The Ilocanos lives in the narrow strip of hard land bounded by the forbidding Cordillera mountain range on one side and the treacherous China Sea on the other. The land is dry most of the year but flooded during rainy season. The limitation of their region have driven many Ilocanos to greener pastures in far-flung lands but those who chose to stay must fight the odds, plant for food and be patient to coax the land and sea for their existence.
Ever wonder why the Ilocanos is persevering, thrifty and hard working? Sometimes the ILovanos can only contemplate on natures stinginess on his region, sign in resignation and come up with a song or verse about his existence in the land of his birth. But to live and become a composer or poet, he must be forever work the land--planting for food, for the money to send his children to school.
Part of the culinary adventure is learning that the Ilocanos have a whole lifestyle built in the kitchen cooking, planning a week's menu, stocking on salt, vinegar and condiments, preserving fruits of the season, smoking a ham for Christmas or a special occasion, picking vegetables, curing home-made corned beef. Other lesson learned along the way in relation to Ilocano food are avowed thrift, self-reliance and self sufficiency of the Ilocano.
Unless forewarned, the first timer coming upon atypical Ilocano meal will be turned off by the smell or taste of the Bagoong in most of the fod served. Bagoong (fermented fish sauce, usually made from small fish like anchovies or other small fish from Lake Buhi), is the base of most Ilocan vegetable dishes such as dinengdeng or pinakbet. Those two Ilocano staples are mixtures of leafy vegetables, fruits and flowers and stewed with broiled or fried fish. The dinengdeng is cooked with broth (sabaw) normally using the water from second washing of the rice. The pinakbet is sauteed and depends upon the natural juices of the vegetables.
DINENGDENG
Dinengdeng also called inabraw, is a dish of the Ilocano, similar to pinakbet. It is classified as bagoong soup based dish. Unlike the pinakbet, dinegdeng contains fewer vegetables and contain more bagoong soup base. This dish contains a few of the following vegetables combination: jute leaves, the pods and leaves of the horseraddish tree (malunggay), the leaves and fruits of the bitter melons (ampalaya) calabasa, the shoots and its blossoms...sometimes sweet potato tubers and young leaves. wax gourd (upo)and shoots, eggplant, okra, sting beans (sitaw), hyacinth beans (bataw), patani, (lima beans), chayote squash and shoots and banana blossoms, corn, whole taro , purple yams, and cassava tubers. Winter melon (kondol) when available. Leftover fried fish or other meats are addedto the dish.
If you are adverse to the smell of bagoong but have the stomach for it, like you would with some other weird foods, then your adventure into the Ilocano cuisine should rightly begin. And it begins in the kitchen where one is likely to find some high-fired earthen jar called (burnay) filled with fermented fish sauce, some of them desirably aged. Sure there are some vintage bagoong as there are some vintage vinegar or native wine from Nipa saps.
Being a Tagalog, we prefer the other kind of bagoong. The Tagalog bagoong is made by fermenting Krill of shrimp fries. The family of my grandmother has tapayan (large high-fired
jars for storage) and she owns a few of them in different sizes. She uses the big ones rice and salt. She own a not too small jars for preserves like dalok green mangoes and mustard greens. Some particular jar is for the shrimp Bagoong and for burong dalag (mud fish with cooked rice and spices. The later when on its prime is with pink- purple hue. This is later cooked with coconut milk.
One thing I remember while watching her do the process, after the meticulous cleaning the shrimps fries, picking small sea water snails and seaweeds, she will divide them in three part.
This way, she can tell how much salt she will use. So the recipe is 1 part salt to three parts of shrimp fries. She never but bagoong in the market bacause for her they are always saltier than it should be. The concoction is nothing but the shrimp fries and salt...but she have secret. beforehand she will gather some mature leaves of either bataw (hyacinth beans) or patani (Lima beans). carefully washing them and placed on top of the salted fries then cover the jar with a katsa (gauze material) taut-tied along the rim of the jar. This will insure her that it will not be spoiled with maggots... in a week or so, it is ready to be sauteed with garlic, onions and tomatoes with small pieces of browned pork. This will be an accompaniment for kare-kare (ox tail stew) and enhancement for the Tagalog style pinakbet, and other recipes that calls for the concoction. During the summer season when fruits are in abundance, the bagoong is for green mangoes, guavas and other sour fruits. It is also good with slices of sinkamas (Jicama) instead of just plain salt..'
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