June 3 to 7 – Visual Arts – Paintings and Sculpture of Traditional Pangasinan
June 8 to 14 – Literary Exposition by Anacbanua and Exhibits of Pangasianan
Poetry and Essays
June 10 – Poetry Reading by Anacbanua / Film Showing – Sine Caboloan/
Christopher Gozum
June 11 – Stage Play by CCP: "Pragress" by F. Sionil Jose
June 12 – Musical Festivities: Pangasian National High School Rondalla /
Mangatarem National High School Rondalla
June 14 – Cultural Fashion Show – Filipiniana Twist of Traditional Pangasinan
June 16 to 19 – June Bride featuring the Pangasinan stylist and bridal suppliers
June 20 to 21 – Father's Day Celebration – Featuring Toy Collectors of
Pangasinan
June 22 to 28 – Photo Exhibit – The Traditional Pangasinan – like Puto and
Bagoong making
Filed under Arts, Culture, Food, Language, Literature, Music by The Pangasinan Blog.
Written by: Bucaio
Sometimes happiness is as simple as being able to buy a handful of baég (about 50 grams at Php10) to put in a pot of pakbet (pinakbet), or mix in a stew of balatóng (munggo, mung beans) sauteed with chopped, ripe tomatoes. It becomes a joy, really, because the tree, or more appropriately the woody, high-growing shrub, bears only seasonally these light-green, textured, long spindly flowers that turn into a vegetable for us Northerners (Ilocanos and Pangasinenses).
The shrub does not benefit from any blossom-inducing chemical spray since it is not much known outside of the Ilocos region, although I've heard it proliferates even in the Batangas area, where they eat it as a vegetable, too. But it is well that it is kept organic, since I'm well aware how access to fresh, unadulterated produce can be a pricey privilege in this time and place.
Baég is endemic to the Philippines, also known as alokon or himbabao in Ilocano. It is rich in vitamins A, B and C, and contains calcium, phosphorus, potassium and iron. It is mixed in the Ilocano dish inabrao, or a vegetable stew of tomatoes, sitaw (string beans) and patani (fresh lima beans), flavored by pieces of grilled pork. In Pangasinan it is called baég, with the requisite Pangasinan guttural ę that all Filipinos outside of the province find so hard to pronounce (it is like the e in brother, or the second e in eagle – easy, right?).
Baég makes any dish more aromatic, but only subtly so. It adds texture, and additional roughage, to any vegetable dish that is sinágsagán (having as base stock seasoned with the salted, fermented fish paste bagóong). When cooked it turns vibrant green, soft and a bit slick. It can be had by itself, sauteed with shrimps, or in some places with bisukol or kuhol, snails, cooked in gata or coconut cream (definitely not in the Ilocos region).
In Pangasinan it is most commonly cooked with pakbet, a mix of okra, eggplants, tomatoes, palya (ampalaya, bitter gourd/melon), all put together in a boiling pot of sinágsagán and agát (luya, ginger). The pakbet shown here (photo above) also contains cubes of kamote (sweet potato), also a common practice and to which I have some objections, but I allow it because of the kamote's beneficial contents (vitamin A, calcium, soluble fiber and resistant starch), especially for kids.
It is now the season for baég. My cup runneth over.
Filed under Food by The Pangasinan Blog.
Written by: Bucaio
In Pangasinan we have no name for this vegetable dish, as with other vegetable pairings, like salúyot tan labóng, or kalobása tan marúnggay.
What I call it here, as with the other examples, is by the names of the two vegetable ingredients, apáyas being the Pangasinan term for papaya, while agáyep is sitaw, which is called string beans in English, but the name string beans in the US actually pertains to another pod much shorter than our sitaw.
As a digression, let me add that sitaw is called batong in the Visayan language (Cebuano). Batong sounds related to balatóng, which is the Pangasinan term for the lowly but noble munggô or mung beans.
While they're two different bean varieties, balatóng is actually harvested from pods which look like batong or sitaw. And then, sometimes we open up mature agáyep (batong) pods to get the beans when the pods are already inedible, cooking them like a balatóng. Of course the agáyep beans are softer.
I prefer the shorter sitaw, which is less than a foot long, greener, and has thinner skin than the more common and longer sitaw. There is less insulating white pulp covering the beans, so the pods are firmer and look "skin-tight." This sitaw variety has more flavor, and there are times in the year when they are sold in the morning market mostly shelled – like soft mung beans with a few unshelled pods here and there.
Anyway, in Pangasinan when we ask the cook to prepare vegetable dishes, we just say what vegetables to include. It is actually automatic because it has been established how one complements and enhances the other.
And all native vegetables are cooked the same – in the method called sinágsagán. So if I am asked what I have cooked, I will simply say the names of the vegetables I put in the pot.
Of course not all vegetable dishes don't have names in Pangasinan. Like we have pakbet, or pakbet tan kalobása (with squash, which is the Ilocano bulanglang)…..and….., I can't think of anything else. So mostly they are identified by what they contain, the vegetables just enumerated.
Probably this is the case because the dishes are so simple and so homey, that they did not merit being named. Almost all vegetable dishes in the province I have never encountered elsewhere, but it existent in the Ilocos and Batangas provinces, with whom we share the sinágsagán method of cooking vegetables.
I actually stop in surprise sometimes – because whenever I am away from the province, I so miss and crave for these specific vegetable dishes. The salty smell of bagóong boiling away merrily, and then that of the green notes of the fresh vegetables – they evoke the comfort of home and homecooking.
Looking back at the child who cried in anguish because she actually had to eat the vegetables served frequently (daily, without fail), I never foresaw I would come to this day. That I would actually crave what I used to hate. And even to the extent that it could take on the identity of comfort food.
Agáyep tan apáyas, or vice versa – let's call them AA for short, smells of sinágsagán coupled with the unrealized sweetness of the thinly sliced unripe papaya, punctuated by the deep greenness of the sitaw, which is broken (by hand) into several (about three to four) pieces, removing the string on each side.
This is the basic pairing, and can be served on its own. A piece – preferably the head – of grilled bangus, the favored flavor enhancer of provincial vegetable dishes, ups the allure of the dish, elevating it to almost gourmet status (of course I'm exaggerating, but it's not really far from the truth).
For variety, other vegetables can be added. Here we have bungá'y cabuéy, the fruit of that climbing vine which is considered a weed – called sigarillas in Tagalog (sigadillas, seguidillas, winged bean, Goa bean, asparagus bean).
In the first photo, the dish contained kamansī (kamongsi, breadfruit, Antocarpus camansi blanco), which is prized for its breast milk inducing capability.
Kamansī is another vegetable I crave for when I'm out of Pangasinan, but this post is already too long, so I will leave that for another time.
Note: From the comments made on this post, may I add that this dish actually has a name in other places – dinengdeng or inabraw in the Ilocos and kibal in Batangas. Which got me into thinking that I should try finding out if there is a forgotten name in Pangasinan.
Filed under Food by The Pangasinan Blog.
Written by: Bucaio
I have seen and eaten labong cooked in various ways across the country, in Chinese restaurants and in a fresh salad recipe using canned bamboo shoots. But this is the most common, and probably the most popular – and easiest – way to eat labong in Pangasinan. Boiled with saluyot tops (young jute leaves) and sinagsagan with inasin (bagoong isda). It is probably the healthiest among all options, because it doesn't contain any saturated/trans-fat, whether of the proven or debated kind, and the dish' nutritive value is magnified by the addition of the miracle, organic vegetable saluyot.
To cook, just bring to a boil a pan of water with several slices of peeled ginger. Never, ever julienne the ginger root, as my yaya is wont to do, because it would easily be mistaken for labong, especially when using the pre-boiled one. A thumb-sized ginger, peeled and crushed with the back of an aklo (sandok, wooden rice ladle) will do. Once the water is merrily boiling, put in a small bowl a couple spoonfuls of inasin. Get a long-handled ladle and pour a ladle-full of boiling water into the inasin bowl. Using the ladle edge, crush the fish in the inasin with downward strokes. Pour into the pan, straining the inasin. Repeat until the fishbones have been finely crushed. Add the labong and let boil for a few minutes, then add the saluyot and cook for about 10 minutes, covered, on medium heat.
The inasin reacts somehow with the labong, and the resulting dish acquires a very distinctive flavor, an acquired taste for some, especially for those who did not grow up eating this combination. A Pangasinense cook who maintains an eatery in Pampanga has successfully gone around this probable hindrance to the enjoyment of the dish by doing away with the inasin. He just sautees the saluyot at labong with a little pork and some tiny shrimps, recreating it into something more tolerable for non-kabaleyans. It tasted ok to my Pangasinense tastebuds, too, and it has become an alternative option whenever we run out of Pangasinan bagoong in Cavite.
