THE first time that I actually tasted my first Kapampangan exotic food was way back in my childhood. I do not consider betute tugak (stuffed frog) or arobung kamaru (mole crickets) as exotic because, then and even now, these viands are a regular attraction in the family weekend table feasts.
The shock of eating exotic food is much less traumatic during childhood. As a child, the fear and repulsive gag reflex experienced by adults when eating exotic food is dismissed by childhood curiosity and bravado.
Then, friends and I actually played first with the barag/barak, before the common farm lizard found its way into the stew or the frying pan. The barag has this peculiar taste (my apologies to endangered animal lovers), the flesh - no matter how it was cooked - sticks to the bone and almost taste like chicken.
During the rainy months, my old folks would band together on Thursdays and Saturdays for their regular frog-angling excursion to Bataan or, as the floodwaters permit, at the boundary ponds of Candaba and Sta. Ana. Our daily supply would end up as regular toys for my playmates, some my grandmother would cook by sticking them to rows of five using walis-tingting and sold to regular patrons. The betute we would be sold to special buyers or consumed on regular meals.
Though many are repulsed by the prospect of eating frogs, one can actually have a cacophony of palatable experience with this exotic food. It is good for stews, or cooked as lelut tugak, substitute for meat in your potchero or even as sisis. During August and October months, we had to stock many frogs that we keep in large orocan drums for the nursing students that would come regularly to buy the frogs, not to eat them, but to dissect the poor amphibians for their exams.
When floodwaters have subsided, wild birds would find way into the nets of mamugu. Wild birds that end up as delicacies only found in Manila restaurants, would line up streets (we also saw some enterprising individuals selling wild birds along Lazatin service road in San Fernando).
The wis, with its red and yellow beak, can taste like turkey if well cooked in low fire. Wild birds actually have this potent taste and with a little creativity, could be actually served with the finesse of restaurant cooks.
We have to hand it over to the Kapampangans, and Filipinos in general, when it comes to exotic food. Anything that flies or crawls, the Kapampangan swats and cooks into something that can readily fill the hungry stomach.
Mole crickets are common favorites in most Kapampangan restaurants. But for the more adventurous of taste, the salagubang, picked or gathered in the first rains of the months of June is actually worth the try.
The juice that swarms the tongue at every bite of the arobung salagubang is like eating jelly and the hard cavity of the salagubangs body is like eating fried chicken's skin.
A few weeks back I had the chance to eat salagubang seasoned and cooked with Pepsi. But, mysteriously I had lost the acquired taste for salagubang. A few crunches of the beetle sent my gag reflex going. It took me quite a while before I could muster the courage to chew the exotic food.
This gives the sudden realization that exotic food should not just be read in magazines, newspapers, and television shows. Exotic food, much more those which are uniquely Kapampangan, should be tried every once in a while, especially by those who are in search of new tastes in food.
Try the most potent and infamously popular first, muster the courage and open your taste buds to new gastronomic experience. It is okay if you gag every once in a while since the love of exotic food is an acquired taste.
The author is accepting comments, suggestions, love notes, indignant rebuttals, hate-mail and what-have-you: email:ianocampoflora@yahoo.com (0927-542-5466) (IOF)
