(PI)Baguio newsmen's taste for gelatinous pig snout

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Sunday, September 14, 2003

Baguio newsmen's taste for gelatinous pig snout

 

ASIDE from a nose for news, impoverished, overworked

and often underpaid provincial news reporters also

have a nose for nose, quite literally.

 

Their doggedness leads them to " Cambodia " whenever

dining in regular restaurants becomes hazardous to

their wallets.

 

" Cambodia " is actually a cramped row of decrepit

eateries at the Hilltop area of the Baguio City

market. Jun Willy of the provincial operations office

of NBN TV saw fit to baptize them as such, after

watching " Killing Fields " , the film on the political

upheaval in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime.

 

The name stuck.

 

The seedy and crowded shanties offer a single, simple

fare, the looks of which is enough to blast the

appetite of a squeamish journalist from imperial

Manila.

 

" Here's your sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun, "

photographer Bong Cayabyab matter-of-factly said when

Willie Cacdac, formerly of the Sun.Star Baguio, got

his first serving on a cheap enamel plate: a whole,

unchopped, unadorned, boiled and steaming pig snout,

with its nozzles pointed at Willie's chest.

 

As Bong crushed fresh, hot pepper and mixed it with

soy for the dip, the woman server brought another

enamel plate brimming with rice, a bowl of plain,

bland soup from a pot of more snouts which was kept

boiling.

 

To prepare their meal, the threesome took turns

cutting their snout servings to bite size with a

single knife on a wooden chopping board, and then

spooned the hot pepper-soy mix into the soup bowl to

their individual tastes. Like many other patrons, Bong

ate with his hands.

 

Cacdac admitted the satisfying dish, being gelatinous,

was far safer than regular and fatty meat and,

therefore less hazardous to health.

 

At P32 for a snout and P6 for the generous rice

serving, the three meals totaled P114. Unknown to the

newsmen, however, former vice-governor Mathew Chiyawan

of Mt. Province, who came in earlier with three

friends, had already footed their bill.

 

More than their affordable pricing, the local pig nose

eateries are popular because they offer a taste

closest to a canao, a traditional Igorot feast where

the hides of sacrificial pigs are singed before the

carcasses are cut down to chunks, boiled and served,

with salt and pepper on the side.

 

" Canaos are getting rarer because of the expense so

many repair here where the taste is closest to a

feast, " Willy, a native Benguet, pointed out.

 

The server told the newsmen patrons she boils and

sells an average of 30 kilos a day with the demand

rising to about 50 during weekends. Business was quite

brisk the newsmen had to leave immediately after

finishing their plates as more customers were waiting.

 

 

Pig snout is also popular among restaurant and

beerhouse habitués all over the country, with the

tell-tale sign erased, cut down to tiny bits,

oven-cooked with onion rings and served as sisig.

 

Taste for pig snout extends to as far as rural Spain

and in Dominica, West Indies. A legion of recipes on

how to prepare and cook is also available on the

internet websites.

 

Miss Piggy's snout has also inspired enterprising

souvenir shops to fashion out porcelain pieces and

masks, including mugs with a pair of round indentions

on the base intended to stir humor whenever tipped in

the act of drinking coffee.

 

Truffle hunters in Europe depend on the pig's

intelligence, sense of smell and snout in sniffing and

nosing out the priceless mushroom that grows

underground.

 

More than satisfying native gustatory taste, however,

the pig snout appears to have the promise of great

significance in science and medical research.

 

The September 2000 issue of Nature Biology said

researchers, led by Dr. Jeffrey Kocsis of the Yale

University School of Medicine, tried transplanting

engineered pig snout cells to repair the severed

spinal cords of mice.

 

" Nerve fibers grew back, restoring nerve signals and

function in seven out of the 10 of the rats, " BBC's

News Online reported, adding the experiment was " set

to reopen the debate over animal-to-human

transplants. "

 

(September 14, 2003 issue)