is from buchi chicharon) with the chicken crop usually split open or cut lengthwise into halves and fried until browned and crisp.

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Encouragement and enthusiasm are not enough. I also need moral support, prayers, and anything else that can uplift my spirit and keep my good reasons. Keep them coming.  Sharing and giving away is happiness to me.  If you are pleased and happy with what I am doing, just smile and share the happiness we have in the PHILIPPINE FOOD ILLUSTRATED. I feel energized every time my blog becomes one of the reasons why you are happy and smiling. 

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snake wine

A snake wine with the Philippine king cobra in a bottle. The snake is called banakon in Cebuano or ulupong in Tagalog. The slender snake is called iliw in Cebuano. Both snakes are known to be extremely venomous.

snake wine - /es-nek wayn/ Cebuano and Tagalog wine [n.] a spirit soaked with a snake.

A freshly killed snake (complete with its scales, skin, flesh, bones, and internal organs) is steeped in spirit or clear (transparent) distilled wine until the juice from the body of the snake partly became the flavor of the wine.

Snake wine is taken as a potent drink and is believed to have some medicinal benefits, add vitality, energy, and as an aphrodisiac or something that boosts one’s sexual appetite.

The authentic "Cobra Energy Drink." Unlike the commercially bottled cobra energy drink, this snake wine will not cause you to worry about having diabetes. The snake wine has no sugar added in it. What you will get is a real cobra in a bottle -  not just a label with a drawing or printed illustration of snake.

The usual kind of snakes used in making snake wine are those that are highly poisonous like the dreaded Philippine king cobra (Naja philippinensis) known as banakon in Cebuano or ulupong in Tagalog. Another known highly venomous snake is the Cebuano iliw.

The usual spirits used as a base for this potent drink are the hinebra (gin), vodka, lambanog (Philippine coconut arrack), anisado (anise wine), and naturally fermented rice wine.

I found this man peddling a bottle of snake wine on the sidewalk of Ormoc City in western part of Leyte, Philippines.  He told me that he used a local gin with a brand name Mallorca as base spirit for this potent drink.

To convince me that it is safe to drink snake wine, this man swigs a shot of snake wine.

Few seconds later, the drink started to warm his body. This man told me it would keep him active for a day. Awesome. Honestly, I was actually stunned when he did that. I thought the potent spirit he drank would later take his spirit away. But no, he stayed alive.

In 2018, while on the strawberry farm of La Trinidad, Benguet (about 10 Kilometers or 6 miles north of Baguio City), I found more variations of local snake wines. They are quite expensive. The smallest bottle (350 ml) of snake wine is sold at PHP1,000.00 each and the biggest ones are between PHP3,000 to PHP4,000.

More bottled snake wines in La Trinidad, Benguet using different kinds of venomous Cordilleran snakes.

See me sampling a shot of snake wine that is made with rattle snake from Kiangan, Benguet. Click or tap the photo, below, to watch the Facebook video.

SNAKE WINE from Kiangan, Benguet is very expensive. This one is of rattle snake in lambanog with ginseng root. I don't know how they got rattle snake here in Benguet. A shot glass is P150.00. Every drip counts. (June 08, 2018)

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Continue to follow my blogs. You can also follow and learn more by joining us in our Facebook group account of Philippine Food Illustrated (Private) and Philippine Food Illustrated (Public). It is my pleasure to rediscover the known and least known things or the unheard ones and put them here for everyone to find, learn, and treasure. 

Thank you for all the encouragement and enthusiasm. I need also moral support, prayers, and anything else that can uplift my spirit and keep my good reasons. 

If you are pleased or happy with this blog, please share the PHILIPPINE FOOD ILLUSTRATED. It is energizing that my blog is shared with others. 

Edgie Polistico 

For more about Filipino food, you must try this Philippine Food, Cooking, and Dining Dictionary. It is OPEN and FREE.

chopsuey

A serving of chopsuey at the Dwino's Grill in OzamisCity, Misamis Occidental during one of my travels in the southern part of mainland.

 

chopsuey – /tsàp-soy/ (Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilonggo dish; dw Chin. tsa-sui [various pieces]) [n.] stir-fried vegetable.

These stir-fried vegetables can also be added to seafood and meat at will.

An assortment of cut vegetables is stir-fried and mixed with seafood (shrimp, squid, fish fillet, etc.) and sliced meat (pork or chicken).

The kind of vegetables conventionally used in making this dish are wide cuts of repolyo (cabbage), widely sliced carrots, sayote (mirliton pear), cauliflower, sliced bell pepper, and sometimes with sliced tomatoes and green pods of beans, such as sitsaro (snow peas), sitaw (string beans), or Baguio beans.

A serving tray of chopsuey one summer day of May 2012 while at the beach resort of AcuaVerde in Laiya Aplaya, SanJuan, Batangas.

Its thick white sauce is made with water (or broth) added with some gawgaw (tapioca powder) or corn starch that is pre-dissolved in lukewarm water then added and stirred in the dish and seasoned with patis (fish sauce) or oyster sauce.

This chopsuey seafood is of Sam's Fastfood & Bakeshop during my trip in May 2011 to Pagadian City of Zamboanga del  Sur also in the southern part of mainland Mindanao.

Occasionally, when available, chopsuey has young corncob, broccoli, mushroom, and coriander added to the ingredients.

This dish is a Chinese-American-influenced dish that is now commonly found in Pinoy eateries and gatherings.

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Let us know your opinion on the subject. Feel free to comment in the comment section, below. It is important for us to know what you think.

Tell us what other topics you would like us to write, share, and discuss about.

For more about Filipino food, see  this Philippine Food, Cooking, and Dining Dictionary. It is OPEN and FREE.

Continue to follow my blogs. You can also follow and learn more by joining us in our Facebook group. Have more bits and pieces about our kind of food, ingredients, and ways of cooking, dining, and knowing food culture across the 7,641 islands of the Philippines. I will search for more and continue to share my findings. It is my pleasure to rediscover the known and least known things or the unheard ones and put them here for everyone to find, learn, and treasure. 

Encouragement and enthusiasm are not enough. I also need moral support, prayers, and anything else that can uplift my spirit and keep my good reasons. Keep them coming. All I know is that I am happy with what I am sharing and giving away. If you are pleased and happy with what I am doing, just smile and please share the happiness. Keep sharing and include to share the PHILIPPINE FOOD ILLUSTRATED. I feel energized when my blog becomes one of the reasons why you are happy and smiling. 

Edgie Polistico

 

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.

See Index of Entries here 

If you liked this post, share it.

Let us know your opinion on the subject. Feel free to comment in the comment section, below. It is important for us to know what you think.

Tell us what other topics you would like us to write, share, and discuss. 

For more about Filipino food, see  this Philippine Food, Cooking, and Dining Dictionary. It is OPEN and FREE.

Continue to follow my blogs. You can also follow and learn more by joining us in our Facebook group. Have more bits and pieces about our kind of food, ingredients, and ways of cooking, dining, and knowing food culture across the 7,641 islands of the Philippines.

Encouragement and enthusiasm are not enough. I also need moral support, prayers, and anything else that can uplift my spirit and keep my good reasons. Keep them coming. All I know is that I am happy with what I am sharing and giving away. If you are pleased and happy with what I am doing, just smile and please share the happiness. Keep sharing and include to share the PHILIPPINE FOOD ILLUSTRATED. I feel energized when my blog becomes one of the reasons why you are happy and smiling. 

Edgie Polistico