Being away from home for years and being exposed to what lies out there in "the great wide open" affords the native a perspective of knowing which flavors are unique to his place. For a really good grasp of the length and breadth, height and depth of Philippine cuisine, Edgie Polistico's Philippine Food, Cooking, & Dining Dictionary (Manila: Anvil Publishing, 2016) is the reference to consult, a tour de force compilation that is the first of its kind in the country.
Bayambangueño cuisine, from such a perspective, appears to be a combination of Pangasinan and Ilocano dishes together with the rest of the major foreign influences in Filipino cuisine (Spanish, Chinese, American, etc.).
The following dishes might be considered to be definitively Bayambangueño. It must be noted that these are traditionally organic and healthy without being consciously seen as such, with the exception of the sodium- and sugar-laden items.
Soups/Congee
The use of unripe saba banana is a quaint feature of local cooking. Out of this, kinurkor a ponti is made, a soupy vegetable dish made of spoon-grated near-ripe saba topped with malunggay or ampalaya leaves and, optionally, fried or grilled fish (bangus or tilapia).
Binolbol with fried tokwa and other fried toppings is just the usual lugaw or congee (bolbol in Pangasinan means boil), but locals are especially fond of it that stalls make brisk sales out of it.
Corn soup with ampalaya leaves is also a distinctive preference here.
Salads
Utong na kamote salad is camote tops with raw tomatoes and onions in kalamonding (calamansi) and bagoong agamang (shrimp bagoong) or bagoong monamon (anchovy bagoong).
Inkelnat a katuray with kamatis and agamang is blanched caturay flower salad with fresh tomatoes drizzled with sauteed bagoong alamang.
Vegetable dishes
Pakbet or pinakbet (literally meaning shriveled), of course, is a comfort food, but the round talon (eggplants) and little palya (ampalaya) varieties are the variants much preferred to be used in these parts.
Bulanglang here is what Tagalogs mistakenly call pinakbet: sauteed kalabasa (squash), okra, ampalaya, eggplant, and agayep (sitaw or string bean) -- sometimes including parlang or winged bean -- with little pork slices as sambong (sahog in Tagalog). It is sometimes cooked in gata (coconut milk) with dilis (dried anchovies).
Utong na sitaw (stringbean shoots) is topped on vegetable dishes. The shoots have a delicate nutty flavor and a pleasantly rough consistency -- a treat one won't find in other vegetable shoots -- it's a wonder why it is not popular in the rest of the country. Coming close to preference is the use of utong na kalabasa or squash shoots.
Saluyot tan labong a sinagsagan is saluyot and bamboo shoots stewed and seasoned with bagoong. Saluyot may also be stewed in a peres (local word for souring agent, pronounced as /pə-rəs'/) of calamansi or salomagi (sampaloc).
The use of bunga'y marunggay or malunggay pods in vegetable dishes is another defining element of the local cuisine, a turnoff to outsiders due to its strong pharmaceutical taste. Oftentimes, they are topped on pinakbet. Sometimes, malunggay pods are cooked as the main ingredient, usually as buridibud, i.e., with camote then topped with fried bangus or pork.
Ginisan papait is sauteed sekan in lots of tomatoes then usually flavored with bagoong alamang.
Ginisan kamatis with egg attests to the presence of tomato farms among other vegetable farms here. The cuatro cantos variety of tomatoes is much preferred here.
In our version of ginisan balatong (guinisang munggo), ginger is added -- a turn-off to outsiders, but for some reason, a necessity to locals. White beans and black beans are also regular fare, sauteed in onion and tomatoes then stewed with pork and ampalaya leaves.
Ginisan apayas with utong na kamote tan priton bangus is green papaya sauteed with camote tops and then stewed with fried milkfish. It may look deceptively bland but is definitely tasty while being healthy food. Green papaya is also cooked with coconut milk but often in combination with kamansi.
The use of other edible flowers such as burak (squash flowers) and baeg or himbabao (a local amaranth species) flowers is another highlight of local cuisine. When in season, the sabsabirukong vine flower is often topped on ginisan balatong or other vegetable dishes. Old-timers say even the kukuwatit (kakawati) flowers used to be eaten here.
