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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potato rib

potato rib - /po-te-to rib/ (Tagalog snacks) [n.] potato twist stick. 

Other local names:

• a.k.a. potato twist, twistix or chipstix in Tagalog

A spirally sliced potato fries in a stick. The whole piece of unpeeled potato is sliced spirally thin continuously from end to end using a rotating shaft. It is skewered in a pointed-end bamboo stick and deep fried until crisp and dusted with salt and the optional powdered cheese and other flavorings of choice.

This looks like a modified version of twister fries.

Commonly is served with a sprinkle of finely ground salt or a dipping sauce of catsup or mayonnaise or their combination. It also has a variety of flavors that includes cheese, sour cream, BBQ, pizza, ketchup, and sweet and spicy, among others.

potato ribs freshly cooked at a food stall in the ground floor of SM Supermarket in Makati City.

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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 

one-day-old chick

Freshly fried one day old chicks at the Public Market of Alabang, Muntinlupa City.

one-day-old chick – (wan de owld tsik; Tagalog delicacy) [n.] deep-fried one-day-old chick. 

A delicacy in the Philipines that is made with a chick of a fully fertilized chicken egg or the day-old chicken (DOC). The chick could  had just been hatched or is about to be hatched on that day. It is another gross-looking Filipino street food but is considered a favorite delicacy by some locals because of its savory taste. 

Another tray of still to be fried one day old chicks found in the grocery of Market Market in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City.

If the chick in the egg is still to be hatched, as in between 20 to 21 days of incubation period, the eggs are prematurely cracked open and the chicks are removed from the shells. The chicks are then parboiled to easily remove visible hairs and then fried in deep oil until  crisp and reddish or brownish-orange in color.

Fried one-day-old chicks are served either skewered in bamboo sticks or put in a plastic cups and drenched in spiced-up vinegar or sweet brown sauce.

A gruesome story behind one-day-old chicks.

Did you know that the major source of one-day-old chicks delicacy are culled male chicks from the egg farms?

It is a practice for poultry producers that they would favor to grow female chicken for meat as they grow faster.  They would routinely and systematically remove the male chicks at the very start of growing the chick in a process known as culling or the harvesting and killing of chicks.

In the industry of growing chickens, chicken farmers would start to cull their chicks out of fear that the cost of poultry production will continue to rise while poultry  income would drop due to low farm gate prices or too much overhead expenses.

Poultry farmers would routinely  cull male chicks  as part of their cost-cutting strategy for poultry production and to increase their return on investment.  Male chicks are not grown  for meat as they would cost more to feed and house than they would produce income.  

Biologically, it is impossible for male chickens to lay eggs as they do not have ovaries where eggs are developed inside the chicken's body. Only female chickens have an ovary and are able to lay eggs. The females could also lay eggs continuously even if there is no male chicken present. Yes, they can spontaneously develop an egg inside their bodies and lay eggs all by themselves. Males have no role in the egg-laying process.  The females (hen or pullets) would only need a male (rooster or cockerel) when it comes to fertilizing an egg to produce another batch or next generation of chicks. 

Thus, male chicks are deemed worthless in the egg industry and they are mercilessly culled or brutally killed.

Culling usually starts as early as when the undesired chicks are hatched or just a day-old chicks. In big poultry farms, chicks are routinely culled by shredding them alive, though some farmers would electrocute, suffocate in bags, or gas the chicks to death before macerating them. Some would resort to brutal killing by using extremely cruel techniques of shredding chicks alive, burning, crushing, drowning, electrocuting, gassing using CO2 gas, or suffocating them in bags. 

In 2021, it was reported that a total of more than 6 billion chicks are killed every year around the world by industrial farmers as they are considered useless by both egg and chicken meat producers.

However, in the Philippines, culled chicks are sold to street food entrepreneurs  who would then fry the chicks in oil and sold as a delicacy.    

The advancing technology of eliminating male chicks.

Even when in-ovo sexing technology is implemented to help abolish the culling of male chicks, as what the animal welfare activists are lobbying for, Philippine's one-day-old chicks delicacy will not totally disappear in the food map. In-ovo sexing is just a process of determining the sex of a chicken before the egg hatches. Thus, fully developed chicks are still there waiting to be cracked open and fried into a "one-day-old chick" Pinoy food delicacy. 

What may likely stop male chicks from fully developing and being allowed to hatch and be culled is the use of "endocrinological gender identification" technology, a kind of test similar to a human pregnancy test. It is done during the 8th to 14th day incubation period when a sample of liquid from each fertilized egg is taken and examined for the presence of a female hormone by looking for a color-changing reaction. The female eggs continue toward hatching, while the male eggs will be removed and used for animal feed for us Filipinos, we can boil these eggs and pass them on as the chicken version of balut penoy.

