Taway tan Nanam: Local Words for Taste and Texture

Taway tan Nanam: Local Words for Taste and Texture

Gastronomic terms -- particularly words for taste and food texture -- have equally high level of specificity in the Pangasinan language. The vocabulary for taste goes beyond the basics of masamit (sweet), maasin or maaplar (salty), anapseng or anakseng (sour), ampait (bitter), and anagasang (hot and spicy). Nuances in taste are evident in various terms.

Maasngal is the overpowering taste of excessive use of certain ingredients like carrots, bell pepper, malunggay leaves, etc. Maablir is the undesirably earthy taste of milkfish raised in non-ideal conditions. Ampasager is mapakla or the annoying taste of certain unripe fruits, leaving a sticky, gummy sensation in the mouth and tongue. Abaliw means fermented, maali means rancid like cooking oil that turned bad, abulok is rotten, malangsi is fishy, aluto is ripe (as in fruit), aluto-luto is overripe, maanggo is gamey. Tostado is toasted, atektek is toasted beyond desired doneness, and apugit is burnt.

Mananam means delicious in the sense of being full of umami. Masamit is also used to mean delicious, even if the food is not sweet (masamit). Magata means creamy (gata usually means coconut milk).

The terms for nakakasawa (Tagalog) or cloying are also many: makapaumay, makapalunit (used for overly rich food), makapatama (used for fatty food), makapasawa (general term). Makapagew (pagew means breast) means having the taste of arnibal (syrup) or being overly sweet. In general, an excess of any flavor is deemed mataway (taway means taste) or matapang. In contrast, the lack of a desired flavor is described as matabang. This set of terms suggests that, local cuisine (and Filipino cuisine in general) is all about studied minimalism, simplicity and restraint, when it comes to mixing flavors. In a given dish, just one or a few spices dominate or punctuate the flavor profile instead of having layers of richness in other Asian cuisines.

A curious term is mataldit, used to describe food that one least likes or not likely to taste again. In contrast, there is the term malamlam, which refers to food so good that one wants to have it again and again.

Masabeng is used to refer to a dish that has too much leafy ingredient. Makapailol (ilol means saliva) is used to describe the mouth-watering quality of food one is craving -- or not even, as in the mere thought of crisp green Indian mangoes.

As for texture or consistency... Anawet means hard, while alemek or anlemek means soft. Ambasa is wet, while amaga is dry. Ambâbasa is slightly wet, while amagamaga is very dry. Manpikat or manpikkat is used to refer to a certain degree of viscous wetness: a bit wet with sticky portions -- though this term is not often used for food. Mabuwer, magara, or magaralagar is sandy, while mabato means has stony impurities, like in rice and monggo beans. Mabago is furry or feathery. Pino means fine, while magasal means rough or unrefined. Makulnet means sticky and gummy at the same time, while makulaney (literally weak in other contexts) means soft or has very little resistance when chewed, as in high-quality rice. Mapeket is sticky. Masalangsang means crunchy, while matalker means tough. Magalasagas and other onomatopoeic terms (makalasakas, magalareger, etc.) may refer to textures between crunchy and spongy. Mapalet is malapot (thick), while malasaw is malabnaw (thin), as in sauces versus broths. Madigo is masabaw or watery or full of broth, and alabaw or labaw-labaw means has excessive broth or sumobra sa sabaw. The onomatopoeic man-gagnet indicates a cartilaginous consistency: crunchy but with pleasant chewy resistance.

The variety of terms for slippery is quite high: andanglel (as in okra and saluyot), anggales (as in bad cassava when cooked), malamuyak (from lamuyak, alga; as in vegetable salad that is no longer crisp), malamuteg (phlegm-like texture as in immature coconut meat). Malamoy is used in particular when the broth is slimy.

 

When describing fruits, atoyak is used to mean nalamog or squashed. Nankakamolsit is like the plural of atoyak-toyak. Abeyew is not exactly a textural term but is used to describe a fruit that turned prematurely ripe, so it is no longer crunchy as desired but at the same time not at the mellow stage of ripeness as well.

 

Makanot means fibrous, as in the case of fibrous fruits and root crops. Aluney or alune-luney is a term to describe meat that is so soft its fibers fall apart, like in pulled pork. Malaberler refers to the texture of rice when not yet fully cooked; the state of rice being under-cooked is called abelbel or naeta. Other related terms are ginmalor (toasted and stuck at the bottom of the pot or pan), inmaltey (turned liver-like in hardness), etc. Makakilem means nakakangilo or makes the edges of one's teeth feel uncomfortable or mildly painful, like when chewing on crushed ice.

Other terms pertain to how the throat perceives food and other things it comes in contact with: makapaet (can make you thirsty), mapayket (nanlalagkit or annoyingly sticky), makatikel (can choke you), makapaukok or makaparok (can make you cough or kind of sneeze).

The diversity is consistent with that of the rest of the country. In the Tagalog region, for example, they have the word basa for wet, mamasa-masa for slightly wet, and hilatsa for surface composure. Hinga refers to "the state of labanos (white radish) after a day or two, when the flesh becomes opaque instead of translucent, its crunch moves to a soft, crumbly stage, and its wetness is no longer uniform but spotty." Hipo is surface texture, lambot is softness. Lo-ok means "watery and crumbly, like the inmost core of watermelon," while lo-oy "refers to the degree past crunchiness of cooked kangkong leaves and stems." Lusaw means dissolved, mabuhangin is sandy, madulas is lubricious or slippery on the tongue, magalas is a bit rough, magalasgas is a particular kind of roughness, maganit must be a particular kind of resistance, magaspang means rough or coarse, makunat is tough or tensile, malabnaw means thin due to excessive water content -- the opposite of malapot, or thickly viscous.

Malabo means on the cottony side than crunchy, as in an old apple or overcooked squash. Malabsa is too malata or overly (that is unpleasantly) soft, as in rice that's too soft because of extra water mistakenly added. Malagkit is sticky and gummy, malambot is soft. Malambot na buhaghag is "the precious softness of crab meat," i.e., the fibers falling off each other nicely. Maligat is slightly crunchy or has a uniquely delicate resistance to the bite, as in good squash or fresh squid. Malutong is crunchy, matigas is hard, panat is a place between basa and tuyo, pino is fine, tuyo is dry. Lastly, ugat is the texture of the reddish fish flesh "as the teeth bite into the core and the tongue caresses its sweet secrets in slow rhythms."

There are words -- and thus concepts -- that are peculiar to specific cultures, but the Pangasinan language is no doubt strikingly rich.

Sources: Raul Ramos, Clarita F. Tagab, Waldy F. Canalita, et al. The Tagalog words are from a Doreen Fernandez reference.