Blessed and Bountiful Negros

Published on: 17th January, 2010

By CHARLIE COJUANGCO

I’ve been to many parts of the Philippines and the world, and if there is one realization I’ve had in all of these travels, it is this: There’s no place like home. It may sound trite or cliché, but it is true. There is no place like Negros. Always, in foreign lands, I cannot help but thank God at how blessed and bountiful Negros is. by Charlie Cojuangco

Sunset in Pontevedra

People ohh and ahh over the famous Manila Bay sunset but they haven’t seen the one in Pontevedra, my hometown. I’ve been watching that sunset for decades and it never fails to take my breath away. It takes many forms and slowly changes color before your very eyes – from orange to red orange, to magenta, to fiery red [not necessarily in that order] before it is swallowed by the sea. Like all of  nature, no one sunset is the same. You stand there watching and you cannot help but say a prayer of thanksgiving for such beautiful blessing. It is a pity not many people have realized this. I guess this is another example of people not seeing the trees when they’re in the forest.

There are plenty of other blessings we here in Negros should thank for. A trip down the Candaguit-Marayo river, also in Pontevedra gives one an opportunity to commune with nature. Here you see the varied hues of nature [it's amazing how many hues of green nature has!] as you glide quietly through the soft flowing water.

Or how about going through  Buenos Aires, Bago city,  to La Carlota? It’s a tourism drive: you see the natural beauty of the land,  from the mountains to the sea and you even get to go through a forest to boot.

I also once drove down Salvador Benedicto going to Murcia, at around 5 p.m. As the sun was going down at the

Business Inn Kansi

distance, the scene was simply incomparable: the sea was like a silver spread which bounced some kind of a sheen on the outline of the hills and the trees and  the hues were changing. You don’t get that anywhere in the world.

There is also that  Acacia lane on the way to the forestry station in La Castellana: several meters of road covered by age-old  trees that could rival the grand Acacia drive of McKinley Road in Forbes. Every Negrense should see and experience that.

And then the blessing that many of us, in the humdrum or haste of our everyday concerns, do not even realize: the gift of silence, especially the silence in the mountains. For me who goes back and forth the farm and the Big City, it is a pleasure that never fails to move me. After days in the Big City where most of the sounds you hear are car horns and motor vehicles wheezing by, of people hurrying, of whirring machines and all that, the silence in the mountains stirs the soul. The pleasure is even heightened when the silence is broken by nature’s sounds, like the crowing of the birds, the whispers of the wind, or perhaps the distant rush of a river. To think that this is a pleasure free for all to enjoy, for as long as we want.

The Sheryn Kansi

Each place is blessed by a wonder but I sincerely think Negros is several times blessed.

Even the food we have is something else. I dare say the Negrense culinary heritage is the best in the country. Where else can you have pastries like  Piaya that uses several kinds of sugar? The way we prepare our food speaks so highly of our people, our past, our culture. It speaks of a people who has the luxury of savoring the finer things in life. People who worry about more mundane matters will certainly not be able to think of doing barquillos. Or lumpia.

Negros has been blessed by nature with the ingredients and our people have matched it with skills. Food is one area where we have truly done justice to what nature has given us. Some people may laugh at this, but I’ll take our uga nga tabagak [dried herring] over anchovies anytime. As a general rule, uga in this province is always,   as the slang goes, “more good than bad”. I mean, our province is so blessed, it is hard to find bad uga here.

The camote  is also good,  you only need to cook it as simply as possible:  over coals.  Dab butter on it and you have a gustatory delight.

There is also the nutri pan of Bago: pan de sal that has enough softness. It goes very, very well with Star margarine queso real.

Our native chicken , cooked slowly as tinola, with garlic, onion, pepper leaves, and green papaya is superb.

Bistek Tagalog of L'fisher Hotel

People in other parts of the Philippines may take pride in the way they do their lechon but I dare say there is no substitute at the way we do it with sampalok, lemon grass, salt and pepper.

And where can you find the best Bistek Tagalog? Not in Luzon, but in L’Fisher Hotel, right here in Bacolod!

The kansi of Sharyn’s in Capitol Shopping also in  Bacolod is tops, and so is the version of Business Inn. Kansi, which is our version of the Bulalo, is truly a tribute to the Negrense taste buds: where other regions serve it with vegetables, we do ours with little else but salt, ginger and batuan. The utter simplicity of the recipe forces the true goodness of the beef  to come out. Now, that is cooking! *

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