Usapang BABOY!

     Cebu’s lechon is famous for its worldclass delicious taste. In fact,  TIME Magazine declared “lechon”, a Philippine pork delicacy, as the “Best Pig” on its  Best of Asia 2009 list.

You could call it the Platonic ideal of a pig, but it’s doubtful if Plato, or even an entire faculty of philosophers, could have imagined anything so exquisite,” said TIME writer Lara Day on the magazine’s write-up.

       The claim was even made more famous by celebrity TV chef Anthony Bourdain when he chose to feature Philippines during the episode of “No Reservations” (American travel and food show on the Travel Channel) - shot in different localities of the country including CEBU.

     On Bourdain’s blog entry titled “The Hierarchy of Pork”, he declared the pork he tried in the Philippines as the “best in the world” followed by Bali, Indonesia and Puerto Rico.

      But since the rise of scam called “Gi-laplapan” – the dishonest and deplorable practice of certain dealers of slicing off a considerable portion of the lechon that they deliver to clients, the delicous picture of the famous Lechon Cebu is at stake.

Here’s the Praxis:

      The newly roasted lechon may looks delish  and whole when delivered but actually with cracks in several portions of the lechon’s crunchy skin. The cracks in the skin are often thought of as resulting from the heat and fire while roasting. However, upon slicing beyond the crispy skin, you will notice that there are portions that appear to have already been skimmed off. The skin apparently has been sliced earlier before the lechon reached the client and the crispy skin “craftily” placed back together to appear whole.

    This Modus is not new to us. This is not only well practiced in CEBU but in some parts of the country as well.

     I can still vividly remember my father’s frustration when he ordered LECHON from a known neighbor nearby our house in Davao Oriental. Same treason had happened.

     The worst thing is he was overcharged unreasonably and unfairly.

      LECHONG BABOY may not be an original Filipino Cuisine as this special culinary masterpiece has been part of the long Filipino history brought by the Spanish Colonizers, hence the name Lechon which is a spanish word for suckling pig, BUT, the fact that it was made famous because of how Filipinos prepare it and made it on the map of world’s best cuisines must be a REASON enough that we should take care of that honor.

As what the essence of LIFE says: Its not WHAT it is. Its HOW it is.

A lechon is not a Lechon because it is a pig. But because how it was

roasted for hours over a fire of open coals, slowly rotated on a bamboo spit, lovingly basted and meticulously supervised until its flesh is so tender, moist and succulent that it can be sliced with the edge of a plate, and its skin so crisp it can be punctured with the tap of a finger. – Lara Day of TIME MAGAZINE

MEANWHILE,

      My Friends and I wanted to make sure that we can still taste the best of Lechon Cebu’s quality before  it’s extinction.

 

LOCATION: Talisay, CEBU CITY

Photo courtesy of: Marlou Talledo