30 contestants to compete in Dagupan's lechon cook-off

DAGUPAN CITY -- After contestants in the Bb. Bilbilin Dagupan, Little Miss Dagupan, Bikini Open and Miss Gay ramped and paraded on stage, 30 special lechons will take center stage this time.
 
Thirty lechoneros will showcase their expertise Tuesday in the Bangus Festival event dubbed "Dagupan's Best Special Lechon Open Cook-Off."

The competition will be held at 8 a.m. at the city's plaza.

After the 30 organically fed and raised pigs are roasted, all the lechon will be displayed on the stage for judging. Criteria for judging are crispiness of the lechon skin, tenderness, juicyness, taste and aroma.
 
Event chairman Beep Beep Tan said nine judges will be called to select nine semi-finalists. From the nine, they will select the three finalists from which the Best Special Lechon will be chosen.
 
Tan said the pigs to be roasted will be provided for free to the participants, who were also given cash for their respective ingredients.
 
The winning lechon will be declared as Dagupan’s Best Special Lechon, the recipe and method of preparation will become the property of the city and it will be adopted as the official and special taste of Dagupan lechon.
 
Tan’s co-chair in the event is City Agriculturist Emma Molina.
 
All the pigs will be slaughtered at the Mangaldan Slaughter House. After these are cleaned, it will be brought to the designated work/preparation area at the city plaza.

Cooking/roasting area will be at the center of the city plaza. Competition will start at 8 a.m. until 11 a.m., and judging will be at 11:30 a.m.  Thereafter, all the lechons will be chopped and served to the people/audience together will rice.
 
The Dagupan’s Best Special Lechon Open Cook-Off competition is an offshoot to Profitable Indigenous Grow-Out Systems (Pigs) project of the City launched last January in Barangay Mangin.
 
Mayor Benjie Lim said they are introducing a new livelihood program to help Dagupenos through raising pigs using a new and clean method. Ten pre-identified residents of Barangay Mangin, some of them already have existing pigpens received four piglets each and organic fertilizers supplied by Feedpro.
 
Lim said all 10 recipients were trained and automatically becomes technicians who will be assisted and further trained by the city agriculture office. They will help in training other backyard pig-raisers and would be pig-raisers.
 
The mayor said these Dagupenos will have additional income not only by selling live organically-raised pigs to end consumers or to lechoneros. (Sunnex)