Pising ya inangel is assorted lowland vegetables stewed in ginger and salt, like the inabraw, dinengdeng, and dinoydoy of Ilocanos or the laswa or law-uy of Ilonggos and Cebuanos. It is often topped with grilled fish such as inkalot a bangus. The use of a short variety of sitaw, called agayep a tandereg, cooked this way is another interesting dish, as the sitaw variety gives a subtle difference in flavor. The simple and soupy vegetable dish may be sinagsagan or seasoned with the "funky-smelling" (as outsiders put it) fish bagoong, but with the bones strained.
Ginataan ya kamansi or langka or ginisa tan sinabawan ya kamansi or langka also makes a significant frequency of appearance in turo-turos and dining tables.
Meat dishes
Locals cook all of the meat dishes popular with the rest of Filipinos, from the traditional Sunday fare (chicken or pork adobo, tinolang manok, sinigang na baboy, etc.) to fiesta fare (mechado, embotido, morcon, pinaupong manok, spare ribs, etc.). But certain dishes have slight differences. The most popular are the following:
The local dinuguan is called bagisen (or baguisen), as in the rest of Pangasinan. Here, it uses kamias as souring agent. The intestines are washed with detergent then boiled in guava leaves to get rid of the fetid smell. According to Mayor's Action Center head Jocelyn Santos Espejo, in their barangay, Inirangan, they include upo slices in their baguisen.
Lauya (nilagang baka or nilagang pata ng baboy) has a thin broth, unlike the rich broth of pochero. It is eaten with rice, of course, but the secret to enjoying this dish fully is this indispensable seasoning on the side: patis with kalamansi.
During fiestas, the fatty part of pork is cooked adobo-style in pineapple.
Other favorites are goat meat caldereta, pinapaitan a kanding, and igado. Certain folk love to eat dog meat by cooking azucena.
Fish and seafood dishes
Malangsi or freshwater fish produce is king in Bayambang cuisine, thanks to the late lamented legacy of Mangabul Lake at the southern part of town. That is why the town has an official festival named after it, the annual "Malangsi Fish-tival," one of the highlights of the town fiesta. (Malangsi has another, negative meaning: fishy or funky. Interestingly, the local word for ulam or the day's viand is sira, which literally means fish, even though the day's viand is meat.
To outsiders, especially in Pangasinan, the town is synonymous to the fish buro. It is salt-cured tilapia, dalag, or gourami with steamed rice and bamboo shoots. It is typically sauteed with lots of garlic, onions, and tomatoes until the edges turn crunchy. The more daring ones like to have ginataang buro with sili, or buro cooked in coconut milk and bird chilis up until the curdling point.
Inselar a karpa or karpeta is carp or little carp sinigang, while inselar a pantat is catfish sinigang. The catfish slime is removed by thoroughly rubbing salt or wood ash on the skin of the fish.
These freshwater fishes are cooked in novel ways, as in potseron dalag, or mudfish cooked pochero style and whatever style to suit the individual's taste: curry, kare-kare, patatim, sweet and sour, lumpiang shanghai, and so on.
Inselar a sira (like tilapia) may be cooked using sliced unripe pontin seba (saba) and pias (kamias), and the result is interestingly acrid. Other souring agents frequently used include guava and santol fruits and tamarind shoots.
Other species traditionally consumed here are alalo, ayungin, and bunor.
Bayambang is, of course, the home of the world's longest barbecue. The people are simply crazy about ingkalot a sira or grilled fish. It is typically hito, tilapia, or Bonuan bangus grilled with chopped tomatoes, onions and spices stuffed in the fish belly. It is best dipped in kabelew with inasin (anchovy bagoong) or padas.
Ginataan a alireg is a local species of snail cooked in coconut milk. When the kuhol arrived, cooking it in coconut milk also quickly became popular.
Another traditional favorite is ginataan a larangan, though the black cone snails are most likely sourced from the neighboring town of Mangatarem with its unpolluted rivulets.
The use of kuros (bukto?) or sun-dried small river? shrimps (not shelled like hibe) is another feature of the local cuisine.
