LIST: 6 Kapampangan dishes you have probably never heard of
Basta Kapampangan, magaling magluto.
I grew up hearing this statement whenever I would share that my mother’s province is Pampanga (and my father’s is Pangasinan). I also grew up hearing my mom's sisters discuss each other’s cooking and how they would each do their own take on certain dishes.
Despite watching my mom and aunts in the kitchen, they never really taught me how to cook. But when I came of age and had to cook for my son, I realized that I had it in me to cook the way the older generation did — instinctively, bravely, armed only with ingredients, a ladle, and a pot.
It must be the Kapampangan in me.
But because I could not speak the dialect fluently, I have always felt far removed from Kapampangan culture. I could not really identify as Kapampangan, although there are traits I can relate to (and toxic parts I wish to discontinue). This, until one May afternoon, when I felt — more than ever — connected to my Kapampangan heritage.
History and heirloom dishes
On May 9, Dr. Robert H. Lo launched a coffee table book called Pimamanan (Kapampangan for “heritage”), beautifully described as his “love letter to Pampanga’s culinary soul.” The relaxed gathering of media, dish creators, and food enthusiasts took place in Roberto’s at San Fernando, Pampanga — a restaurant in a brutalist home named after its owner, Dr. Lo.
People would assume that someone this passionate about Kapampangan culture and food is, of course, Kapampangan (after all, the Chinese began arriving in Pampanga in the 1800s), but Dr. Lo does not have a single drop of Kapampangan blood. He is a second-generation Filipino-Chinese who was raised in Binondo.
But why the love for Pampanga and Kapampangan cuisine?
“I started my first business as a poultry grower here in Pampanga, in San Simon. I found the Kapampangan people very kind, and this hasn’t changed until today,” said the veterinarian and self-confessed foodie. Dr. Lo eventually started his meat shop, Fresh Options, also in Pampanga.
These paved the way for his restaurant businesses and grew his passion for Kapampangan cuisine.
Must-try Kapampangan cuisine
Ask me what my favorite Kapampangan dishes are, and I would be quick to say tamales, biringhe, and burong isda. Of course, we all know about sisig and murcon, and I have never forgotten tidtad since I first tasted it at Atching Lilian’s (also a respected culinary figure) home many moons ago.
Going through Pimamanan though, I have encountered these Kapampangan dishes for the first time ever, and reading about them is fascinating.
Pork: Pititchan (from San Pablo, Lubao)
Pititchan is a “cut of solid meat with fat,” and is usually combined with other dishes (or the simple sauteed vegetables) as protein and additional flavor. It looks like chicharron but is more than chicharron.
Beef: Ligang Pasku (from Fortuna, Floridablanca)
Ligang Pasku is a “soup comprised of various types of meat.” It can have beef, pork, and chicken all at once. In other parts of Pampanga, chorizo bilbao or cubes of ham are added. This dish is usually served on Christmas and/or New Year’s Eve.
Poultry: Galgaretang Legorn (from Betis, Guagua)
This is a dish usually served during fiestas, with leftovers eaten as pulutan. The chickens are “sautéed with garlic, onion, and tomato paste,” giving the stew a rich sauce that would go deliciously well with rice, eaten with bare hands. Yum.
Seafood: Lelut Ulang (from Santa Monica, San Luis)
This is considered a comfort food that is also served for breakfast — sautéed shrimp (or chicken) with ginger. Simple.
Vegetable: Bianda (from Cacutud, Arayat)
“Shredded cabbage sautéed with chicken meat, liver, shrimp, and bola-bola.” Sounds like a great dish for people watching their weight.
Paste: Barali (from San Juan, Apalit)
Exclusive to the town of Apalit, the town known for the re-enactment of the Crucifixion during Holy Week. Barali looks similar to buru (fermented rice), but is largely connected to the Apung Iru Festival every June. Leftovers are combined and fermented.
A book about history
“Recipes change every thirty years. This is part of the evolutionary process of food,” said Ruston Banal, the book’s researcher, author, and photographer whose background is history and ethnography. “We have to keep discussing food, so we don’t lose its story and we can track its evolution.”
I could not resist but ask their thoughts on the debate about mayonnaise on sisig, which is ongoing among Kapampangan heritage conservationists, especially on social media.
“There is no right or wrong way of cooking sisig, but there is a right way of branding or calling it,” said Chef Cherry Pasion-Tan of the restaurant Apag Marangle, who cooked the Adobong Kamaru (crickets) and Umba for the event’s buffet spread.
“Kapampangans are just sensitive when it comes to sisig because we know that our sisig has no mayonnaise and no egg,” she added. “You can do your sisig but please, if you have changed the recipe, don’t call it ‘Kapampangan’ sisig. When you do, there is an expectation that is not met or properly represented.”
Preservation and celebration
Three hundred pages, sixty-five heirloom dishes, fifty-four culture bearers, nineteen municipalities, three cities, one province — in a one-of-a-kind coffee table book. Pimamanan is about food, but it is not a recipe book. It is a book of stories of families, of delicious glimpses into Pampanga’s rich past and culture. It is about indigenous and intergenerational cooking traditions for the younger generations to know, appreciate, apply, and pass on.
We have to.
(I dedicate this article to my mother, Anita, whom I would watch attentively in the kitchen while she slow-cooked food for our family when I was a kid. I also dedicate this to the memory of my grandmother, Aurora, who cooked the best crispy sinangag, tuyo, and scrambled egg every single morning of her life.)
