ALRIGHT, I confess: I?m squeamish. Can?t stand the sight of blood, can?t eat slimy food like overcooked okra and fresh uni, and yes, you can have my balut, let me just sip the soup. Call it an overactive imagination but is that duck embryo peering at me? If I had been born a werewolf or a vampire in a previous reincarnation, I?m pretty sure I would have gone vegan. Or starved. All that gore!
Other than that, I?m fine. I love sashimi, beef carpaccio, dinuguan and chicharong bulaklak, never mind the painful joints from uric acid. I?ve always thought that people with food allergies could very well be in the 7th circle of hell. Imagine abstaining from shrimps, crabs, chocolates, eggs and all those high-protein food that bring on pure bliss ?
well, along with hives and a sudden constriction of the throat. Me? I?d eat anything that doesn?t move fast enough.
Alas, I found myself eating my words on my very next media outing. On this culinary tour, we traveled all over Luzon on our tongue, eager to feast on the fat of the land while ostensibly studying the culture of the people from the food they cooked and served.
Bulacan meant pastillas, puto, and kakanin, and five kinds of pancit. Pampanga is cholesterol country ? sisig, chicharon, kaldereta, tocino del cielo, and those quaint San Nicolas engraved cookies. Tarlac gave us a taste of the exotic at this roadside café: baboy damo, snakes and bayawak, all cut up and stewed so you really can?t tell what you?re eating. Baguio meant going to a slaughterhouse where dogs were the piece de resistance (I resisted, in memory of several beloved pets). Finally, we were up north in Ilocos, and I licked my chops in anticipation of Vigan longganisa, empanada and genuine pakbet topped by some lethal bagnet.
Well, maybe later, the organizer said mysteriously. ?First, we?ll have something more? extraordinary.?
She then went on to explain the bounty that surrounded this rather arid region: the flowing rivers, the freshwater shrimps, the fish fairly jumping out of the water. In fact, she added, we?re going to sample the offerings of these waterways. For our main dish, we?ll have Jumping Shrimp Salad.
Why not? I thought. I?ve heard of this Chinese soup called Buddha Jumped Over the Wall, and imagined that the forthcoming entrée was similarly an innocuous dish that over-compensated with a creative name. The soup came, thin but piping hot. Next came a saucer with two pieces calamansi. To bathe the salad with, we were told. Then the salad came. Or rather, it skittered all over the plate, like some overexcited hiphop dancer eager to show off its cool moves. ?It?s alive!? another squeamish writer squealed. Precisely, the unflappable organizer said. ?You squeeze a few drops of calamansi to make it groggy, then pop it in your mouth. It?s so fresh you can taste the sweetness of nature on your tongue,? she added, reassuringly.
Fee Fi Fo Fum. I suddenly felt like the giant throwing poor little Jack into my gullet after first soaking him with acetic acid. The feisty creature would probably hang on to my uvula, avoiding the suicidal leap into my viscera.
Would the shrimp have the same iron will to grab on to life? Would it hook its spiny head into the soft flesh of my mouth to resist gravity? Or, sufficiently tamed by the calamansi acid, would it do a slow dance of surrender, its death throes ticklish on my tongue? Like all of God?s creatures who had been seriously wronged, would it whisper some curses against this monstrous carnivore who had swallowed it alive, probably consigning me to a lifetime of constipation or diarrhea?
I gulped. Everybody was enjoying the salad, some closing their eyes the better to savor the sweetness of the tiny shrimps. I quickly dunked a shrimp in my piping hot soup until it turned red and popped it into my mouth. Mmmm, sarap! I declared, miming satisfaction by rubbing my belly several times. I finished the soup, got up and left several jumping shrimps to their tabletop fandango. I crossed the plaza and bought an empanada -- fried crisp, bloodless, and perfectly still.