Townsfolk also traditionally eat a great variety of saltwater produce or seafoods, the town being near seafood-producing towns. The favorite, unsurprisingly, is bangus or milkfish, but not just any milkfish but the famed Bonuan variety raised in Dagupan City, and it is cooked in dazzlingly different ways, from adobo to daing to prito to kinilaw and relleno. The public market used to be filled with a dazzling variety of seafood on a given day, from galunggong, matambaka, tamban, pingka (espada), malaga, asohos, basasong, dorado, tanigue, dalagang bukid, to seaweeds like ar-arusip, from squid and crabs to snails and clams of different kinds.
Tuyo, particularly of the prime quality we call lapad, and tinapa (smoked galunggong) are, of course, common breakfast fare.
Kakanin
The local kakanin are collectively called kanen, with the 'e' pronounced with the notorious Pangasinic schwa sound /ə/.
Inlubi is rice cake made of blackened young rice, sugar and coconut milk. It is traditionally prepared to mark All Souls' Day and aptly described as having a "toasty" taste and "smelling like fresh morning air." A soupy variant with young coconut slivers is called ginataan ya deremen, and one topped with latik is called latik ya deremen.
Kundandit is a pounded corn cake version that is different from the one being made in Manaoag: it has a lot more cassava and thus has a different taste and consistency, according to Municipal Tourism Officer Rafael Saygo.
Manufactured in Brgy. Amanperez is gipang, crunchy yet chewy blocks of blackened rice, a cross between pinipig and pop/puffed rice. When crushed, the resulting rice crispies are often sprinkled on halo-halo.
Latik generally means caramelized sugarcane with coconut milk reduction, but in Bayambang and other parts of Pangasinan, it means biko topped generously with caramelized sugarcane and coconut milk reduction. This is often called bibingka in other parts of the country, but never referred to like that here, for bibingka means something else. Locals who make latik make the best latik ever, but they are quite hard to find.
Latik ya kahoy or latik a kahoy is cassava cake that is reportedly cooked like bibingka, i.e., grilled with glowing charcoals placed on top of a tin pan, thus explaining the epidermal caramelization, so it may be called bibingkang kahoy as well. It is surprisingly delicious and soft, almost like oven-baked cassava pudding, but a tad harder than cassava cake, which is steamed.
Inkaldit used to be common. It is what patupat is called in Pangasinan, particularly in our town.
Inkiwal is a simpler version of biko -- just white glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk and white or brown sugar made fragrant with anise. It may have no topping or may be topped with ganusal or coconut milk reduction. If its bottom is toasted and only salt is used as flavoring, it is called inangit, Inkiwal comes from the Pangasinan root verb kiwal, meaning constant stirring. These are popular atang or ritual food offering to ancestral spirits or other unseen spirits.
Tapong is a rice cake with a browned top and looks more like a compact kind of puto or bibingka made of ground non-glutinous rice. "Tapong" originally means "powder" in Pangasinan, so the name must refer to the powdered rice as main ingredient. In San Carlos City, the term is used to refer to tikoy which is also called pininat.
Puton belas (or puton lasong, with lasong referring to the giant clay pan it is steamed in) is a bilao-sized steamed puto that is sliced rhomboidally in pieces and topped with margarine or butter and a dash of grated coconut. It is best eaten steaming hot. Another puto made of ground non-glutinous rice is toasted on the top, making it a cross between puto and bibingka.
Other favorites are bibingka, which is traditionally made and sold only after Simbang Gabi or Christmas dawn mass, tambo-tambong (bilo-bilo or guinatan), unda-unday (palitaw), and bitso-bitso (carioca with young coconut strips inside). These should be done perfectly or they will be met with severe criticism.
One thing that is noticeably missing is kulambo, a cross between tikoy and the thick sauce of tambo-tambong.
Other snacks
Alcohol-tinged sweet binuburan (rice with sugar fermented with bubor or yeast) is typically made at home or sold in the public wet market, and it is meant to be eaten first thing in the morning, reputedly as protection against stomachache.
Simplicity is the name of the game, as boiled snacks (inlambong, with only a dash of salt) are much preferred among local households: apuler, tuge, sago, mani, mais, saba, and kahoy or kamoteng kahoy. Inlambong a kahoy is eaten hot with margarine or butter, sprinkled white/brown sugar, and grated coconut.
