Titas de Bacolod

Word has gotten around that a food festival showcasing Negrense food is happening at the Hidalgo Drive of the Rockwell Center in Makati, Metro Manila.  Dubbed as the Namit Namit Food Festival, this gathering will perhaps be the very first time the Manila-based people of Negros Island, the sweet spot of the Philippines, will be celebrating their holiday known as Cinco de Noviembre in Metro Manila.

If there's one thing we all know Negrenses for, it's their passion for rolling out the best food for their guests to delight in.  I'm sure that all the best inasals will be out, KBL (Kadyos, Baboy, Langka), Kansi and other Negrense favorites.  However, for this moment, I'm zooming in on what I've always maintained as the original dessert Negrenses have loved through the years - Napoleones from Roli's!


For those who haven't come across it yet, Napoleones is basically a mille-feuille (translated to "a thousand sheets"), layers of puff pastry with custard filling and topped with sugar glaze.  It has been around that in the minds of the older Negrenses, there's only one name attached to it - Roli's.

Long before Negrenses capped their meals with chocolate cake and coffee, we were doing Napoleones with coffee.  In those days people didn't care at all about their blood sugar and would have Napoleones with sweetened coffee.  I personally liked the idea of drinking my coffee black, and munch on sweet Roli's Napoleones as a way to temper and balance out the flavors.

That's probably what I'll be doing again today as the Namit Namit Food Festival opens at 10am.  I'm going to walk my dog to Rockwell and get the first box of Roli's Napoleones.   Before I even bring the box(es) back home, I'm going to have an unsweetened Americano to  go along with it in the park bench and savor all the happy times we enjoyed this delicacy with the family. Just like old times.

O te', dali na kamo sa Namit Namit.

Behind the Scenes with Ivy Visitacion

Titas de Bacolod is back!  All the writings of Tita Ivy Visitacion will also be republished here.

Meet The Man Who Helped Marcos Bring Negros Island To Its Knees
Negros Island was in a woeful state at the eve of the snap elections in 1986.  Negros as a word was synonymous to "Crisis" in those days.  For the longest time, the sugar industry, romanticized by the well-heeled landowners of Negros and Iloilo, was the prima donna of Philippine ......Read More

The one time when crab mentality is good and is advocated.  Saravia blue crab sells crab meat in different variants- claw meat, cocktail claw fingers, special, super lump, and jumbo! All will be available at the Silay Export booth on Sept.14-18 at the Negros Trade Fair!





 

Over the weekend, I saw a news item about sugar smuggling.  Once again, we are here in this merry-go round.  It has always been this way, spinning perpetually but hardly merry at all.  Fact is, the Sugar Alliance of the Philippines (SAP) is “very alarmed” of the dramatic increase in sugar smuggling during past few months. SAP is the biggest group of sugar planters and millers in the country. Mr. Manuel Lamata disclosed that this increase in the smuggling of sugar will be very detrimental to the local sugar industry. This will not only affect the sugar planters and millers but also those whose livelihood are also dependent on the local sugar industry. Aside from industry effects,  the local consumer will be negatively affected.

While some readers may easily disregard this post because they are neither Negrense nor involved with sugar, people just have to keep this going on social media for the rest of the country to understand.  Sugar is not just an "haciendero thing".  It is every Filipino's thing.

How it affects the country

Imported sugar is cheaper. The reason behind this is that the sugar industry in  China and Thailand are highly subsidized by those respective governments, thus, the price does not really reflect its market value and is the reason why it is competitive with regards to Philippine sugar. This affects the demand for locally produced sugar since imported sugar is Php1,100.00 per sack while local sugar is priced at Php2,350.00 per sack.

The detrimental effects to the consumer can be attributed to the fact that imported sugar does not undergo any quality control tests unlike locally produced sugar, thus, the health and safety concerns of the consumer are compromised.

Also, the uncollected tariffs and import duties constitute a loss for government revenue that is needed for basic services to the people.

Increased Smuggling in recent months

In January this year, the Bureau of Customs have seized 189 40 foot containers of smuggled sugar worth Php240,000,000.00 at the Manila International Container Terminal, Cebu port and Cagayan de Oro port. In May another 10 40 foot containers from China  were apprehended worth 13 million pesos. Last August 13, 2015 , the Customs Bureau was able to take  21 40 foot containers of smuggled sugar. The Customs Intelligence Group also netted Php57,000,000.00 of smuggled sugar.

