Etag, smoked pork of the Cordillera

I learned from the likes of Amy Besa that Filipino cuisine’s foundations lie in how Filipinos preserved and prepared their food over the ages. There’s kinilaw and kilawin, the paksiws, adobos, and atsaras… all prepared with vinegar or some other form of acidic preservation. And then you have preservation via smoke as done for tinapa or daing via sun at the Philippine coastline. Upwards toward the heavens however, there is etag of the mountain tops.

Etag is a cured, then smoked or sun-dried pork, particularly pork neck or pork belly. Before smoking it is rubbed with rock salt and then smoked for one to two weeks. Despite the abundance of pine trees in the Cordillera mountain range where this is made, pine is the last choice for smoking according to this website. Instead guava wood or rosewood is said to be preferred. As with many misunderstood dishes by Indigenous people, it has a cultural significance, particularly among Cordillerans.

It was my first time in Sagada when I first saw etag being sold on the street. It is just as abundant as dried fish in lowland and coastal areas, sold in stalls, boxes, plastic containers, and in sari-sari stores. Moves to commercialize it have been on-going, and apparently we had just missed the Etag Festival in Sagada last February. Each piece varies from P150 to P300 each depending on weight and size. Etag in vacuum-sealed packs are also available from Sagada’s Masferre Country Inn. These portions however are smaller and go for P300 each.

We decided to go with a strip of etag from a sari-sari store since it was more accessible: it was closer to the bus stop and cost us P250. You can try etag in Sagada prepared by local cooks in various ways. We tried etag sisig from Salt & Pepper.

What’s great about etag sisig is its hint of smokiness, which is why it’s definitely best sans egg, and even without the sizzle which is typical of sisig served in most restaurants and bars. Etag is also an important ingredient of kankana-ey pinikpikan, a hot chicken soup with pieces of soft, flavorful etag. We had this dish at Pinikpikan Haus in Sagada.

That said, we couldn’t help but make baon (take out or packed lunches) with our new haul of etag. Our week back from Sagada my partner R made etag pasta with linguine, bell peppers, carrots, and olive oil.

I then went on an etag rampage, making etag fried rice.

And ginataang sigarilyas at etag.

We still have half a slab left. What else should we make? If you’re in Manila and can’t make the 10 hour journey to the Sagada mountain tops for etag, there’s SGD Coffee Bodega in Quezon City. Their Pasta Carbonara features delicious strips of etag. I share a few of the dishes we tried in this blog post.