When I got married, I started eating labong tan saluyot soured with pias (kamias/kalamias, Averrhoa bilimbi), which is how the vegetable dish is cooked in my husband's house. It's cooked the same as the foregoing, but pias is added the same time as the ginger. It tastes not much different from the regular saluyot tan labong, but the sourness of the pias somehow foils the saltiness of the inasin, which is heightened because not much green vegetable absorbs it. It actually completes the dish, the flavors all rounded up, although of course I never noticed anything lacking before.
I have come to love the taste of pias in my saluyot tan labong that I want a bowlfull of them added to the dish. Good thing there are two pias trees at my in-laws' backyard, and it is commonly available in the public markets, too. As long as labong is available (peak season is during the rainy months, but it can be procured the rest of the year, albeit rarely) saluyot tan labong, with pias, is cooked and eaten weekly at home. It serves to ground my children to their Pangasinan roots, as well as providing us complete nutrition for the day, with added anti-oxidants, to boot.
Saluyot tan labong is best eaten with inkalot a bangos, and acquires a heavenly turn when the fatty head of that grilled milkfish is added towards the end of the cooking process as sahog.
In fact, saluyot tan labong flavored with grilled bangus head is simply divine that I think it is worth serving in a royal court. And since it is a purely Pangasinan dish, if ever, in my other life, I had been the aliping namamahay in the court of the famed Pangasinense, Princess Urduja, I would have wanted to cook this for her. To fortify her during the battles defending the kingdom, and to keep her skin smooth and preserve her beauty to ensure that it attains legendary status. It would also serve as a reminder as to how hardy yet adaptable we are as a people, like the labong, when it grows into bamboo, which sways with the wind that's why it doesn't break, even with the strongest Filipino bagyo (typhoon/tropical storm).
Of course I won't dare admit I would have wanted to be Princess Urduja herself in my other life, but I can imagine. And I imagine I would want to eat saluyot tan labong, everyday. With pias.
Filed under Food by The Pangasinan Blog.
[Ginataang halo-halo/rice balls, bananas and various rootcrops in coconut cream]
Happy Easter!
With the end of Lent we're on to a summer that's going full blast. It's along the lines of everything's two-sided - the sultry heat that can sweat you out dry, but with it comes the vibrant colors that only a red-hot sun can bring. An abundance of all things edible, in all colors that Crayola can think of, prettying up lush fields and gardens.
[from top, clockwise: bananas, ube, langka, kamote, anise]
Rootcrops are available year-round, but they're in profusion, and at rock-bottom prices, at this time. Langka has just gone into season, and it is the ultimate ingredient to a comfort food from my childhood, the memory made and nurtured in my paternal grandparents' house.
My lolo and lola, although not born to rich families, were able to acquire tracts of land by sheer prudence and good management of their finances. From these properties we enjoyed the fruits of their labors – rice and crops planted by tenants, the produce of fruit trees plantedby my dad, and his papa, when he was but a child.
During summer, stocks of produce arrive at the house, and it was there where I came to know about what the land can give, and how it is made into food, the knowhow from an oral tradition passed down from generation to generation.
Easter was celebrated with these crops, and I remember seeking solace from the afternoon heat in the dark dining room, where I would come upon my dad's cousins rolling rice flour dough on the table for that day's treat. I would join in on the fun (fun at the start, becoming tedious later on), pinching inch-long pieces from the dough rolls and rolling them between my palms to form balls, smearing my hands with sticky dough.
That experience, and the memory of it, has become priceless, now that my grandparents have passed away, the house is being let, the cousins have their own families to tend to, and there's nobody to watch over the properties that the tenants have stopped giving our share of the crops.
But I recreate home, now that I have my own, in a place where my children are sometimes laughed at because they mix their languages – because I insist that we use my and my husband's mother language even when we're in Tagalog country. I once had my then two-year old son point to a favorite ingredient of kiniler, saying "I want banana-saging-ponti," all in one breath.
They find forming balls out of sticky dough quite fun, too.
Kiniler, the Pangasinan term for what is commonly known as ginataang bilo-bilo or ginataang halo-halo, can be as simple as rice balls and diced seba (saba) cooked in coconut cream thickened by ground glutinous rice. But it can be as lavish – a cornucopia of all things the land can yield – as a stew of all these things: kamote in three colors – white, yellow and purple - saba, langka, even buko and mais, anise.
