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Saturday, October 02, 2004
A call to order
J.A. Bacalso writes about beer (perfect for Oktoberfest) and Catholic guilt. And how they go down better with the help of a plateful of pulutan.
I grew up thinking that beer was the devil’s drink of choice. It was a sinful brew that loosened you up to primal instincts that a good Catholic upbringing spent a good part suppressing. Confused? Obviously you were never raised on a strict schoolchild diet of guilt and penitence.
When I cut loose and went to university far from this stifling environment (although at that time my family had ceased to be practicing Catholics), my diet (and that of my dorm mates) shifted to a nightly dose of a grande. Each.
To wheedle me into drinking with them, the bugoys in my dorm would all chip in to buy pulutan…my favorite at the time was marinated, finely-chopped pork cartilage cooked to a crisp in spices; sisig. They found my inuman ratio and proportion quite amusing: two spoonfuls of pulutan to a teeny sip of beer. But they bore with me because when I loosened up, boy did I bring the house down.
After graduation, I traded the forest of Mt. Makiling for the steel jungle of Makati, and my sari-sari beer fix for a microbrewery along Pasay road that made a crisp, light, mango-flavored beer.
Microbreweries were the rage then, and Industria was my favorite. These cozy establishments brewed their own beer on the premises, and the machines were part of the attraction: the Paulaner in what is now Dusit Hotel Nikko was a close second, but they didn’t have my mango beer. After my plebian initiation into the drink, my mentors will be proud to know I have moved up into gourmet status, so to speak. When the Ordre Mondial des Gourmets Degustateurs sent out an invite for a beer hop, devil’s drink notwithstanding, I was a skip away.
You can take a girl from the boondocks, but you know what they say about the boondocks in you;
my main enticement was still the pulutan. When we arrived at Plantation Bay, the reception area at their rock-climbing feature was brimming with beermatches (the hors d’oeuvres, not the bikini babes, sweetie) and the first wave of amber: Pivo Praha’s premium microbrewed Pilsners. The Classic wasn’t much of a challenge, so I switched to the Weizen, light-bodied and banana-laced.
But true satisfaction came with the full malt flavor and caramel sweetness of the Dark. So much satisfaction that I asked them to give me a bigger glass.
Literally worlds away from sisig, the entire Plantation Bay Savannah pool area was a globetrot of cuisine built around beer from around the world: fresh beetroot salad and sauerkraut to begin with, grilled lobster, a make-your-own-burger station (did it really say veggie burger at one end?) quite like the one I enjoyed at Lorraine Dytian’s kiddie-inspired birthday bash a few months back, smoked German sausages (perfect with the shredded and pickled cabbage), and…wrapped in newspaper that drained the oil, tucked away at one corner close to where birthday celebrator Dondi Joseph was lording it over his table, a fine British staple: fish n’chips! The gourmet take?
Batter-fried fish and deep-fried potato wedges. The plebian? French fries with piniritong isda.
I had to have Ireland’s pride, the extra stout Guinness, before I drowned in the Italian gelato and in Hans Congmon’s club music in the after-party party with the models who were brought in to whet other primal instincts (I was sure it was shopping for the women, oh, all those Oj Hofer and Jun Escario numbers…what it, ahem, arose in the men was pretty obvious, eh Derek?). It is bitter, let me tell you, and very flavorful. The malted barley, a key ingredient, is roasted not unlike coffee beans for a deeper shade of ruby. I’ve always preferred dark, but this was what my mother warned me against.
Catholic guilt downed with mango beer. And, oh yes, good old San Miguel Cerveza Negra. That’s about as sinister as I can go.
(October 2, 2004 issue)
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