“Cultural distinctiveness tends to be emphasized, especially in culinary heritage.”

It is easier to find native and traditional foods during fiesta or festival celebrations. Cultural distinctiveness tends to be emphasized, especially in culinary heritage. Locals would serve traditional dishes to visitors and take them out of their homes or markets to be presented at fairs.

At the Maubanog Festival, my taste buds were again piqued by Tagalog cookery, and its variations in the province of Quezon and in the town of Mauban. I savored countryside cooking, deeply imbued by its geography, robust with ingredients grown from the land and caught from the sea.

Mauban is 157 kilometers southeast from Manila, facing Lamon Bay and straddling the southern tail of the Sierra Madre mountain range. The town charms with its several ancestral houses.

My first morning in Mauban was greeted by the tamales, a favorite. The tamales is the Filipino version of the Mexican tamale, using local ingredients. But the Filipino version has become different from the original, developing an identity of its own. There are several variations of tamales, and my favorite is the one made in Ibaan, Batangas.

The Ibaan tamales is a little chewy pillow of steamed rice dough filled with chicken strips in savory peanut sauce.

The tamales in Batangas is similar. The Pampangan tamales has a more fragile and a more gelatinous rice dough topped by strips of chicken, peanut sauce and slices of hard-boiled egg. The Bulacan version is more like the Pampangan one, but peppery. The one I tasted in Mauban was a combination of Pampanga and Batangas tamales—chewy rice dough with toppings—with a modern twist—slivers of hotdog!

Along with tamales for breakfast was the pinais. In Lucena, the capital of Quezon, I witnessed the preparation of this dish—shrimps and alangan coconut meat with dashes of salt and pepper, wrapped in banana leaves and cooked with coconut water. Alangan, which is Tagalog for “uncertain” or “in between,” also describes coconut meat that is neither too young nor too matured. More authentic pinais, many claim, contains ulang (crayfish) instead of shrimps, and is grilled over coals. The pinais is, for lack of a better term, “guerrilla” food, with ingredients gathered from the surroundings and cooked over fire.

There are other pinais-like items in different parts of the country such as the sinarsa of Romblon and the kinagang of Sorsogon. In Sibuyan Island, Romblon, I tasted sinarsa, which is mashed ulang or crayfish with strips of coconut meat, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. In Gubat, Sorsogon, I savored kinagang, also made with ulang and coconut meat, but flavored with mint and wrapped in hagikhik leaves.

There is a pinais using fish, particularly dulong or lacustrine goby.

The pinais I had in Mauban had pinkish, grated alangan coconut meat with a crayfish or two and then wrapped with kasopanggil (a Clerodendrum specie) leaves, said to be medicinal, wrapped with banana leaves and then steamed.

During lunch, tininghi was served, which is basically pinais without the wrappings.

The sinantolan or ginataang santol is another popular dish. I always find it in Liliw, Laguna, and I also had it in Boac, Marinduque. In Mauban, it is called binalawan or binalawang santol. It is grated rind of the santol or cottonfruit, cooked in coconut milk. Chopped shrimp or pork and chillies are often added.

I also discovered ginanga, round or mackerel scad (galunggong) stewed in vinegar, garlic and ginger, like paksiw na isda and sinaing na tulingan. Any fish can be used for ginanga but the galunggong is the most popular.

I found tortang Macau curious. Different vegetables, prominently cauliflower, are sautéed in scrambled egg, formed into a block and coated with a tomato-based sauce.

I heard of other dishes which I have to find out—the lauya, fish or clams boiled with ginger and tomatoes; and eskabetse, a sweet and sour dish of cooked, grated papaya.

For pasalubong (souvenir gift), stop by the Neil Frank Hotel. Its owner, a former municipal agriculturalist, makes different jams, preserves and pickles. The most interesting and delicious are the liputi or lipote preserves and jams, which have a very likable, sweet-tart berry flavor. He also makes the liquor called Nipa-nog, which is made from the sap of the nipa palms. The name is a combination of nipa and lambanog, the famous Tagalog coconut liquor.

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