I like my kiniler multi-textural – soft and sticky (bilo-bilo), crunchy (langka and ube), chewy (sago and saba), mushy (kamote). And full of varied flavors – the rootcrops and fruits transcending from one level of sweetness to another, the buko providing a refreshing respite, thebilo-bilo and sago a foil for all the variety of tastes, the anise punctuating with bursts of spice and aroma. All rounded up by the creamy goodness of gata.
A fitting celebration of life, the after-life, and hopes for a better one in the next.
Filed under Food by The Pangasinan Blog.
[Kuhol sa Sampalok/Snails in Tamarind Broth with Kangkong]
Snails cooked in broth soured with raw tamarind fruit is a rainy day dish in Pangasinan. The rainy season, from July to September, floods the ricefields and inundates the waterways, prompting the snails to emerge from the ground and congregate by the numbers.
Snails are one of the few food resources which thrive uncultured. They have survived, so far, the poisons that we feed our environment, because of their prolific nature. During the rainy season, cylinders of gray eggs can be found attached to the insides of palay leaves and other plants growing along streams and creeks. This is different from the pink cylinders, which look like flowers, attached to plants growing in the canals. These are the eggs of the big, "golden kuhol" variety, not endemic to the country, which laboriously crawl on the pavements and up walls, leaving long wet trails.
Before cooking, the snails should be left first in a pan full of water for a few days so they could spit out whatever they had previously eaten. I always forget to leave the pan covered, so after a few hours the snails are all over the kitchen and I have to scoop them back to the pail.
When they are ready to cook, the snails' bottoms are patted down with a heavy flat sandok (wooden spatula for serving rice) until they break (as a kid I emphatized with them, having received my fair share of slipper sole "pats" on my butt). This so the flesh comes out easily when cooked.
The proper, and fun, way of eating a bisukol is to pick one up with your right hand, the snail's operculum (opening) facing down your plate, then banging your right wrist onto your left wrist until the snail meat comes out and drops on your plate. Then you fork it to your mouth, and take some spoonfuls of the broth. I like the way the snails are chewy with a soft, rubbery consistency, notwithstanding my sore wrists. They taste of the earth from whence they came and which sustains all the life around us.
I have seen some snails served in restaurants, cooked in gata (coconut cream). I've never tried snails cooked this way, because Pangasinan cooking makes use of gata only with sweet dishes, which automatically means desserts, since there is never a Pangasinan fish, meat or vegetable dish that is sweet, only salty or sour or both.
I've been wondering, though, since I've cooked ginataang tulingan (skipjack) and I liked it. Maybe if I found more bisukol.
Filed under Food by The Pangasinan Blog.
 In Pangasinan, and I think in most parts of country, weddings, baptisms, fiestas and other big gatherings usually call for the slaughter of a pig, or several pigs actually, to feed the guests at the reception. If the reception is held in a hotel or restaurant, tradition merits a separate party, called a pagatin (literally to step on), on the eve of the occasion or usually after the official reception, at the home of the bride or celebrator.
A pig is favored because all the animal's parts, including the blood, can be cooked into different dishes. Pangasinan being surrounded by the South China Sea and criscrossed by rivers, streams and creeks, not to include the flooded ricefields during the rainy season, fresh fish and seafood are regular features in daily meals. So parties call for a taba ed bibil, literally "lard on one's lips," since fatty hogs are very much favored. Months before the scheduled party, a belek or fattening hog is procured for careful tending in anticipation of the richness it will eke out.
In small gatherings, or during the aforementioned pagatin, which is usually limited to family members and extended relatives, a smaller, "wilder" animal is preferred. Goats are mainstays of farmhouses in the barrios, led out to pasture and exercise every morning, and "come home" on their own every afternoon. The goats are either owned by those tending them, or tended for other families in kasamak* fashion. These goats are bred mainly for family reunions, particularly in remembrance of the death anniversary of a loved one, during All Souls Day, Christmas holidays, adult birthdays, and other excuses for a gathering around the table, including an excuse to drink up, with friends, with kindergarten classmates, and a thousand and one other reasons.
A goat has a lower fat content than a pig, requires low maintenance (just grass, sunshine and a little patch to run around), and gives less relative to the meat-bone ratio of a pig. So there's no worry of a goat meat overload, unlike when a pig is slaughtered and you'd have to contend with eating pork every meal for an entire week then worry about an impending heart attack.