Ingkalot a mais (grilled corn) and lakamas (singkamas, turnip) take up the runners-up spot in the hearts of local snackers. Inkalot a mais is grilled corn on the cob, often buttered, but using the white glutinous 'native' variety (choclo?), which has gone missing of late, which is sad, because it has a distinct aroma and taste.
New arrivals on the scene include potato onion twist, a soft, crunchy, and addicting onion-infused potato crackers, and rice crackers, which look like fish cracker, but actually contain only rice and seasonings, invented in Brgy. Sancagulis. Somebody also makes a maruya made of buko strips.
Juices
Fresh buri sap traditionally drunk as 'juice' is called sinamit.
Green mango juice and buko 'juice' (coco 'water') are, of course, popular.
Fruits
A favorite item to round out a typical meal is a slice of sweet ripe mango, preferably the kalabaw or pico variety. Green to yellowish Indian mango and apple mango come second, but as snacks, not dessert. Green Indian mango is often slathered with sauteed agamang (bagoong alamang).
The next favorite would be lacatan and latundan bananas. Alternative banana varieties include ebeb (green, sourish one), seba (saba or Cardaba), and San Juan (saba with seeds).
A great variety of fruits is consumed besides the above.
In the old days, American influences such as apple (fragrant Washington apples, China apple, and sour green apple), mandarin orange, navel orange, purple grapes, and pear strictly appear only during the Christmas season. There was no Fuji apple yet.
Condiments
If not the main dish, buro may be also used as side dish or a relish. It goes well with fried fish and pork chop, steamed vegetables, and even pakbet, but one has to acquire the taste in the first place.
Mulantong is a variant of buro using smaller freshwater fish: a young gourami variety called siringan, called as such because it has a siring, literally "facial mark."
Bayambangueño cuisine, from such a perspective, appears to be a combination of Pangasinan and Ilocano dishes together with the rest of the major foreign influences in Filipino cuisine (Spanish, Chinese, American, etc.).
The following dishes might be considered to be definitively Bayambangueño. It must be noted that these are traditionally organic and healthy without being consciously seen as such, with the exception of the sodium- and sugar-laden items.
Soups/Congee
The use of unripe saba banana is a quaint feature of local cooking. Out of this, kinurkor a ponti is made, a soupy vegetable dish made of spoon-grated near-ripe saba topped with malunggay or ampalaya leaves and, optionally, fried or grilled fish (bangus or tilapia).
Binolbol with fried tokwa and other fried toppings is just the usual lugaw or congee (bolbol in Pangasinan means boil), but locals are especially fond of it that stalls make brisk sales out of it.
Corn soup with ampalaya leaves is also a distinctive preference here.
Salads
Utong na kamote salad is camote tops with raw tomatoes and onions in kalamonding (calamansi) and bagoong agamang (shrimp bagoong) or bagoong monamon (anchovy bagoong).
Inkelnat a katuray with kamatis and agamang is blanched caturay flower salad with fresh tomatoes drizzled with sauteed bagoong alamang.
Vegetable dishes
Pakbet or pinakbet (literally meaning shriveled), of course, is a comfort food, but the round talon (eggplants) and little palya (ampalaya) varieties are the variants much preferred to be used in these parts.
Bulanglang here is what Tagalogs mistakenly call pinakbet: sauteed kalabasa (squash), okra, ampalaya, eggplant, and agayep (sitaw or string bean) -- sometimes including parlang or winged bean -- with little pork slices as sambong (sahog in Tagalog). It is sometimes cooked in gata (coconut milk) with dilis (dried anchovies).
Utong na sitaw (stringbean shoots) is topped on vegetable dishes. The shoots have a delicate nutty flavor and a pleasantly rough consistency -- a treat one won't find in other vegetable shoots -- it's a wonder why it is not popular in the rest of the country. Coming close to preference is the use of utong na kalabasa or squash shoots.
Saluyot tan labong a sinagsagan is saluyot and bamboo shoots stewed and seasoned with bagoong. Saluyot may also be stewed in a peres (local word for souring agent, pronounced as /pə-rəs'/) of calamansi or salomagi (sampaloc).
