‘Pinangat’ traders keep Albay town on tourism map

By Ephraim Aguilar

Southern Luzon Bureau

Last updated 10:26pm (Mla time) 12/01/2007

CAMALIG, Albay -- If huge fast-food chains have “drive-through” outlets, this town has its own version.

But instead of hamburgers and fried chicken, it sells the town’s famous native delicacy—the pinangat.

Lurking in profitable corners of this town are stores along the main highway, where travelers passing by could simply stop and buy pinangat.

Pinangat—Camalig, Albay’s town product—is a famous native vegetable cuisine cooked in coconut milk mixed with select spices.

Its main ingredient is the taro leaves, which is gabi in Filipino and natong in Bicol.

Rolando Nicerio, 38, is one of those entrepreneurs who make pinangat more than just a household delicacy. He creates a product even tourists can enjoy.

He is the owner of the thriving Dad’s Special Pinangat that he put up in 1999.

Nicerio says he started cooking pinangat when he was 12.

He lived in his aunt’s house, who was a home economics teacher and, at that time, a maker and seller of pinangat.

“I learned to cook pinangat by helping my aunt prepare the orders. At age 12, I could already cook pinangat alone,” Nicerio says.

A management graduate, Nicerio told himself after finishing college that he wanted to put up his own business since searching for employment was like a wild goose chase.

Nicerio did not have second thoughts that it was pinangat-making that could earn him a living since it was a craft that he knew very well.

He was also encouraged by the cheap raw materials that would not require him a very big capital.

In 1999, the year he started his business, the ingredients were very cheap, he says.

Coconut was only P2 to P3 per piece while taro leaves cost only P80 per sack.

He could cook 70 to 80 pieces of pinangat from a budget of P500 and earn more than P1,000 in return.

The pinangat was then being sold at P25 per piece.

“I started cooking 30 to 50 pieces of pinangat and sold it in my house. After a week, I was making around a hundred pieces of pinangat every day,” Nicero says.

Now, after storms ravaged coconut plantations in Bicol late last year, a piece of coconut costs P12 to P15.

Nicerio says he only used coconut from Bicol for his pinangat since this variety produces a sweeter milk.

Meanwhile, a sack of taro leaves now costs P480. The pinangat is now being sold at P30 per piece.

Nicerio would get coconut from his relatives who planted coconut at the foot of Mayon Volcano.

Nicerio says what makes his pinangat special is that he cooks it himself.

He says cooking pinangat is a meticulous craft and that he wants to make sure his product is consistently good.

There are two kinds of pinangat traders in Camalig—those who cook their products themselves and those who only sell what they have bought from pinangat-makers in the villages.

Nicerio says if the trader sells only what he cooks, he has easier control of the product’s quality and sanitation.

The first thing he does in cooking pinangat is sort the gabi leaves by choosing only the good ones.

He says the good variety of gabi for pinangat-making are the soft ones, those that grow along streams of fresh water.

Pinangat’s other ingredients are garlic, ginger and pepper.

Nicerio also adds shrimp, chicken, pork, or dried fish—depending on the choice of the customers.

Pinangat is sold either frozen or fresh, spicy or classic.

Nicerio cooks pinangat in firewood because, he says, it gives a better and more inviting smell for his pinangat.

Nicerio says packaging evolved through the years since pinangat was becoming widely recognized as a town product.

Before, he says, customers would not mind if the pinangat was wrapped in a plastic bag. But now, since more tourists buy pinangat, they have to wrap it in a foil, then in a plastic or styrofoam.

Nicerio, who is also president of the newly formed Pinangat-Makers’ Association, says the Department of Trade and Industry in Albay has been helping them improve the packaging of the town product.

The DTI gave the association for free 35,000 designed boxes labeled “Camalig Pinangat.”

It also bears “nutrition facts” in the glossy packaging, which made the local cuisine marketable even in malls and more presentable as gifts or pasalubong.

However, the new packaging increased the price of pinangat since each box would cost P7.

There are no exact accounts in Bicol history that show the origin of pinangat.

However, Legazpi City Museum curator Dr. Erlinda Gonzales-Belleza says abundance of taro leaves had been depicted in the famous Bicolano epic “Ibalong.”

There was a scene in the epic wherein a wild boar attacked the “linza” plantation of folkloric hero Baltog, who was believed to be first settler in the land.

The line goes: “To Bicol (Baltog) came pursuing a fierce wild boar, which by nighttime destroyed his linza plantation.”

Linza is a root crop from the taro plant, Belleza says.

Nicerio says pinangat was originally cooked as what is presently known as laing in earthen pots natively called koron or palayok in Filipino.

Laing is a simple dish of taro leaves cooked in spices and coconut milk mixed with meat or seafood.

In the passing of time, Nicerio said, the natives thought of improving the way the food is garnished to make it more presentable to visitors.

“The natives learned to wrap the mixture in gabi leaves and tied it with dried coconut leaves,” Nicerio says.

The pinangat has also been known to have medicinal benefits since the ingredients are herbs, says Nicerio. Every serving is Vitamin A-rich and has a good patronage among Chinese buyers.

Nicerio says pinangat is saleable since it is a delicacy unique to their town. It is easy to market locally since the industry is already well-known.

“Buyers from other places would troop to Camalig only for our pinangat,” he says in the vernacular.

Nicerio says he also saw great export potentials in the pinangat. He says the pinangat can keep long for as long as it is kept frozen.

Frozen pinangat is also served as a sandwich spread.

Sales peak from November to June.

He says most of his buyers are people visiting Bicol during the Christmas and summer seasons.

During the week, there are more buyers on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Nicerio, who would soon open a restaurant in Camalig, also accepts orders from Metro Manila.

The payment is done through money transfer and the pinangat is delivered a day after the order is placed.

Dad’s Special Pinangat also sells bottled Bicol Express—chilies and other ingredients cooked in coconut milk—for P75 each.

Camalig is a developing agricultural town of around 13,000 hectares east of Daraga, Albay at the southern part of Mayon Volcano.