How Ilocanos Turned Scarcity into Flavor

During the Philippines’ National Food Month, Carmina and Patch decide to do a deep dive on Ilocano cuisine. They discover the origins of Ilocano frugality, how its history influenced the way they cook, and the terrain that contributed to its food culture. Join in as they discuss how Ilocano food serves as tribute to their history and way of life. 

Learn more: Tikim: Essays on Philippine Food and Culture, The Basi Revolt by Esteban Villanueva, Culture Ingested: Notes on the Indigenization of Food, Podcast: Exploring Filipino Kitchens Ep 40: On Food and Storytelling Today with Bettina Makalintal, The road to activism is filled with good food, 25 Delectable Ilocano Dishes That Define Northern Philippine Cuisine, Traditional Foods of Ilokanos Talbo Vector UNP 2022, and A Taste of Ilocos Norte. 

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Transcript

Welcome to FilTrip, a podcast where we explore everything fun, weird, and in between about the Philippines. 

Hi, Patch.

Hi, Carmina.

So this April, we're recording an episode about food again.

Not surprisingly.

It's not random, right? We really have a reason to talk about food again because April is National Food Month in the Philippines. Filipino Food Month was established by Presidential Proclamation in 2018.

And the purpose is to preserve and promote our country's rich culinary heritage. The 2026 celebration highlights sustainability and cultural connections. And the theme is officially, Connected by Taste, Filipino Food and the Flavors of Asean. And for this particular episode, we chose to talk about Ilocano food.

Yes, and I don't know if you've noticed around social media, videos going around with the vegan empanada. Have you seen them?

Oh yes, those huge orange empanadas.

Very timely that we are going to be talking about the Ilocos region.

So when we think about Ilocos, the first person we think about is Diego Silang, who is a native of Vigan. And we're not going to go deep into the historical comings and goings of Diego. But just to mention that Ilocos also has a very rich revolutionary history.

And of course, his wife, Gabriela, who took up the cause after he died. The revolutionary efforts in Ilocos have to do with forced monopolies that the Spanish government imposed on the citizens of Ilocos.

Right. One of that is famously the tobacco monopoly in the Philippines, wherein the farmers were forced to grow, you know, the tobacco crops instead of food crops. 

Yes, and then the government controlled the productions and sales, etc.

And of course, while it brought revenue to Spain, it caused hardship for locals. And this history influenced the culinary culture of the region. Ilocos is famous for, you know, using every ingredient, the nose-to-tail traditions of cooking or using every single bit, and also they're known for their thriftiness.

All of this, including the geography, the Ilocos region lies between the West Philippine Sea and the Cordillera Mountains. This creates a very difficult area as far as growing crops, providing pastures for animals, etc.

It also was very influential in their traditions of fermenting, salting, and drying. And that really defines their cuisine.

That includes the bagoong, which is fermented fish or shrimp, and vinegar-based cooking.

My mother is Batangueña and my father is from Nueva Ecija. Nueva Ecija is technically not part of Ilocos, but it's close enough that they share culturally a lot of things, especially their food. So my mom, being from Batangas, were used to thick soup, strong coffee, like very rich flavor profiles.

So my mom actually had to learn how to cook Ilocano cuisine for my dad. And I remember one of the delicacies that my dad really loved is the burro, fermented fish. I remember him making it at home.

Sometimes he would have his different food. So we would love food that was more like salty and sweet, all of that stuff. And my dad's food was more bitter.

And was more vegetables.

In fact, they have the famous pinakbet. For those who are not familiar, it uses local vegetables like bitter melon, eggplant, squash, and flavored with the bagoong. They prefer the fish-based bagoong rather than the shrimp-based bagoong.

Yeah, I think that's how I developed my palette for pampalaya or the bitter melon. It's because we had it because of my dad. But otherwise, a lot of people, it's an acquired taste for them.

Oh, the other one is the papaitan.

Yes.

It's called papaitan because of that root word, papait, which means bitter. In this papaitan dish, they actually squeeze the bile from the second stomach of the cow. It has to be the second stomach because the grass that they ate would have been fermented enough to create that bitter bile taste.