The use of bunga'y marunggay or malunggay pods in vegetable dishes is another defining element of the local cuisine, a turnoff to outsiders due to its strong pharmaceutical taste. Oftentimes, they are topped on pinakbet. Sometimes, malunggay pods are cooked as the main ingredient, usually as buridibud, i.e., with camote then topped with fried bangus or pork.
Ginisan papait is sauteed sekan in lots of tomatoes then usually flavored with bagoong alamang.
Ginisan kamatis with egg attests to the presence of tomato farms among other vegetable farms here. The cuatro cantos variety of tomatoes is much preferred here.
In our version of ginisan balatong (guinisang munggo), ginger is added -- a turn-off to outsiders, but for some reason, a necessity to locals. White beans and black beans are also regular fare, sauteed in onion and tomatoes then stewed with pork and ampalaya leaves.
Ginisan apayas with utong na kamote tan priton bangus is green papaya sauteed with camote tops and then stewed with fried milkfish. It may look deceptively bland but is definitely tasty while being healthy food. Green papaya is also cooked with coconut milk but often in combination with kamansi.
The use of other edible flowers such as burak (squash flowers) and baeg or himbabao (a local amaranth species) flowers is another highlight of local cuisine. When in season, the sabsabirukong vine flower is often topped on ginisan balatong or other vegetable dishes. Old-timers say even the kukuwatit (kakawati) flowers used to be eaten here.
Pising ya inangel is assorted lowland vegetables stewed in ginger and salt, like the inabraw, dinengdeng, and dinoydoy of Ilocanos or the laswa or law-uy of Ilonggos and Cebuanos. It is often topped with grilled fish such as inkalot a bangus. The use of a short variety of sitaw, called agayep a tandereg, cooked this way is another interesting dish, as the sitaw variety gives a subtle difference in flavor. The simple and soupy vegetable dish may be sinagsagan or seasoned with the "funky-smelling" (as outsiders put it) fish bagoong, but with the bones strained.
Ginataan ya kamansi or langka or ginisa tan sinabawan ya kamansi or langka also makes a significant frequency of appearance in turo-turos and dining tables.
Meat dishes
Locals cook all of the meat dishes popular with the rest of Filipinos, from the traditional Sunday fare (chicken or pork adobo, tinolang manok, sinigang na baboy, etc.) to fiesta fare (mechado, embotido, morcon, pinaupong manok, spare ribs, etc.). But certain dishes have slight differences. The most popular are the following:
The local dinuguan is called bagisen (or baguisen), as in the rest of Pangasinan. Here, it uses kamias as souring agent. The intestines are washed with detergent then boiled in guava leaves to get rid of the fetid smell. According to Mayor's Action Center head Jocelyn Santos Espejo, in their barangay, Inirangan, they include upo slices in their baguisen.
During fiestas, the fatty part of pork is cooked adobo-style in pineapple.
Other favorites are goat meat caldereta, pinapaitan a kanding, and igado. Certain folk love to eat dog meat by cooking azucena.
Fish and seafood dishes
Malangsi or freshwater fish produce is king in Bayambang cuisine, thanks to the late lamented legacy of Mangabul Lake at the southern part of town. That is why the town has an official festival named after it, the annual "Malangsi Fish-tival," one of the highlights of the town fiesta. (Malangsi has another, negative meaning: fishy or funky. Interestingly, the local word for ulam or the day's viand is sira, which literally means fish, even though the day's viand is meat.
To outsiders, especially in Pangasinan, the town is synonymous to the fish buro. It is salt-cured tilapia, dalag, or gourami with steamed rice and bamboo shoots. It is typically sauteed with lots of garlic, onions, and tomatoes until the edges turn crunchy. The more daring ones like to have ginataang buro with sili, or buro cooked in coconut milk and bird chilis up until the curdling point.
Inselar a karpa or karpeta is carp or little carp sinigang, while inselar a pantat is catfish sinigang. The catfish slime is removed by thoroughly rubbing salt or wood ash on the skin of the fish.
These freshwater fishes are cooked in novel ways, as in potseron dalag, or mudfish cooked pochero style and whatever style to suit the individual's taste: curry, kare-kare, patatim, sweet and sour, lumpiang shanghai, and so on.
