Saturday, April 05, 2008 The aroma of woodfire By Liberty A. Pinili
NOTHING beats eating as a way to learn about a culture:
The curried crabs at a night market in Bangkok that sting one’s throat but delight the palate or the eisbein mit sauerkraut (pork hock with fermented cabbage) at a biergarten (beer garden) in Berlin that can feed a multitude.
Renowned cookbook author and cook Clifford Wright puts it succinctly:
“All cuisine is a reflection of the society from which it emanates…in the end, cuisine is the result of culture.”
While prepared with less complication than German or French cuisine, Visayan food cannot be belittled in the taste department, and reflects a part of the region’s culture. Of course, like Filipino culture in general, lutong Bisaya carries the influences of the various peoples that landed on the Visayan shores.
But lutong Bisaya dishes, as the wise and the wizened say, are not readily available as burgers at fastfood outlets.
“We used to go to Pasil for kinilaw (raw fish soaked in vinegar and herbs) and linarang (fish stew). I must say the conditions were not very conducive (for eating), but sometimes we just didn’t mind,” said Jesse Taborada, an athlete with a weakness for native food.
“We’d go even to hard-to-find places, even if there is a mangy dog nearby, just so we can eat native dishes. I’ve given up many shirts that have been stained by goat’s head stewed in tomato sauce,” Taborada added.
But there were days when craving for lutong Bisaya and roughing it up did not go well together. So Taborada and friend Rafael “Pepe” Serafin decided to venture into the food business; but not just any food.
“We wanted to have a place where we could get our favorite native dishes but with the right atmosphere,” Taborada said. “Kanang kumpleto ang kutsara ug tinidor unya arangan ang lugar, dili sad kaayo pangitaon.” (A place that is easy to find; where people can eat with enough forks and spoons.)
“We wanted to uplift the standards of Bisaya dining and still keep prices at affordable levels,” said Serafin.
Inspired by the image conjured when one thinks of lutong Bisaya, which is that of a pot placed atop a sug-angan (a clay stove or stone blocks, for more crude conditions) amid blazing fire generated by firewood, Serafin and Taborada opened Sug-angan in January 2006.
Located near the corner of Llorente and Kamuning Sts., Cebu City, Sug-angan is unlike any restaurant—the kitchen is right in front of everyone to see. “We wanted to have it that way because we want diners to see how clean the kitchen is. We’ve got nothing to hide,” Taborada said.
It could also be a tactic, a strategy to lure passersby with the aroma of herbs and spices combined with burning wood (Sug-angan uses firewood, not liquefied petroleum gas because, as wise natives say, nothing cooks better than wood). And who can resist the smell and sight of Bisayang manok (native chicken) slowly roasting on a charcoal grill?
Sug-angan, however, need not resort to tactics to lure customers—even the arthritic and the hypertensive are willing to suffer for a bowl of balbacua (a hefty soup made of beef or oxtail) and a plate of chicharong bulaklak (the deep-fried fatty membrane attached to pig intestine, or the omentum).
If seafood is your thing, Sug-angan’s linarang, guso salad (gelatinous seaweed), kinilaw nga isda and tinolang clam (clam soup) are to die for. Risk takers can take sinuglaw, a mixture of kinilaw nga isda (raw fish salad) and grilled pork belly.
Don’t worry about prices. Even with P200, a couple can eat themselves to catatonia.
