P is for Palengke
On the road to the local palengke (market)
Mangaldan, Pangasinan. At 5 am, the tinny, insistent noise of a cellphone alarm jarred me from fitful dreams. My sister and I slowly crawled out from under a cocoon of blue-green mosquito nets, and readied ourselves in the dim house, the same house our mother lived in as a child. The neighbor, Ate Lidia was leaving at 6 for the palengke (market), and I had asked if we could please, please join her. After sampling the delicious cuisine of my mother's hometown, I wanted to see where it all came from.
Mom, sister, Ate Lidia, my cousin Jan, and I piled into a tricycle taxi. Usually the province felt like the temperature of warm stew, but on this morning the air was cool and sharp on my skin. My loose hair whipped in the wind as the motorcycle sped us down the near-empty road, past vibrant green rice fields, and through the bumpy streets of town.
We stopped at an intersection where rainbows spilled onto concrete. Shoppers laden with bags sifted through displayed vegetables. Hands among long green beans, red-skinned onions, and glossy purple eggplants, some vegetables displayed in baskets, others in brilliant piles, no table needed. Lidia easily sought out the choicest produce. Walking through - grazing the market, it felt like - she squeezed a bean between her fingers to test it for firmness, and examined a tomato's mottled skin. With her generous smile, she commented to our mom which are pangit (ugly) and which were good to eat.
Bangus, the pride of Pangasinan
After tying up shopping bags full of vegetables to the back of the motorcycle, we traveled towards the river and the fishmarket, to find bangus and other fresh fish. Bangus, a tender, finely-boned milkfish, is the pride and lifeblood of the region. Pangasinan's bangus is said to be the best-tasting in the world.
And find it we did. The bangus were just plucked from the waters, their smooth silver bodies supple and eyes clear as marbles. These fish were a far cry from the plastic-wrapped, frozen filets I remembered from childhood. Haggling men and women counted out fish and coins. Shrimp and tiger prawns wriggled furiously inside hot pink and blue plastic tubs. Fishermen shattered blocks of ice with bolos and hammers into steaming white fragments. Old women and young girls balanced round, woven bilaos on their hips, full of green-and-yellow kalamansi and red sili, the freshest flavorings to complement fish.
Back home, Lidia smashed ginger and garlic with the side of a knife. Scales were scraped off from the fish and flew all over the kitchen, the innards plucked out from slit open bellies. Although she had a gas burner, our Lola Remy preferred the clay stove out in the back. Fed by bits of wood and coconut charcoal, that stove imparted a delicious, subtle smokiness to everything cooked over it.
With sinigang on the menu, I was excited to see how they would make the sour tamarind base. We had already gone to the market in the morning, hand-selected vegetables and fresh fish. What unique ingredients would be added to the pot, I wondered? So it was with some surprise when I saw the familiar yellow Mama Sita packet with instant powdered sinigang base appear. It was a healthy reality check for the Fil-Am-romanticizing-the-province mindset the morning had put me in.
In less than 20 minutes, a meal of fresh squash blossoms and tendrils, sinigang (a one-pot soup soured with tamarind), and garlic sauteed prawns was ready. Everything was so fresh there was no need to overcook or overpower the delicate flavors. I could honestly say everything was delicious (somehow even the instant Mama Sita sinigang tasted better than I ever remembered it). With each mouthful, I tasted the harvest of the water and land, the smokiness of the cooking fire, and felt that somewhere, in my belly, I could sense my mother's world a little more deeply than before.
We left the province that afternoon for a 12-hour drive back to Manila. With sleepy eyes I watched the town fade away through the car windows, become replaced by a ribbon of roadside stalls hawking fresh goat, salted eggs, and jars of pink shrimp paste. At one point, I woke up as we passed nearly a mile of stands selling nothing but yellow and red watermelons, cut into rounds and hanging from twine to display the colors. The road itself was a long, winding stretch of palengke.
Haunted by the inescapable US fastfood chain
Post-Palengke. The scenery closer to Manila was a sharp contract to the palengke. We passed dozens of McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Chevron stations, and Starbucks, where my dad stopped for a tall espresso that tasted, well, just like the ones in California. I thought about how even on vacation thousands of miles away, it seemed impossible to escape these familiar glowing logos. They served as reminders of the ways US multinationals have commodified and disrupted foodways both within and far outside its own borders.
And I couldn't help but think of the Bay Area I left behind. Considered a hub for American foodiedom, its growing flurry of street food carts, artisan products, and food blogs fill me with excitement. But still, I couldn't shake the feeling that in all the "buzz" it is easy to forget that these, too, are not new. The intimacy of the palengke is in my roots, in all our roots. Fresh, seasonal, and local food is not a concept, and its more than resistance to a commodified food system. Its simply how our relationship to food is meant to be.
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