Etagged
Last week R and I visited Sagada for the first time as we joined the barrage of tourists heading to mountains named by the American colonizers “Mountain Province.” Didn’t take much creativity to make that one.
Upon our return, we immediately made our week’s baon with our highland souvenir: etag, a cured and smoked pork whose tradition among Kankana-ey, Igorot, and others go back beyond record.
In a serendipitous twist of fate I would have etag again, sourced from the very same town of Sagada, but right here among fellow lowlanders.
It turns out that an old friend has been working behind the scenes highlighting local food and local farmers, and his latest project highlights etag and other culinary delights from Sagada. Chef Cocoy and my buddy Rich go back some years, with most of our updates from each other coming from the different social media feeds we swipe and click through. So it was nice to reunite with them offline again, and in the context of the Chef’s latest low-key highland project: SGD Coffee Bodega.
“We stick to 5 ingredients and below…” says the Chef as he introduces food he and his team purvey in a quiet pocket of the now bustling Maginhawa. He elaborates as Rich and I begin to devour SGD’s Danggit-Lamayo. We tune out the chef as we enjoy our first dish.
It’s a meaty danggit or rabbitfish (family Siganidae, there are 17 species listed at Fishbase for danggit in the Philippines). It’s not too salty, coupled with black mountain or balatinao rice from Sagada with a helping of cooked camote tops and slices of fresh tomato. Though danggit is not as common in the mountain tops as they are at the coast, I thought it was a nice metaphor for a plate where the sea meets sky. Naks. Siempre (obviously), we had coffee too.
Chef enlightened us on “terroir” (I wanna pronounce it as terror) or all the environmental and human influences on a crop growing in a certain place. Like wine, coffee and coffee beans can vary due to climate, farming practices, and so forth. This coffee comes from a Sagada farmer, Goad Sibayan. Not much of a coffee drinker, I wouldn’t have known this was coffee if I wasn’t informed lol.
I’m used to describing coffee as “bitter” or “burnt”, which is why I don’t drink it much since I have to add sugar and creme, on top of the caffeine that can hyper-activate me. But despite my limited appreciation of a drink that my partner adores and appreciates more than I do, I would describe SGD’s coffee as “clean”. Oh, and it also won a gourmet award in France. We enjoyed other dishes: coffee-braised pork adobo, margherita pizza, and a rich but light (how does that even work) mulberry and banana yogurt; yogurt being a delicious though “non-indigenous” product of Sagada.
The creme-de-la-creme, as the French say, or the sarap-na-sarap or bongga-da-explora, as englisheros like me say, was the Etag Carbonara.
It was clean and light, but filled us up good. The etag packed a nice savory punch. When we had purchased our own etag some days ago, the seller specifically recommended making carbonara pasta using her etag. We decided to make a simple pasta instead with some vegetables, oil, and linguine pasta.
It was refreshing to be with old friends again, in a new context, with new projects coming along the way. Looking forward to see what’s next for Chef Cocoy and SaGaDa Coffee Bodega. Links: