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| Lemongrass Tea at the Yoghurt House. Demeter, who owns a reader's cafe, once told me its local name so I could look for it in the Saturday market but I have since then, unfortunately, forgotten. |
It's been said that to know a place is to eat it (in the form of what is served locally of course). Pateros is the Balut; Batangas, the lomi. Binondo is Chinese food, with its fried siopao and dumplings that go beyond their stripped down, streetwise distant cousin, siomai (to be completely truthful, I don't know much about food as local identity, but I'll get to the point, I promise!).
There is nothing of Sagada that you can see in their food, is what I've heard from unimpressed foodies. "It's all just bastardized Western food."
We have a little theory as to how this is; stemming from "Sagada for Sagada," that the local Kankana-ey will say if asked why foreigners can't open businesses or own property, wary of the fate that befell other resort towns like Boracay, and Baguio, the locals displaced by the quick, forceful spread of commercial modernity. One would notice how menus in most popular restaurants are filled with items more familiar to the visitor: sandwiches, salads, pasta--Western fare; Adobo, Bulalo for a more Tagalog palate. One could say that this is an extension of their hospitality, this propensity to adapt to the needs and whims of their visitors. You could see this in a plate of food in any of the more popular restaurants i.e., Yoghurt House or Lemon Pie House, Bana's Cafe, Strawberry Cafe, Masferre Inn and Restaurant-- it might be a bit fruitless to catalogue all of Sagada's famed establishments in one sentence, as there are several of them-- a plate of Vegetarian pasta would be almost as familiar as home to you--you could have had the same kind of pasta in an eatery or resto two blocks away from work or school.
However, to say that there is nothing of Sagada to be had on that plate is too overreaching; it is there, peering between the gaps of noodle and cheese, somehow. It is there in the vegetables, grown locally (they grow sugar beets. Who has ever heard of sugar beets, let alone grow them, and then find them randomly in a sandwich?! Shucks.), the jam and marmalade made in their own kitchens, from garden to jar, the pickles that they make themselves, every 'yoghurt specialty', each made differently for friendly competition, but made nevertheless, by hand. It could be said, and with ease, that the food in Sagada is made famous by the novelty of the larger than usual servings, but it is an unfair assessment. Not very much is said about the abundance of Sagada, its wealth of growth.
"The certainty of life is the certainty of land," my grandfather said to me once. Before the Pinatubo decided to let fall its rains of ash and fire, its surrounding lands burst with prosperity. "We were very poor," my mother would say sometimes, of her childhood, but never with grim recall. Years later, in Sagada, she and our guide exchanged stories of such simple living, finding common ground. "We live simply," he told us, "simple food, simple everything."
Note: If one desires to experience local food, you would have to visit the hidden turo-turos; there are a couple underneath the market, by the Rural Bank. What you would find in the large cooking pots would vary; sometimes there would be milkfish stewed in vinegar; black bean broth with pork; a large pot with steamed vegetables; Papaitan--goat guts in goat bile, put simply-- if you are especially fortunate; and you would always find adobo in its many forms on any day. If you befriend a local and find yourself invited to dinner, you would be served a portion of beans-and-vegetable broth, its local name told to me by Demeter, which I have regretfully forgotten. Again. (This is becoming a habit.)
It would be unfair to say that the entire image of Sagada has been created to cater exclusively for Western appeal, and that this is how it draws lowland visitors as well. It is a resort town after all, a fact which locals are more than aware of, and draw excessively from, at times, in their refusal to cannibalize all of their customs and culture, to preserve their way of life. But that they do not hesitate to be open to the rest of the world to share their ways and what they have should be enough for the rest of us to be as open as they are, not as fortunate or as abundant, but as respectful, at the very least.
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| Vegetarian Pasta from the Yoghurt House. We had joked that it had all the makings of pansit, save for the noodles, and the large heaping of cheese. We happily partook of this eccentricity in with swift, shared forks. |
We have a little theory as to how this is; stemming from "Sagada for Sagada," that the local Kankana-ey will say if asked why foreigners can't open businesses or own property, wary of the fate that befell other resort towns like Boracay, and Baguio, the locals displaced by the quick, forceful spread of commercial modernity. One would notice how menus in most popular restaurants are filled with items more familiar to the visitor: sandwiches, salads, pasta--Western fare; Adobo, Bulalo for a more Tagalog palate. One could say that this is an extension of their hospitality, this propensity to adapt to the needs and whims of their visitors. You could see this in a plate of food in any of the more popular restaurants i.e., Yoghurt House or Lemon Pie House, Bana's Cafe, Strawberry Cafe, Masferre Inn and Restaurant-- it might be a bit fruitless to catalogue all of Sagada's famed establishments in one sentence, as there are several of them-- a plate of Vegetarian pasta would be almost as familiar as home to you--you could have had the same kind of pasta in an eatery or resto two blocks away from work or school.
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| Eggs and toast (and a hearty splurging of ketchup hihi) at Bana's Cafe. Pauline's Pancakes, tucked in smugly around the edges like a blanket, at the farthest end. My mother was delighted to find carrots and nuts in her pancake, which the waitress with pink in her cheeks meekly said was their own recipe |
However, to say that there is nothing of Sagada to be had on that plate is too overreaching; it is there, peering between the gaps of noodle and cheese, somehow. It is there in the vegetables, grown locally (they grow sugar beets. Who has ever heard of sugar beets, let alone grow them, and then find them randomly in a sandwich?! Shucks.), the jam and marmalade made in their own kitchens, from garden to jar, the pickles that they make themselves, every 'yoghurt specialty', each made differently for friendly competition, but made nevertheless, by hand. It could be said, and with ease, that the food in Sagada is made famous by the novelty of the larger than usual servings, but it is an unfair assessment. Not very much is said about the abundance of Sagada, its wealth of growth.
"The certainty of life is the certainty of land," my grandfather said to me once. Before the Pinatubo decided to let fall its rains of ash and fire, its surrounding lands burst with prosperity. "We were very poor," my mother would say sometimes, of her childhood, but never with grim recall. Years later, in Sagada, she and our guide exchanged stories of such simple living, finding common ground. "We live simply," he told us, "simple food, simple everything."
Note: If one desires to experience local food, you would have to visit the hidden turo-turos; there are a couple underneath the market, by the Rural Bank. What you would find in the large cooking pots would vary; sometimes there would be milkfish stewed in vinegar; black bean broth with pork; a large pot with steamed vegetables; Papaitan--goat guts in goat bile, put simply-- if you are especially fortunate; and you would always find adobo in its many forms on any day. If you befriend a local and find yourself invited to dinner, you would be served a portion of beans-and-vegetable broth, its local name told to me by Demeter, which I have regretfully forgotten. Again. (This is becoming a habit.)
It would be unfair to say that the entire image of Sagada has been created to cater exclusively for Western appeal, and that this is how it draws lowland visitors as well. It is a resort town after all, a fact which locals are more than aware of, and draw excessively from, at times, in their refusal to cannibalize all of their customs and culture, to preserve their way of life. But that they do not hesitate to be open to the rest of the world to share their ways and what they have should be enough for the rest of us to be as open as they are, not as fortunate or as abundant, but as respectful, at the very least.
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