These developments are “very alarming” indeed as lamented by the SAP. The sheer cost and volume of the smuggling activities indicates an increase that is unprecedented.

Pleas for Intervention

The SAP represented by Mr. Lamata has already conveyed the concerns of the sugar industry through a letter to President Benigno Aquino III citing the increase of sugar smuggling these past few months. Also, the issue has already been brought to the attention of former DILG Secretary and now presidential standard bearer Mar Roxas at the Philippine Sugar Technology Convention held recently in Cebu.

Recent Smuggling

In its banner headline on September 20, 2015, the Philippine Daily Inquirer cited the attempt to smuggle sugar by a known close associate of President Aquino. Virginia Torres, former Land Transportation Office attempted to intercede for the release of 64 40 foot containers of sugar imported from Thailand. Said importation is worth Php 100 million and was misdeclared as General Merchandise. The importation did not have the necessary requirements from the Sugar Regulatory Administration. Notwithstanding, the request for the release of the sized containers were not given accommodation by the Bureau of Customs.

Impressions

It is no secret that smuggling continues to be a problem in this country. The government must do its best to enhance its revenue collections so that there will be more funds available for basic services. Also, it must enforce the law no matter who tries to intercede and intervene in smuggling cases. But it is paramount that it also protects the Filipino consumer and Filipino industries as well.

It was just a matter of time when S&R Membership Shopping would be coming to Bacolod shores.  Looks like it's heading to Negros sooner than we think.

With all the big players coming in to Bacolod, I'm listing down the various reasons why S&R is going to be such a big hit when it comes.

1.  Imported Goods - Negrenses just love the idea of being able to buy stuff that's "Stateside".  With not a care that it actually comes from China, the satisfaction of seeing it stamped with U.S. brands and labels is heaven enough.







2. New York Style Pizza - This will be the bestseller.  If there is any other food which Negrenses enjoy next to chicken inasal and KBL, it must be pizza.  No need to elaborate on this.




3. Southern Style Fried Chicken, Clam Chowder, and Salad - Eat your heart out KFC, this is the real finger lickin' good.  For those who want flasbacks of their visit to San Francisco, Clam Chowder is the treat.  For those who are organic food lovers, you can skip the fried chicken and the cream in the clam chowder and settle for S&R Chicken Caesar's Salad.




4. Green Tea Kitkat - What was once in short supply will now be available in abundance.



5. Unlimited Drinks - Forget the fact that we are pushing for a Coke-free Negros, members will get a kick out of getting unlimited drinks from the dispenser.


6. Original Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory in the U.S. - Oh yes, people will go for this despite the PhP1,500...and realize Ging Consing's cheesecake is much, much superior.



More reasons to follow soon.  As it is, I'm sure you get the picture how Negrenses will rave about S&R...until of course we all realize that Lucio Co and friends are having the last laugh doing in the Negrenses over and over again.


Cheers!

There was a time when the wealth of Negros Island was legendary.  It was a time when riches were brought about through the vastness of Negros Island's fertile land planted with sugarcane and aided by legislation in America which fortified the steady flow of sugar from the Philippines into the United States. 

Those were the days in the 1930s when life on the island moved in cadence with the gleeful exuberance halfway around the globe in pre-World War 2 America.  This carried on through the years, all the way to the early 1970s with only a disruption during the ravages of the Japanese occupation in the 1940s.

Even today, it is hard to come by an occasion when strangers in Manila would introduce each other in a either a social or business setting wherein when a Negrense intoduces himself as having come from the sock-shaped island, that at least one other person in the conversation would raise an eyebrow.  It always happens.

Despite these stories, most of them fabled yet somewhat strangely not too distant from the truth, there really was a time when Negros Island became poor.  In the cycle of sugar planting, there are two seasons in a year - tiempo muerto (dead season while waiting for the cane to reach maturity), and tiempo galing (milling season when there’s money for everyone due to the agricultural activity).  This time, it was totally tiempo muerto.  World prices for sugar had fallen and the industry was besieged to an oppressive environment under martial law. Negros island’s land lay fallow, with hardly anything planted on tens of thousands of hectares.

The Dead Season seemed the end of the happy-go-lucky days.

In reaction to this extended tiempo muerto, a strange thing happened. The Negros doñas often referred to as "Inday" when referred to by the hired help, gave birth to a movement which brought out the best of Negros Island.

