AETA communities in Porac town led the celebration of the 13th Binulu Festival Saturday, November 17.

The event highlighted performances and the lighting of the ceremonial cook-off for the longest line of dishes cooked using the Binulu method.

Mayor Carling De La Cruz said the festival is part of the commemoration of the 424th founding anniversary of this town.

The festival highlighted the Aetas’ cooking of rice and viands such as fish, pork, chicken, and other seafood stuffed and cooked together using variety of bamboo called “bulu.”

The basic binulu dish is a concoction of chicken soup cooked with vegetables and made sour with tamarind and local sour herbs seasoned with salt.

Rice is also cooked with bulu. The young slender stalks of bulu are cut into even sizes. Rice and water are then placed inside the empty reeds and then placed over fire just enough to heat up the contents.

Dela Cruz said the Binulu Festival is a yearly event that attracts foreign and local tourists.

The first Binulu Festival was organized in 2005 by then Porac parish priest Fr. Elmer Simbulan, as part of the annual fiesta celebration in honor of the town patron Saint Catherine of Alexandria.

The event was initially conceptualized with the help of Fr. Resty Lumanlan, Prudencio Garcia, Tess David and Adrian Garcia, among others.

The organizers first started with simple demonstrations of how the process of cooking with bulu was done.

The binulu event was later passed on to the municipal government of Porac, which made it part of the town’s yearly celebration to commemorate the fiesta event and as a tourism attraction.