When everything you need grows around you Micky Fenix Inquirer
October 12, 2006
This piece was begun just before the storm hit Manila last September. It gave me an eerie feeling – it was about an equally devastating storm that hit Quezon almost two years ago.
The name Agos River on a poster on sculpture exhibit told us from where the sculpted wood had come. It also brought me back to Quezon and my food research for a book in Infanta.
Agos River is more identified with General Nakar, the town next to Infanta. Its name is apt for a river whose water does flow, though more than water flowed when heavy rains loosened the soil in December 2004. Trees, too, came rolling downstream from the mountains.
After the mudflow and the loss of lives and property, trees littered the banks and would have ended up as charcoal had not the Gawad Kalinga Foundation, Smart Communications, and artist Rey Paz Contreras convinced General Nakar townsfolk that such trees could be transformed into sculpture.
More importantly, sculpting could be an alternative livelihood that could bring much more than charcoal could at P65 per sack. Imagine fishermen, farmers, students and housewives discovering they could sculpt and become artists. They started by carving out bowls just to get used to the tools. Later they learned to fashion wood into amazing figures of mother and child, a giant squid, the head of Jesus Christ. This group of new artists is now called “the Banglos sculptors,” after their area in General Nakar. (banglosart@yahoo.com).
Ingredients in the backyard In many places in the country constantly visited by storms, root crops are a major part of the cuisine because they never get blown away. In Infanta, the galyang growing in muddy areas was pointed out to me – its leaves look like bigger versions of the gabi.
The yellowish root is huge and, when it grows as big as a person, locals merely slice off a bit rather than dig up the whole. That is sliced then boiled in pandan or a bit of vanilla for aroma.
The cooked galyang is then placed between plastic sheets and beaten to a pulp with a wooden 2” x 2” stick. The mush is cooked with sugar, milk, cheese, margarine, some water and gumaan, the Infanta term for coconut at the stage just before it can be milked for gata.
One cook, Rebecca Mercado, is known for her unique way of adding Coca-Cola to the mixture, giving her version a decidedly Coke flavor. She said it also acts as preservative; otherwise cooked galyang has to be eaten right away.
Rice substitute
Galyang is also the best substitute for rice when the staple is low. Other ingredients were pointed out, and it seems everything they need for cooking can be found around them.
A tree with green fruits and beautiful white flowers peeking through thick leaves turned out to be katmon. The round green fruit is used for souring sinigang though the result isn’t as sour as tamarind.
Cooks peel off the rind and when beautiful fuchsia strips appear the interior ridges underneath are disassembled. Everything is then placed in the broth. When the katmon is used to sour shellfish like the baransina, the broth comes out white instead of clear.
But the most prized tree is the santol. Flesh from the ripe fruit is grated then cooked with coconut milk. This is the most basic sinantolan. The additional ingredients depend on how much money one can spare.
More expensive add-ons are the kasag, very small mud crabs; shrimp; and ground beef. A more complete sinantol would also include burao, the local name for matangbaka, or maybe talimago (galunggong) cooked as sinaing (steamed in its own juice), then shredded.
Sinantol is available year round because the grated meat is preserved in salt when the fruit is in season. Chances are the leaves you see around are also used in cooking. Galyang leaves are also cooked in coconut milk, just like gabi leaves. The Infanta version of laing, shredded gabi leaves and stems, is called tinuto.
Memorable
The local cook known for dishes using leaves is Ellen Abelleneda. Her pinangat and tinadtad are memorable. Infanta pinangat is the same as its Bicol and Negros Occidental counterparts in its use of gabi leaves and stems. But it differs because vinegar is mixed with grated coconut before the milk is squeezed out making the taste sourer.
Salay or lemon grass contributes to the aroma. The wrapping of the gabi leaf packet is also decidedly more artistic, with the leaf’s underside exposed so the ribs form a sort of spider’s web design.
Tinadtad could have gotten its name from the first step to cooking the dish – chopping together shrimp, gumaan and the palapot, the collective name for the flavoring ingredients of ginger, garlic, salt, pepper and lemon grass. Everything is then wrapped in kalalawan leaves mostly found in the mountains, tied then cooked in coconut milk, turning the leaf packets almost black. It is then boiled with the palapot and served bathed with coconut cream.
After that storm two years ago, I was told that life went on as usual. The ingredients for cooking their wonderful country cuisine can still be found around Infanta. And the Banglos sculptors of General Nakar continue to fashion art out of discarded wood they find along the banks of the Agos River.