But endocrinological gender identification is far from becoming a normal practice aside from being a very costly process. There is an issue that complicates this process - that it is uncertain when an embryo becomes a chick to feel pain. Some researchers say chick embryos can begin to experience pain at day 7 of incubation. If true, sexing the eggs 8 to 14 days after incubation would end up trading animal welfare problems even if electricity is used to help anesthetize the eggs.

Unless technology is developed that can control and change the sex of chicks before they even hatch, culling male chicks will not stop.  The technique could be the use of hormonal treatments, where the future fertilized egg will permanently produce all-female laying-breed chicks. From then, culling chicks will be eliminated and one-day-old chicks may start to dwindle and disappear in the street food markets.

References: 

• Poultry World, "Philippine farmers cull chicken early to improve local prices," Jul 11, 2012, https://www.poultryworld.net/Broilers/Markets--Trade/2012/7/Philippine-farmers-cull-chicken-early-to-improve-local-prices-WP010623W/

• Animal Equality,  "STOP THE MASSACRE OF MALE CHICKS," https://animalequality.org/action/ban-chick-culling

• Danovich, Tove K., "Why the US egg industry is still killing 300 million chicks a year," Vox, Apr 12, 2021, https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22374193/eggs-chickens-animal-welfare-culling

• CNN Philippines, "France to ban mass shredding of live chicks," Sara Spary, Saskya Vandoorne and Fanny Bobille, CNN, Jan 30, 2020, https://cnnphilippines.com/world/2020/1/30/france-bans-chick-shredding.html?fbclid=IwAR29lVpv_FInQ-fEhjc3ZDLHOkk2hX8sEzGAnCMkGKyXUSsOT2t3BH3ynzU

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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

 

fisharon

fisharon - /fish sa-rón/  dw Amer. fish + Span. chicharrón [fried pork crackling]) [n.] fish skin cracker

Other local name:

• a.k.a. tuna chip or fish skin crackers

It is made with deep-fried skin of matured fish, such as bangus (milkfish), tuna, and tilapia (St. Peter's fish). A Pinoy delicacy.

A recently invented "pulutan" (finger food that accompanies in drinking session). 

Tuna chips (fisharon) from Gen. Santos City

The word fisharon is coined after combining the English word "fish" and "chicharon" (from Span. chicharron, meaning fried pork crackling). 

Tuna fisharon is also known as Tuna chip in Gen. Santos City.

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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

 

kabkab

kabkab - /kab-kab/  Leyteño snack [n.] cassava wafer \cassava crisp.

 

Other local names:

• sitsaritsit or saritsit in Digos City, Davao del Sur
• kiping in Chavacano [Zamboangueño], Camiguinian, Misamisnon [Misamis oriental] and the rest of northern Mindanao
• burikit in Dipolognon (Dipolog City, Zamboanga del sur and nearby towns)
• buriki in Oroquieta City, Misamis Occidental
• piking in Cuyonon [Palaweño], and Waray (Sulat, Eastern Samar)

It is made with cassava tuber grated finely into pulp. The pulp is then flavored with dash of salt and subtly sweetened with not so much sugar, all blended well to mix. A scoop of the mixture is spread thinly on a banana leaf, forming a disc (about the size of a dinner plate), and then put in a steamer. The steaming hot vapor of boiling water would cook the cassava spread until translucent or paste-like in consistency. Then it is taken out from the steamer and set to dry, either by air drying or sun drying, until it stiffens and holds its flat shape as a raw wafer similar to kiping of Tayabas, Quezon. At this stage, the dried cassava wafer can be stored for months until needed in cooking.

To cook, the wafer is deep-fried in cooking oil. The oil must be very hot, preferably boiling, before the cassava wafer is dipped and fried. While being fried, the wafer would expand and cooking is done when it turns golden (yellowish brown) and very crisp. It is important not to overcook the wafer. When overcooked it becomes dark brown or very dark in hue, an indication that the wafer is burnt and would taste bitter.

When serving kabkab, the crisp cassava wafer is laid on a plate or on a sheet of banana leaf and topped with a spread or swirling streak of sweet latik (coconut milk and sugar syrup).

Kabkab would easily brittle and crumble in every bite. Crunchy when chewed. By the time crumbled pieces melt in the mouth, the goodness of starchy flavor and sweetness of latik will delight your palate.  

Kabkab wrapped in a plastic cellophane bag

A Leyteña peddling a basket tray full of kab-kab in this busy street of Guadalupe Nuevo, Makati City.

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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.

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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