Vanishing foods of yore (Or, Bayambang's foodways circa 1970s)

Certain foods can be just like endangered species. Once upon a time, they were everywhere, defining the landscape, and then fifty years hence, nowhere to be found. Pervading one’s young life, it seemed like they would always be there. But old cravings do come back, and we pine for those that are now missing from the scene.

In the late 1970’s, when the Estacion na Tren was still very much in use, and ambulant vendors in the area sold all sorts of things to eat, one of those often proffered to passengers going to Damortis or Manila was the big fragrant mamon loaf for pasalubong and boiled tuge tubers (lesser yam, Dioscorea esculenta). Both were quite heavy on the stomach for a child of six years.

 

A mention of tuge (or tugi), and one is reminded of two other root crops that were easy to find in Bayambang back then: sago (arrowroot, Maranta arundinacea) – which looks like a segmented radish – and apuler (Chinese water chestnut, Eleocharis dulcis) – which is a bulb with a delightful starchy crunch. We kids would sometimes munch on these like squirrels on the grounds of the old Bayambang Central School.

 A mention of the old school, and one is reminded this time of the old mabolo tree (Diospyros blancoi), which yielded furry-haired mabolo fruits in profusion. Though the encounter with the fruit was more traumatizing than joyous (because it tasted like cat vomit to me then), its disappearance is nonetheless a cause for concern, especially when one discovers -- decades later -- that mabolo is also kamagong, that much sought-after darkwood of Philippine forests.

Recalling all these, one is further reminded of the typical barrio scene far away from Poblacion, where caritelas clip-clopped on dusty, unpaved roads, and hasag or a tin sheet lamparaan called kingki served as the only lighting for nipa huts, which by the way, featured a bamboo-floor bath called batalan and an open-air sink area called banggeraan. If you went inside one such hut, you’d see a clay stove called dalikan, a huge clay vessel for drinking water called buyog, which they said aerated the water, thus turning it cold, long before the age of refrigeration. The most ‘modern’ equipment you’d see inside the sala or living room was a turntable playing a chosen plaka for the moment, which in English is called phonograph record or record disc. Outside the nipa hut is the toilet, an outhouse built in the so-called Antipolo type (the toilet bowl is on level with the ground).

           

It was also a time when the fields were planted to tobacco, and yellow corns were unheard of. Instead, there was the ‘native’ glutinous white corn, which was once ubiquitous and, if grilled, is absolutely delicious with its tempting aroma. For some reason, its unique flavor is absent from other corn varieties. Another corn product that is missing from the scene is corn polvoron, ground corn that you slowly toasted on an iron pan and mixed with sugar and skimmed milk. It is comparatively coarser than today’s confections but had a smoky taste that was interesting because different.

           

It was the era of then President Ferdinand Marcos and his famous ‘Nutribuns,’ so naturally, one is reminded as well of the school-issued bun which originally costed just five centavos. But a bakery item that one finds oneself pining for is a once-upon-a-time common cookie called sampaguita. Humble in looks (round and a bit crumbly) and uncomplicated in taste, it is as addictive as can be partly because it is fragrant, but unfortunately it has become too hard to find. So are the cookies called ogoy-ogoy, and one that resembled elephant ears.

A quick trip to the public wet market nowadays, and one can just as quickly notice a lot of things that seem to have vanished, or at least gone incognito for the meantime. There used to be items like pulitipot (muscovado sugar in wet, viscous form), inkaldit (biko in pyramidal coconut leaf pouch), tiny biya fish, and ayungin neatly speared using bamboo sticks and ready for grilling, live alireg and black cone snails, gele-gele or tamus (immature catfish), and sabsabirukong flowers, whose flavor is hard to describe all this time. Good thing pakasyat is still around, sweet coins made of silag sugar (buri palm, Corypha elata) which has a faintly bitter edge, thanks to ironically enough, a Calasiao pasalubong stall.

At the corner garita or sari-sari store then, one found the kendin labos (multi-colored oval candies that come without wrappers) at P0.05 each, round bocayo (candied young coconut strips formed into small balls and rolled in sesame seeds) and two kinds of bocarillo (candied young coconut strips formed into discs), one made in red sugar and another in white sugar. Old-timers talk about another type of coconut candy, which looked like a tira-tira and wrapped in rolled coupon bond, and this served as their version of 'chocolate' in those days.

Whenever someone came fresh from Mangabul Lake, there was always new catch to feast on: clams the size of slippers, colorful carpa, carpeta, gourami, and a small spiny fish called alalo, which reacted quite violently to the touch.

These food items, sadly described in the past tense, have become unwitting markers of time, for one easily remembers the historical association, as in this case when NAWASA pipelines were not yet installed…until 1980 came by and BayWad became a household word. The first air-conditioned establishment in town then was the Homeowners Savings Bank near the Macam family’s residence (how we marveled at the novelty!), and malls and escalators were as yet totally unheard of.

Fuji apple from Japan was equally a strange idea at the time, for a mention of apple was always synonymous to American apple, particularly the dark red Washington variety which exuded a strong fragrant scent that has altogether disappeared from today’s dull, joyless version of their old selves.  What happened to the apple? Back then, everyone knew it was Christmas with a mere whiff of Washington apples hidden somewhere near.

The new arrivals to the food scene are not exactly a bad thing – they continue to enrich our lives, as food preferences shift to new directions in the time of ‘Instagrammable’ posts. Did you know, for instance, that a stall in Telbang sells durian and marang from Davao?  

In the telescopic eyes of history, food is – as in any facet of culture – something that comes and goes, with some of them never ever coming back. But one can't help but grieve over those items that we thought were always a part of us but have now gone extinct. A part of us dies with each irretrievable loss.