But like how a pig slaughter and its cooking for a feast generates a spirit of community, killing a goat also brings to the fore the Filipinobayanihan spirit, whereby neighbors come along and help gratis. For of course, several people are needed to tie-up the goat, hold it for the fatal slash to the neck (may he rest in peace), for the ritual pulpog to burn the hair and skin, to carve the body, then to cook the various parts in spices.
Men commonly cook the goat meat and parts. I think this is just to continue the task of preparation from the slaughter to the table. Goat meat, too, is prized as pulutan, because it is gamey, in both senses of the word, thus requiring long cooking and a lot of flavoring ingredients and spices. Perhaps the men want to tailor the taste of the dishes to complement the Philippine national drink San Miguel pale pilsen or to several rounds of the more preferred (in price, not in taste) bilog or lapad (terms for the containers of the local gin). 
Kanding Kaldereta
Like a hog, all goat parts are used in cooking various dishes. The bony meat is slow-cooked in a caldereta with tomato sauce, bell peppers, peas, garbanzos or chickpeas, carrots, potatoes and pickles. The innards are chopped fine then cooked in a soup flavored with calamansi(local small limes), ginger, black pepper and a little of the goat's bile. This is called papaitan or pinapaitan, meaning "made bitter" in the Pangasinan and Ilocano languages.
Nothing is wasted. The skin, torched to singe the hair, and the mouth and ears are chopped finely, boiled in ginger, and tossed with minced onion, finely grated ginger and vinegar, for a warm and chewy kanding kinilaw, or kilawing kambing.
 Of course, the goat dishes are not solely for pulutan, but mainly to eat with the family and relatives, sharing good times and catching up with one another's lives. They are meant to tighten the bond between blood relations by partaking of food at a table laden with family roots and tradition.
*Kasamak (land tenant) is the Pangasinan term for a farmer who tends the landowner's real estate properties, with sharing of the proceeds of the land's output based on what was previously agreed upon and what is common practice, although nowadays it is determined by regulations set by the Department of Agriculture, especially if the property is under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program or CARP.
The kasamak can also tend for the landowner animals intended for selling for profit, or for future use, called iwi. If the animal is sold, sharing is about 50-50 after capital and tasa (advances made by the owner to the kasamak). If the animal is killed for meat, the owner gives the kasamak a patronage fee.
All these because the Philippines is still largely an agricultural country, with a feudal type set-up.
Filed under Food by The Pangasinan Blog.
Written by: Bucaio
Pinais may mean a savory dish involving fish and banana leaves for some Filipinos. But for Pangasinenses, pinais refers to what is known as suman cassava, or steamed kamoteng kahoy rolls wrapped in banana leaves.
It entails a lot of work and so much brawn, as the cassava, a thick-skinned tuber, is peeled and grated manually. I don't know why, but grinders at the market won't mill it. I don't know how the cassava cake (known as budin in the Bicol region) makers manage to ground their cassava, or they probably they have a contraption for grinding specific to the rootcrop.
The cassava sport long, thick "roots" swirled in its flesh, which is difficult to remove in the uncooked tuber. They are included in the grated pulp, and provides chewy bits in the suman.
The grated cassava is mixed with sugar, refined white for a transluscent, almost transparent suman, brown for a distinctive, yellower hue. I like to liberally sprinkle the mixture with pounded anise seeds for that festive, licorice flavor.
Then a spoonful is put on the edge of a strip of banana leaf previously run over an open flame (making it pliant as well as sanitizing it), and shaped into a thin roll. The banana leaf is rolled to the other edge, the ends folded over and tied with strings. The wrapped rolls are steamed for an hour.
The cassava has a gelatinous consistency and texture when cooked. Because no water is added to the pinais mixture, it is a seamless, tight-packed suman. It smells of banana leaves, and is aromatic with the anise.
Cassava is a common, cheap rootcrop, and pinais is not considered a festive kakanin. Perhaps the cassava cake, with its decadent sweet layer. But the pinais can be made luscious, too, with additional topping of latik, even chocolate fudge. It's actually apt, even thematic, in these troubled times.
Filed under Food by The Pangasinan Blog.