Inselar a sira (like tilapia) may be cooked using sliced unripe pontin seba (saba) and pias (kamias), and the result is interestingly acrid. Other souring agents frequently used include guava and santol fruits and tamarind shoots.
Other species traditionally consumed here are alalo, ayungin, and bunor.
Bayambang is, of course, the home of the world's longest barbecue. The people are simply crazy about ingkalot a sira or grilled fish. It is typically hito, tilapia, or Bonuan bangus grilled with chopped tomatoes, onions and spices stuffed in the fish belly. It is best dipped in kabelew with inasin (anchovy bagoong) or padas.
Ginataan a alireg is a local species of snail cooked in coconut milk. When the kuhol arrived, cooking it in coconut milk also quickly became popular.
Another traditional favorite is ginataan a larangan, though the black cone snails are most likely sourced from the neighboring town of Mangatarem with its unpolluted rivulets.
The use of kuros (bukto?) or sun-dried small river? shrimps (not shelled like hibe) is another feature of the local cuisine.
Townsfolk also traditionally eat a great variety of saltwater produce or seafoods, the town being near seafood-producing towns. The favorite, unsurprisingly, is bangus or milkfish, but not just any milkfish but the famed Bonuan variety raised in Dagupan City, and it is cooked in dazzlingly different ways, from adobo to daing to prito to kinilaw and relleno. The public market used to be filled with a dazzling variety of seafood on a given day, from galunggong, matambaka, tamban, pingka (espada), malaga, asohos, basasong, dorado, tanigue, dalagang bukid, to seaweeds like ar-arusip, from squid and crabs to snails and clams of different kinds.
Tuyo, particularly of the prime quality we call lapad, and tinapa (smoked galunggong) are, of course, common breakfast fare.
Kakanin
The local kakanin are collectively called kanen, with the 'e' pronounced with the notorious Pangasinic schwa sound /ə/.
Inlubi is rice cake made of blackened young rice, sugar and coconut milk. It is traditionally prepared to mark All Souls' Day and aptly described as having a "toasty" taste and "smelling like fresh morning air." A soupy variant with young coconut slivers is called ginataan ya deremen, and one topped with latik is called latik ya deremen.
Kundandit is a pounded corn cake version that is different from the one being made in Manaoag: it has a lot more cassava and thus has a different taste and consistency, according to Municipal Tourism Officer Rafael Saygo.
Manufactured in Brgy. Amanperez is gipang, crunchy yet chewy blocks of blackened rice, a cross between pinipig and pop/puffed rice. When crushed, the resulting rice crispies are often sprinkled on halo-halo.
Latik generally means caramelized sugarcane with coconut milk reduction, but in Bayambang and other parts of Pangasinan, it means biko topped generously with caramelized sugarcane and coconut milk reduction. This is often called bibingka in other parts of the country, but never referred to like that here, for bibingka means something else. Locals who make latik make the best latik ever, but they are quite hard to find.
Latik ya kahoy or latik a kahoy is cassava cake that is reportedly cooked like bibingka, i.e., grilled with glowing charcoals placed on top of a tin pan, thus explaining the epidermal caramelization, so it may be called bibingkang kahoy as well. It is surprisingly delicious and soft, almost like oven-baked cassava pudding, but a tad harder than cassava cake, which is steamed.
Inkaldit used to be common. It is what patupat is called in Pangasinan, particularly in our town.
Inkiwal is a simpler version of biko -- just white glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk and white or brown sugar made fragrant with anise. It may have no topping or may be topped with ganusal or coconut milk reduction. If its bottom is toasted and only salt is used as flavoring, it is called inangit, Inkiwal comes from the Pangasinan root verb kiwal, meaning constant stirring. These are popular atang or ritual food offering to ancestral spirits or other unseen spirits.
Tapong is a rice cake with a browned top and looks more like a compact kind of puto or bibingka made of ground non-glutinous rice. "Tapong" originally means "powder" in Pangasinan, so the name must refer to the powdered rice as main ingredient. In San Carlos City, the term is used to refer to tikoy which is also called pininat.
