Merienda in the Forest: A Spiritual Experience?

Following our breakfast at Casa San Pablo, we all piled into our cars and went in a racing convoy with our police escort to the foot of Mount Banahaw.  It was a 25-minute drive through the back streets of San Pablo and then out into the countryside.

For the last half mile, the narrow road turned into a rutted track and the cars squeezed through the tight hedgerows on either side.




Our destination was Forest Wood Garden, deep in the forest, and in the shadow of Mount Banahaw of "holy mountain” fame.  Forest Wood Garden is a lush coconut plantation at the edge of the forest, an organic garden and, most importantly for CHOP, a place where they cook food foraged in the forest and plants grown in the garden.  Organic farmer Joel Frago (below) and his wife, Myrna Frago, a landscape gardener, own and run the farm.

We had specifically come for two dishes today.  The first is plantsado.  According to Pia’s write up, this is a food "made from endemic root crops found in the forest, mashed like nilupak, mixed with buko and then flattened using a traditional charcoal hot iron”.  In the photo above, you will see the red-handled flat irons and the lovely young lady ironing the plantsado between two banana leaves with the same care and delicacy that I use when ironing my dress shirts!  

When the leaves are parted, there is a scrumptious, crispy brown plantsado that tastes divine.  The fact that it is a product of the forest puts you in touch with a way of life and food culture that is both complex and beautifully simple at the same time.  This is the type of primeval food experience that culinary historians live for! In the photo above, Joel is showing us some of the roots that go into the plantsado--turmeric, I think.

Meanwhile, a long wooden table covered with a cloth of velvety fresh banana leaves is lined with coconut bowls from which we are going to eat another heritage food--pancit kalabuko.  Once again, I quote from Pia’s write up: “Before we were influenced by the Chinese, our ancestors made noodles from kalabasa and topped it with vegetables and plants gathered from the forest and slices of roasted wild boar”.

Roasted wild boar?  It makes your heart beat faster at the thought of our ancestors hurtling through the forest in hot pursuit of some gigantic wild boar.  Joel did inform us, however, that we should not get too excited because the boars that they find in the forest these days are a hybrid variety.  (Porcine Prius)?

Hybrid or not, when this roasted boar is mixed up with kalabasa noodles and forest vegetables, the slight gamy taste of the meat is perfectly complemented by the subtle and delicate flavors of the mixed vegetables.

 Kalabasa (squash) has been scraped out...  

 ...stir-fried with the noodles and fresh vegetables...

 ...and plated with as much pride as any fancy Manila restaurant.

 This is the local spinach--a little bit waxier and thicker than city spinach

And being on a coconut plantation, you can find fresh buko juice straight from the coconut.  I don’t care what it says on the side of the Vita Coco tetra box, coconut water straight from the coconut is pure nectar.   In the shadow of “holy” Mount Banahaw, I felt that we might have experienced something spiritual in the wild and delicious foods of the forest.

Our CHOP Food Trip was a day filled with magical food of all kinds.  But the simple taste of wild meat and fresh veggies was an inspiration to seek out every last fabulous dish in the Filipino food repertoire and to understand its culinary DNA.  No doubt, our dauntless CHOP leaders will make this dream come true!