Wives of hacenderos came to Manila, grit their teeth, and learned the rudiments of handicraft-making, quality innovation and design from institutions such as CITEM (Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions), the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Design Center.

Returning to Negros, the Indays worked side by side with farmers’ wives, teaching them how to fashion trays, bags, place mats and other clever items from indigenous material. Leaves, twigs, barks, grass, bamboo, all became source material.

Overnight, spare space within the large homes of these ladies became workshops in the egalitarian effort to create econmic sustenance for those displaced by the downturn in sugar farming.

From those literal homegrown production lines, the wares produced were brought to Manila at the Ayala carpark behind the Intercon Hotel in 1985 in what was heralded as the first Negros Trade Fair.  The ladies themselves were the tinderas (salesgirls).

Politicians and businessmen alike look forward to the annual return of the Negros Trade Fair to Makati

The Negros Trade Fair has come a long way since those days of 1985, when the first products of the women’s handiwork went on sale in Metro Manila.  Today, the Negros Trade Fair has become an annual event much anticipated by the public and has become one of the top three annual fairs in Makati.

What started as an all-female group, the Association of Negros Producers (ANP), a nonstock, nonprofit group, and the driving force behind the past 29 Negros Trade Fairs, has proven that there was providence in the season of poverty in the Island.  The movement now provides alternative work for thousands of workers who once had to only depend on sugar farming as a means of income. 

Today, ANP’s 85 members includes a multipurpose cooperative offering opportunities not only to farmers’ wives, but also to out-of-school youth, and the unemployed.  Members can be offered enterprise loans (P150,000 tops) and training, marketing and consultancy services to micro- and small-scale enterprises.

Oh, the providence of poverty.  The silver lining in the midst of the storm. 

Yes, there was a time when Negros Island became poor.  The nice thing about it is that it brought out the deeper riches of Negros Island.  No, not sugar.  Hope, determination, vision, perseverance, camaraderie, and most of all, equality.

One of blessings of social media and the digital age is that publication of an article may not have to take a week or even a day.  There is no press production time to wait for.  The satisfaction of seeing one's literary work is instantaneous by the mere press of a button.  The obvious downside to it though is that in the flurry of churning out that all important post, the devil lurking in the details emerge.

Such is the case of a blog which on the page of it's Managing Editor claims to be "the best food blog according to Google".  Philippine cuisine is enchanting to say the least, simply because of its diversity.  Comprised by multiple regions, the Philippines has so many culinary offerings.  In reviewing these offerings, the least a food blogger or an editor can do is to be adept with the regional origins of Filipino cuisine. 

Take the example of this post recently made wherein Pat-Pat's Kansi of Taboy Servando was referred to as an Ilocano Bulalo soup.  Well, the last time I recall, kansi never changed its place of origin.  It was and always will be an Ilonggo or Negrense dish.  To say that is Ilocano could be tantamount to saying Negrenses staple crop is tobacco.

Research! Research! My dear!  If being adept with the regional origin of Filipino dishes is not one's strength, one should at least be a ruthless editor of his or her own work.

Behind the Scenes with Ivy Visitacion

One of the best attractions of Bacolod City is our delicious fresh seafood that has visitors coming back for more. A new addition to the restaurants catering to this specialty is “Ading's Palapala” seafood restaurant bar, in front of the Palapala Market.

This restaurant is the brainchild of our friend, Ricky Trinidad of Mely's Garden Restaurant, who decided to open a sprawling, spacious sea foods place, together with Gigi Sumawang, daughter of Manila socialite, Ofelia Trinidad, who was famous for her Pistang Pilipino restaurant in Malate, Manila.

When we arrived for the opening night, the place was already filled with the food-loving Bacolod crowd. Ricky informed us that it was named after his father, Arcadio “Ading” Trinidad, who was also a known restaurateur in Manila.

Dinner was a marvelous array of scrumptious Filipino dishes that gave us a preview of what the restaurant has to offer. We particularly enjoyed the succulent seafood that was fresh from the sea and tasted divinely with our drinks. Ricky also said this is a family restaurant where kids can play in the playroom designed especially for them while their parents enjoy their meals. What a marvelous addition it is to the numerous eating places we have in Bacolod.

Bon appetit! *

https://www.visayandailystar.com/2014/January/09/starlife.htm