Other favorites are bibingka, which is traditionally made and sold only after Simbang Gabi or Christmas dawn mass, tambo-tambong (bilo-bilo or guinatan), unda-unday (palitaw), and bitso-bitso (carioca with young coconut strips inside). These should be done perfectly or they will be met with severe criticism.
One thing that is noticeably missing is kulambo, a cross between tikoy and the thick sauce of tambo-tambong.
Other snacks
Alcohol-tinged sweet binuburan (rice with sugar fermented with bubor or yeast) is typically made at home or sold in the public wet market, and it is meant to be eaten first thing in the morning, reputedly as protection against stomachache.
Simplicity is the name of the game, as boiled snacks (inlambong, with only a dash of salt) are much preferred among local households: apuler, tuge, sago, mani, mais, saba, and kahoy or kamoteng kahoy. Inlambong a kahoy is eaten hot with margarine or butter, sprinkled white/brown sugar, and grated coconut.
Ingkalot a mais (grilled corn) and lakamas (singkamas, turnip) take up the runners-up spot in the hearts of local snackers. Inkalot a mais is grilled corn on the cob, often buttered, but using the white glutinous 'native' variety (choclo?), which has gone missing of late, which is sad, because it has a distinct aroma and taste.
New arrivals on the scene include potato onion twist, a soft, crunchy, and addicting onion-infused potato crackers, and rice crackers, which look like fish cracker, but actually contain only rice and seasonings, invented in Brgy. Sancagulis. Somebody also makes a maruya made of buko strips.
Juices
Fresh buri sap traditionally drunk as 'juice' is called sinamit.
Green mango juice and buko 'juice' (coco 'water') are, of course, popular.
Fruits
A favorite item to round out a typical meal is a slice of sweet ripe mango, preferably the kalabaw or pico variety. Green to yellowish Indian mango and apple mango come second, but as snacks, not dessert. Green Indian mango is often slathered with sauteed agamang (bagoong alamang).
The next favorite would be lacatan and latundan bananas. Alternative banana varieties include ebeb (green, sourish one), seba (saba or Cardaba), and San Juan (saba with seeds).
A great variety of fruits is consumed besides the above.
In the old days, American influences such as apple (fragrant Washington apples, China apple, and sour green apple), mandarin orange, navel orange, purple grapes, and pear strictly appear only during the Christmas season. There was no Fuji apple yet.
Condiments
If not the main dish, buro may be also used as side dish or a relish. It goes well with fried fish and pork chop, steamed vegetables, and even pakbet, but one has to acquire the taste in the first place.
Mulantong is a variant of buro using smaller freshwater fish: a young gourami variety called siringan, called as such because it has a siring, literally "facial mark."
Green mango and kamias were also salt-cured as buron mangga and buron pias.
Agamang with kalamansi and patis with calamansi are also very popular dips for fried fish.
Appetizer
The use of grated green mango mixed with mackerel sardines is popular because the pairing is perfectly contrapuntal to anyone who acquires the taste.
Spread
Used as bread filling is coco jam or katiba.
Beverage
Rice 'coffee' with red sugar or with red sugar and milk is a logical result of being a rice-producing town.
Exotic dishes
The daring ones among us cook and eat the following items that are most likely Ilocano influences: patang (frogs), ararawan or dalukdok (mole cricket) and kuryat (cricket) sauteed in their own oil and sliced kamias after removing the wings, heads and innards. The even more daring ones reportedly eat sisimot (winged termites?) and duron (locust).
On a final note, it is interesting how certain indigenous herbs are being shunned by locals, thinking these are inedible weeds: pansit-pansitan, ngalub (pigweed, a portulaca species), etc.
