On with the movable feast

The 2021 Doreen Gamboa Fernandez Food Writing Contest had its awarding ceremony last Saturday, April 23, at the Eastwood Central Plaza. Hosting the annual activity that has been institutionalized for nearly two decades was the  Food Writers Association of the Philippines, in connection with the Filipino Food Festival “Ang Sarap.”

Sponsors included Glenda Barretto, Amy Uy, Ige Ramos, Cecilia Wenceslao of the DFA, and the Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals. FWAP members included contest co-chairs Micky Fenix and Marily Orosa, with culture historian Felice Sta. Maria and Myrna Segismundo. The contest judges were Felice Sta. Maria, Nana Ozaeta, Mol Fernando, Datu Pendatun, and this writer.

Excerpts from the winning pieces were read by the judges and FWAP members. The major winners were awarded cash prizes, while the Honorable Mention winners received sets of books. The year’s theme of “Shellfish” drew well over 30 entries of high quality, with the tight competition resulting in three top prizes and the following five Honorable Mention winners:

“The Urang Mystique” by Marie Jo Sumagaysay, a former winner who wrote again of an Iloilo specialty, urang or river shrimp, also known by different names in other places — binabak in Pandan and tinumkan in Ibajay. Her essay also cited supernatural beliefs relating to the cooking of urang.

“Savoring Kinhason, or: Why my Lola has Safety Pins on her Dining Table” by Christian Renz M. Torres, another former winner, from Dumaguete, where kinhason is the general name for shellfish. A particular variety known as anikad requires his lola’s simple tool to pull out the meat.

“The Last Stick of Guinataang Lukan” by Winona Sigue, who writes about the last vendor in her hometown of Pola, Oriental Mindoro. This vendor still sticks to the traditional cooking of mangrove clams. Now dying out, the tradition involves skewering and eating the lukan with a sauce of coconut milk and cream plus green chili.

“Long Live Sinalay” by Francis Dave Lacson Selorio, who wrote about the practice in Capiz of preserving whole shrimp by, in his words, “piercing giant shrimps with a bamboo skewer while still alive… and broiling them over an open fire.”

“Memories of the Tullahan” by Cecilio R. Laurente, on his hometown of Navotas and the seafood bounty from Tullahan River. Also mentioned are oysters from Obando, Bulacan and mussels from Manila Bay — cleaned, cooked then eaten the Filipino way.

Winning Third Prize was “The Afterlife of Snails” by previous winner Raymond Aquino Macapagal, from which, this excerpt:

“After having their tender meat consumed for human nourishment, the solid mortal remains of snails are reborn to become human stimulants. Once pulverized, shells become apor (lime), an essential element of mamàh. Known in English as betel quid, mamàh is the Ifugao synecdoche for an assemblage of various psychoactive botanicals: the mature fruit (mamàh) of the Areca catechu palm, the leaf (hapid) and flower spike (puchu) of the Piper betel vine, and dried tobacco leaf. The heart-shaped hapid serves as the wrapper, and a quartered Areca fruit, a segment of puchu, and a strip of tobacco are enfolded and chewed. Mamàh, they say, is needed to warm up one’s body in preparation for hiking steep mountain trails. It also reportedly gives a sense of ‘well-being, euphoria, and heightened alertness.’ While masticating the spicy-bitter-minty mixture, a bit of the apor is applied to the teeth. This will bring about the characteristic crimson smiles of many in the Cordilleras. As snail apor is hard to come by these days due to the disappearance of endemic gastropods in the rice terraces, mineral lime is more commercially available. However, this caustic powder is not preferred because it burns one’s oral mucosa. In this village, people seek out the elders, for they alone have the patience to process the milder apor from snails and clams.”

Gaining Second Prize was “The Extraordinary Sea Urchin” by Jeanne Jacob-Ashkenazi, who won two prizes the previous year. She sent in her entry from Spain. An excerpt:

“Whoever first ventured beyond the sea urchin’s fearsome spines was undoubtedly bold. A female most likely, because prehistorically, women foraged close to shore, as Maori women and Korean female divers (haenyeo) still do. Sea urchins have been eaten for millennia, attested by shells in Neolithic Korean and Japanese middens and Herculaneum kitchen ruins from 400 AD.

“As a child I thought it an exclusively Ilocano predilection — maritangtang in its shell grilled over embers, its briny sweetness tempered subtly by smoke. Re-encountering it during student days in 1970s Tokyo as sophisticated uni was an epiphany: elegantly black-caped in gunkan and temaki, aesthetically arrayed petal-like in sashimi. To eat uni ever since is to remember childhood and summer picnics by the sea, my mother spooning her favorite maritangtang to my lips.”

The First Prize winner was “The Other Thing Called ‘Luto ng Dios’” by Elmer Nocheseda, who has won two previous first prizes. An excerpt:

“Among our foods, it is shellfish that we can more than speak of, quite directly, as regards sexual inference, reference, preference, or even deference —words like juicy, soft, meaty, tender, oozing, succulent, delectable and mouthwatering, are but some of its mouthfeel that can be luscious or plainly sensual.

“While avoiding direct discussion of sex, we can talk about the birds and the bees and the thing called shellfish. Because one may not avoid to be reminded of the female sex when breaking open a talaba (oyster), tahong (mussel) or tulya (clam) or the male sex with the rigid phallus-like protrusion out of a large bamboo shell.”

For the 20th anniversary of the DGF writing contest, the subject matter will be “Fruits, Vegetables, and Roots.” We’ll also be producing the third compilation of winning entries as the anthology Sangkap II, featuring the winners from 2016 to 2020, and serving as the sequel to Sangkap.

During the pandemic’s awful two years, our deliberation sessions and awarding rites were held as Zoom meetings. But Micky saw to it that we still shared in the same meals before we started Zooming. These were provided by sponsors, who had the treats delivered individually. This year we had tuna sinigang, crunchy bagnet, and special laing from Ms. Amy Uy, a former DGF contest winner who has a thriving food business with her Davao Tuna Grill, Bagnet Boy and other specialty food shops. Thank you very much, Amy.

We hope that we can get back to live action for the next contests. It’s been such a movable feast over two decades. And we won’t ever get tired of doing this.