So in Ilocano cuisine, it's either used as a sauce, like a sauceawan, where you dip things in, or it's incorporated into a dish. Now, that is an even more acquired taste.

That's what I heard. I'll try it once, but I'm not too fond of bitterness. So I don't know if I'll enjoy that.

I like it because it just brings a very different flavor to food. And again, maybe it's an acquired taste. But one of the things that I've heard it described as is that initial bitter taste, yes, it's very overwhelming, but it ends with an underlying sweetness.

People kind of analogize it to life, where the Ilocanos describe the Ilocano life as being very tough and very hard, but the sweetness is kind of represented by the fruits of labor or the end being a sweet end to a hard life.

The food culture is also very present in burial. Do you remember when we talked about Atang?

Yes, that was during our episode on burial rites. I think that was last year.

They believe that the dead are still spiritually present and should be remembered and cared for. When somebody dies at home, several actions immediately have to be performed. A chicken is sacrificed outside the house, and if it flies upward, the spirit is believed ready to leave.

If it drops quickly, the spirit may still be attached to the living world. And a small clay pot is also broken to prevent further deaths and drive away harmful spirits.

One of the very significant parts of, not just burial, but many significant and important parts of Ilocano life is the drinking of the Basi. Basi actually is integral to rituals surrounding childbirth, marriage and death. And historically, it also was a very important reason for a revolt.

It started on September 16, 1807, led by Pedro Mateo and Salarogo Ambaristo, who attacked and seized the local government of Sarat in Ilocos Norte. And they did that with the assistance of Ilocanos from a vegan jail. The significant detail about that is that Ambaristo was indigenous.

He was from the Highlands. This revolt actually crossed ethnic lines. And as the rebels entered Sarat and passed through Batac, which apparently is on the way, they encountered a colonial army and they defeated it.

And they kind of picked up more and more people to join their cause as they traveled through the towns. But of course, the Spaniards were ready with an assembled army when they got to one of the towns and they were eventually defeated. And of course, the leaders were massacred and captured and publicly executed.

And then the surviving rebels were actually exiled to Mindoro. And Mindoro was not really somewhere where you would associate Ilocanos. There's apparently a really huge Ilocano presence there.

And this was kind of traced as the reason why. So all in all, the Basi Revolt lasted 13 days. And it prompted the Spanish government to divide Ilocos Province into Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur.

The reason given about dividing them was administrative, to better manage those two regions, because they're very distinct from each other. So Ilocos Norte is rugged. It's a little bit detached from the seat of power at that time, which was Ilocos Sur.

And in fact, it was called the Intramuros of Ilocandia. Of course, the other reason apart from administrative was they divided the population so that revolts were not too easy to organize.

Right. The usual divide and conquer. So it officially split in 1818.

Another historical tidbit in 1821, Esteban Villanueva, who was a farmer, and apparently wasn't even a school painter, was most likely commissioned by the Spanish government to create a series of 14 paintings depicting the revolt, which was intended to be a cautionary message to discourage future uprisings. But apparently, it inspired the opposite. It preserved the revolutionary spirit of the Ilocanos, and it's now at the Ilocosur National Museum in Vigan, and they were declared a national cultural treasure in 2009.

And another notable feature of these paintings is that Villanueva apparently may have included a depiction of Halley's Comet.

Oh yeah.

He depicted it in some of the panels of those paintings, which in Ilocano folk belief, comets signaled the arrival of a revolution. So he kind of subverted the reason for his commissioning of the paintings. Yeah.

So now that the region is split into Ilocos Norte and Ilocosur, we could also distinguish the culinary culture. Ilocos Norte is known more for their bagnet, the grilled and fried seafood. And then on the Ilocosur side, they have the vegan longganisa, empanada.

As far as the vegetable cuisine, they're shared by both pinakbet, dinengdeng, and bagoong-based flavors is also shared by both.

And Patch, do you remember we were talking about the Burnay jars in our episode about Japan?

Yes.

The Burnay jars, as we spoke about, is this very specific clay pot. It was brought to vegan by Chinese artisans. That industry of Burnay-making was already in existence before the Spanish arrived.

And like we talked about at the last episode when we were talking about Japan, this craft now has a significant influence on Japanese tea masters. Apparently, these Luzon jars from Vigan were highly sought after because their ability to store tea leaves was superb. And a lot of these were brought to Japan.

The inspiration from the Burnay jars can be seen in Japanese tea ceremonies.

Right. A

And for the Ilocano, so these Burnay jars are used for what you mentioned, the Basi, the Ilocano wine. That's where they're stored and fermented.

Also, that's used for making bagoong, and the vinegar and other fermented liquids. So widely used in the Ilocano cultural heritage.

And then the only other thing that kind of stands out to me in my research is this difference in how the Ilocanos prepared the kilawen. You know, as we know it in the Tagalog region more famously, it's the kinilaw, right? That's the variant.

And we're always describing it as sort of a ceviche preparation, which is raw seafood that's cooked through acid, and which is typically vinegar or citrus, and you mix it with ginger, onion, chili. In the Ilocos region, it's called kilawen, although it is mostly seafood-based, but in Ilocos, it typically uses meat.

Yeah.

And it often includes innards.

That's when the papaitan comes in, right? They use it like a condiment.

And so it gives it a bitter characteristic that you don't usually find in the kinilaw that we're used to.

So speaking of bitterness and preparation, have you heard about this bitter, it's a bitter yam, essentially, that is common there. It's called the carot.

Apparently, that's endangered now. Not a lot of people make it anymore.

Yeah. Well, it's probably because, you know, it is a traditional root crop, first of all, that is present in that region. But preparation is crucial because it has a lot of toxins in it.

And if you don't prepare it properly, then that would literally be your last meal. So, it causes like dizziness, nausea, and even poisoning. You know, the way, you know, there's a traditional way to prepare this, but to remove bitterness and the toxins.

So, you peel and slice the yam, you soak it in water for several days, and sometimes wash it in the river or the stream, you know, using running water, and you have to cook it thoroughly before eating. So, it just highlights one of the very unique dishes.

Another one is dudul. I don't know if you came across dudul.

No, I didn't come across that. What is that?

It's a sweet. So, it's dark, sticky, and chewy, and it comes from, again, a very specific blend of local ingredients. So, it's made of rice flour, coconut milk, sugarcane juice, and sometimes it's also made with anise to give it aromatic flavor.

If you listen to those ingredients, it doesn't seem like much, but it's actually the intense physical labor that's required to make it that makes it rare. So, you have to constantly stir it in a large open vat called the kawa over a low wood fire. And a single batch typically takes four to nine hours of nonstop manual labor to reach the correct oily and thick consistency.

And if you pause even just for a little bit, the mixture will apparently scorch and it ruins the entire batch. So, they only make it now in festivals.

I'm always curious who attempts to eat these foods in the beginning, right? Who's the first person who thought, hey, I'm going to try this. And if I survive, great. If I don't, then that's the end of me.

Apparently, that carot preparation involved submerging it in flowing water, like a river or a stream for several days.

Right. And I don't know if they have an actual guideline as far as determining when it's safe to eat.

Some poor guy.

You can try it. Yes. So yeah, very interesting things that we're discovering here about Ilocano cuisine.

So Patch, we're going to be linking several important and seminal works by an author named Doreen Fernandez, who is very often cited by a lot of our modern chefs and scholars about Filipino cuisine. And in a lot of her writing, she describes the indigenization of Filipino food. And one important takeaway that I took from it is that when we talked about Filipino dishes, we talk about adapting foreign influences in our food.

But she says that there's another way to think about it. And one central theme in her article is that even though we adapted foreign dishes and made it our own, or in her own words, we indigenized foreign dishes, our own indigenous dishes maintained their integrity and essence. And the only thing that really changed is the technology around it.

And I think the Ilocano food is a great example of that. It's survived through the centuries. And that's our episode.

We hope you join us on our next trip. 

O siya, siya.

Ingat. 

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