Latest developments
The advent of mall culture, fastfood franchises, and the convenience store in this town has brought in an avalanche of new food ingredients and items that is sure to change the local foodways. The shopper still can't readily find a lot of things like parmesan cheese, fresh tarragon leaves, walnuts, even brown rice, red rice, certified organic produce, and frustratingly enough, something very basic like Iloko vinegar (one had to settle for a very pricey Iberio balsamic vinegar), but there are random surprises in Puregold, CSI, and Magic Supermarkets if one is in the right place at the right time: yacon, sugar beet, fresh plum, prunes, purple cabbage, persimmon, cranberry juice, pomegranate juice, aloe vera juice, black grapes, grape juice, red grape juice, blueberry jam, apricot jam, maraschino cherry preserves, parsley, romaine lettuce, iceberg lettuce, green leaf lettuce, sayote tops from Baguio, pinakurat vinegar from Iligan, cream cheese, flavored yoghurt, Greek yoghurt, honey, wine vinegar, Italian dressing, coco sugar, American lemon, a new melon variety that's sweeter and has smoother skin (not cantaloupe, so what is it called?), yellow and green honeydews, a bigger version of lasuna (shallot), Korean pear, Chinese pomelo, kimchi, nori, tinapang bangus, Vigan longanisa, Alaminos longanisa, and so on.
Outside the mall and supermarkets, there are the recent bakeries, cafés and restaurants which offer novel stuff. I had tried key lime pie and red velvet cake at Genevieve U. Benebe's Highlands Golden Bean Café near Estacion, yema cake at Big Thumb, a foreign kind of hopia at Butterworld, beef shawarma at Rubi's, and wonderfully assorted finds at a typical Niña's Café spread.
At a market stall, I chanced upon Vigan empanada, shredded green papaya and all. A neighbor once gave a sourish but creamy banana variety mistakenly called señorita but is called viloria in Cagayan (according to my mother who is from there), and another variety like saba but with an interesting appendage at the tip and has an ampasager or mapakla (acrid) edge: plantain.
'Imports' from nearby places like the piga-pigar and kaleskes of Dagupan City have become popular of late as well.
These are proofs of changing and/or expanding local tastes and the presence of consumers exposed to regional and global cuisines, not to mention the pervasive influence of mass media, especially social media. Most likely these consumers are returning OFWs (overseas Filipino workers), migrants, and families out of intermarriages. This is a far cry from the time when locals did not even know what alugbati is, how to eat itlog na maalat (salted egg) with onion and tomatoes, let alone century egg, and so on.
Finally, another significant development is the presence of Muslim vendors, mosques, and the sound of imams singing incantations at the break of dawn. Who knows how this is poised to influence the local food culture in the future?
Thoroughly unapologetic despite its oftentimes extreme 'fear factor' -- with puzzling lack of desire to impress or convert the outsider -- a 'take it or leave it' attitude, in other words: That's Bayambangueño and Pangasinan-Ilocano cuisine.
Informants:
Municipal Consultant on Museum, Culture and Arts Gloria de Vera-Valenzuela: ginisan crunchy buro, putseron dalag and other such inventions, ginisan kamatis, ginisan kamatis with egg
Office of the Special Economic Enterprise Gernalyn Santos: present market offerings
Municipal Tourism Officer Rafael Saygo
Mayor's Action Center head Jocelyn Espejo: baguisen
Municipal Media Affairs Officer Dr. Leticia B. Ursua: inkaldit, kundandit
Mildred S. Odon: pising ya inangel
References:
Buro-making: https://bayambangmunicipalnews.blogspot.com/2019/08/buro-making-bayambang-style.html
Pinakbet: https://bayambangmunicipalnews.blogspot.com/2019/08/feature-how-bayambanguenos-cook-pinakbet.html
Kanen tan Mirindal: https://bayambangmunicipalnews.blogspot.com/2019/09/a-quick-survey-of-local-kakanin-and.html
Inlubi: https://bayambangmunicipalnews.blogspot.com/2019/08/panag-inlubi.html
Gipang: https://bayambangmunicipalnews.blogspot.com/2018/03/crunchy-bricks-you-can-eat.html
Deremen: https://bayambangmunicipalnews.blogspot.com/2019/10/panaggawa-na-deremen.html
Notes:
For incisive discussions on Filipino cuisine, the pioneering, and entertaining, works of these authors are required reading: Edilberto Alegre, Doreen Fernandez, Felice Prudente-Sta. Maria, and Clinton Palanca. Other notables are: Mickey Fenix, Nancy Reyes-Lumen, Gene Gonzales, Corazon Alvina, and Martin Tinio Jr. For regional cuisines, there are so many authors to list, but I am not familiar with anyone writing on Pangasinan cuisine, except for the blogger behind this site: http://bucaio.blogspot.com/
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