Cabuey, Uong, Apayas, Luko
[Sigarilyas, kabute, papaya, gabi/
Goa bean, oyster mushrooms, green papaya, taro]
This would have been heaven with wild mushrooms that sprout overnight around the base of banana stalks after a thunderstorm, but it's not thunderstorm season in the Philippines right now. So I substituted with the best alternative, cultured oyster mushrooms, though they are not that regularly available these days, either.
This was triggered by a comment in the previous post about the vegetable cabuey (sigarilyas, winged or goa bean). The Pangasinan vegetable mix of apayas tan agayep (papaya at sitaw, green papayas and yard-long or string beans) is the base, boiled with a thumb of ginger and seasoned with bagoong isda.
But to provide additional points of interest, we add cabuey and luko, the one for crunch, the other for alternating soft chew-iness and some starch. The mushrooms make it a luxuriant dish – the crowning glory with its meaty taste and tender bite.
The whole mix could also be made the vegetables added to nilagang baboy or baka (tender slices of pork or beef in clear broth), forgoing the bagoong isda (not the ginger, though), and seasoning with patis (salted fish sauce) or sea salt. Just add to the simmering broth (with the meats already cooked), cook for about five minutes, and serve. Guaranteed to be a great alternative to your usual nilaga.
Source: Bucaio
Filed under Food by The Pangasinan Blog.
Source: Bucaio
Buro is freshwater fish fermented in salt and ba-aw ( ba-ao, bahaw, steamed rice). It is the foulest smelling edible thing in all the whole wide world, but ironically, it is eaten as an appetizer.
Buro is actually a means of preserving seasonal freshwater fish from the times when electricity has not been invented. The prized fish dalag (mudfish), which comes out of hibernation during the rainy season, is salted and fermented with salted cooked rice to preserve the surplus. So are the native tilapia – small, thin and black – which burrow in mud during the dry spell.
These two are still the preferred fish to be fermented in a buro today, still as a means of preserving, but more as a way of keeping on with tradition. Nowadays it has actually attained the status of a native delicacy. The buro'n tilapia is the more common, with the buro'n dalag – since the fish is more rare, the flesh more tasty – commanding about Php250/kg.
I know buro is eaten in other places in the country, like burong talangka (salted fermented mud crabs) in Bulacan, burong hipon (small shrimps fermented in rice) in Pampanga, burong mustasa (salted mustard leaves in water) in Cavite, plus we also have burong mangga (salted unripe mangoes in water) in Pangasinan.
In Pangasinan, though, when you speak of buro – without any qualifier – you refer to the fish fermented with rice. The tang and fermented taste of buro is much, much more pronounced than any other buro outside the province. It is as sour as any spoiled food if you have ventured to eat some (I haven't, but I eat buro).
It is actually indescribable, and those who did not grow up with buro being served on the table will be really turned off by the smell alone. When I was a kid I could not tolerate it on the table if it were placed in front of me. But you get used to it, and once your tastebuds have desensitized a little, you will find that because you're eating it, it will propel you to eat a lot more than what you usually do.
I find this to be the greatest irony of all.
The process of fermentation is pretty straight forward – de-scale, de-gut and clean the fish, rub with sea salt, then mix with cooled steamed rice also mixed with salt. Store, preferably in a covered banga (clay pot) although nowadays it is kept in a plastic container. In three days the buro has fermented well enough to be eaten.
When in season, unripe, julienned labong is topped on the buro before it is fermented.
To tame the taste a little, fresh buro is sauteed with lots of peeled, thinly sliced ginger root and tomatoes. This somewhat defeats the idea of buro, because the tomatoes will shorten the buro's shelf life. But the sauteeing adds to the appeal of buro, enriching the flavors.
Buro is not eaten as an appetizer per se, but small amounts – pea-sized – is eaten along with every spoonful of the meal. It pairs excellently with any native viand and vegetable dish – usually fried or grilled fish, pakbet and dishes cooked in bagoong.
They say that not everybody can make buro – and I agree. Despite the small number of ingredients and the simplicity of the process, not all buro made come out the same.
I have smelled, and not eaten, the buro made by a grand-aunt, who had been the subject of so many grand green jokes and snickers from many of her housemates because of the smell of her buro. It had been called not just ma-anglit, but also ma-ampap. I am not going to translate what these two words mean for purposes of delicacy, but if you're not from the province go ask your Pangasinense friends. You will get my drift.
Filed under Food by The Pangasinan Blog.
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