Filipino national fish

Tribute to Bangus.

My childhood favourit especially Relleno. Hell Yeah!

I found an interesting article on bangus! Here goes:

Bangus, milkfish, is a silvery, fine-scaled favorite among Philippine fishes because of its sweet white flesh, and its fat belly which melts in the mouth.

Bangus is found on everyday and on festive Philippine tables, and is known as well in Taiwan (sibahi), Burma (nga tain), Thailand (Pla nuan chan thaleh), Vietnam (Ca mang), