Here’s the beef, corned

For my first book collection of informal essays, Confessions of a Q.C. House-husband and Other Privacies (Anvil Publishing, Inc., 1991), apart from the title essay, another stood out in terms of popular appreciation and recall (as well as reprints in other publications).

This was “A Personal History of Corned Beef,” where I stated: “I can kill and I have died for corned beef. Not a week passes by without this reddish eminence making its way from some can into my gullet, at least twice or thrice. It’s the adobo of my life, my bread and butter, my gustatory crutch and favored staple.”

Five paragraphs are devoted to the ritualistic devotion featuring the twister key that came with Libby’s flared bottom. “The can opener (a simple twister) glued to this tinny treasure was the key to unlocking the secret of the seven seas, if not the universe.”

Oh, I also mentioned other brands that eventually replaced Libby, McNeill & Libby of the ’50s and ’60s, at least in my table of consideration, including some local pretenders: Target, Rodeo, Swift, Hereford, Hormel, Armour, Great Wall from our then-friend China, the rather esoteric and ephemeral Dinty Moore and Fray Benito, and even an equally short-lived Swift Premium Irish.

But it was a local champion that established precedence for Jollibee’s subsequent Pinoy triumph over MacDo. To wit: “Purefoods corned beef is the best thing to have happened to Philippine science and cuisine since the Chinese brought kuchay to Batanes on Sept. 21, 1396.”  

A dozen years pass and Erlinda Enriquez Panlilio assembles essays for Comfort Food (Anvil, 2003). My contribution is “Sundays Are for Corned Beef.”

“A Libby’s can appeared on grocery shelves in the ’80s, before the orig Libby, McNeill & Libby came back. There must have been a family shake-up. But neither was the same as the old favorite. Then there were the pretenders from Argentina and Brazil, but they all seemed too dry or sticky for comfort. That was when Purefoods came into my midlife, to stay.”

I narrated how a painter-friend from LA had bet on the efficacy of an Australian corned beef brand packed in New Zealand. I thought it was Palm he was referring to, until he sent over junior and senior tins. The label was Crown, and it was quite good. But I Fed-Ex’ed him back a can of Purefoods, and he admitted that I won the bet.

At the time, thinking it was Palm he’d send, I decried the variety of that brand’s offerings, seeing them as parts of a gimmick to make up for inferior editions. In fact I had tried a couple and didn’t like them at all.

But that was almost a dozen years ago. And corned beef brands come and go, as well as slump and rise if they stay in the market at all.

Now, owing to a healthy discussion recently conducted with friends online, it’s high time we revisit our Sundays (and then some) with corned beef.   

This decade’s comparative ratings, as arrived at by this carne norte lover, started when I received a few unlabeled cylindrical tins representing a sample of unopened leftovers from a video ad shoot for Highlands Premium corned beef from CDO.

Let’s just say we have friends from the industry. In any case, I marveled at the redness of the raw contents, which were said to be of Angus beef. Took their word for it, which was further affirmed when I enjoyed my first meal with the prized sampler. Very meaty, beefy, delicious.

I shared my findings in the usual pa-inggit fashion on FB. Received a slew of comments, inquiries, and testimonials for other brands. Some plugged Delimondo, another relatively recent local, which I had tried and also liked, though didn’t find as value-for-money as Purefoods.

Yet I had to contend with politically impassioned critics who said Delimondo may be good, but they were boycotting the brand because it was capitalized by JPE money, read questionable as to source. I said hey, let’s not visit the sins of the fathers on their children, if sins they were.

Quite a number vouched for imported Palm as the best on our supermarket shelves. I gave it a try again and had to agree that despite its steeper price as compared to Purefoods, it had indeed vastly improved, and should grace dinner tables often enough. At last, I enthused, a worthy competitor for my favorite high-end brand. Of Palm’s multiple editions, I like the barbecue-flavored one best.

No one mentioned Argentina, maybe because it’s considered as more on the low end, price-and-quality-wise. Except me, that is, when I said a son of mine had found another way of preparing a good plate of corned beef. And that was to marinate the stuff overnight in good vinegar, or for several hours at least, before doing the usual sautéing with garlic and onions. But for that, he relied on relatively cheaper brands, foremost of which was Argentina.

Getting back to Highlands, when I reported my satisfaction with the sampler to the generous donors, and asked when it can be expected in the market, I was told initially that it seemed to cost too high to produce, so that the head honchos were still thinking if it could be marketed at all.

But all’s well that ends well. After first releasing a lower-end Highlands with Angus beef, CDO must have found a way of hewing close to the quality of the exceptional sampler of high-end Angus and managing to market it at about P150 per 320-gram can, which it sets apart as top of the line by calling it Highlands Gold.

This then makes it go head to head with Palm, at about P25 more than Purefoods for roughly the same quantity. By the way, Purefoods had long come up with a lower-end Star brand, which may be used for my son’s vinegared recipe.

For its part, Palm’s appeal is that other than its savory meaty flavor, it offers at least four editions for variety-is-the-spice-of-life attraction: one with onions, the barbecued flavor and the chili flavor apart from the regular.

Highlands has in turn come up with corned lamb, also of the Gold standard, meaning high-end, at the same price as the corned beef Gold. I’ve tried both, and honestly, I can’t tell them apart. They’re both tasty, in fact quite succulent.

If anything, my only beef with Highlands Gold is that there’s hardly any cartilage or fat, so that sautéing requires much cooking oil to avoid having it stick even to a Teflon pan, unless you prefer it so crispy-fried, thus with much-reduced quantity upon serving. That’s like coming up with adobo flakes: Never so few from so much.

What I do is alternate the Highlands Gold with the Highlands regular with Angus beef, which has more fat. I like it fatty-oily anyway, being unquestionably in the pink of health.

Color-wise as well, I’m not sure if it’s reduced sodium that makes the Highland Gold look less than appealing straight out of the can. It’s so pinkish, unlike the attractive reddish look of that sampler, or of Purefoods and Palm, for that matter.

Well, some of us melancholic hard drinkers occasionally favor taking carne norte straight out of the tin with a fork, suet and all if at all, for rough and raw pulutan between swigs. Or maybe just mix it a bit with fresh onion rings, when we want to avoid having to actually cook anything at midnight. So it pays to look red while yet raw.

In any case, I’m glad that there are now four quality corned beef brands to choose from. Purefoods’ domination may be under challenge, albeit there’s every reason for it to stand its ground.

The higher-priced Palm, Highlands and Delimondo are knocking at the gate, and they can’t be said to be barbaric stuff — the way I recall Rodeo to have been in the ’70s, straight out of the can and plunked into a dip of vinegar and onions at Shamrock Café in Sagada, the better to wash down Ginebra San Miguel while mist thence fog formed in our eyes and the civilized world outside.