Puso or hanging rice, as the name suggest is actually just rice, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed to perfection. Often eaten with barbeque, you will find puso sold at nearly every barbeque stand. What makes puso a favorite among Cebuanos is the fact that you do not need the basic kitchen utensils to eat it. Forget spoons, forget forks and forget chopsticks.
The latest craze in Cebu cuisine is "boneless lechon." If you still haven't tried it, lemme fill you in. Instead of slow-roasting a whole pig (with head and limbs still attached), the torso is deboned and covered in its skin then infused with the same herbs and spices and roasted the traditional way.
If there was a certain fruit that represent Cebu best, it would be a mango. The mangoes in Cebu are really to die for. Mangoes are also eaten for breakfast and even as a late-night snack. You can eat Cebu mangoes raw, cooked or even processed.
Filipino people always treat eating as their favorite pastime, and because of this they can’t help but gain weight. Other people still prefer to have some snacks even they have eaten their breakfast, lunch or dinner.
When some people hear the words “street barbeque” the first thing that comes to their minds is “its dirty” or sometimes “they grilled it on a rusty griller”. Some people judge the food even they don’t know its real taste or else how it was cooked. And because of this, they don’t dare to eat that kind of food.
Taken from the Cebuano word “pungko”, meaning: to sit. The pungko-pungko is not exactly the most sanitary of all Cebuano street foods, nor is it the most comfortable.
If you are looking for a kakanin that speaks a lot about Cebu and is distinctly “Bisaya” then that would certainly be Binangkal. For the “sosyal” (elite) people, they call it Sesame Balls or Fried Bread. But for us true-blue middle class Cebuanos, we simply call it Binangkal.
I bet the general public would correlate the word “soya” with the ever famous food Tofu or “Tokwa”. Well it doesn’t hurt to acknowledge the fact that there are numerous soya products out there waiting to be known. Read on and be enlightened on the different soybean products.
Who says gourmet food has to be eaten at a restaurant? You can totally have it at home. Drop by the local grocery store and discover some good eats, and once in a while, some exotic finds in foreign fare. You don’t need to be a culinary connoisseur to cook these dishes. They’re no fuss at all!
TIP: Email me at katditan@yahoo.com for the recipes!
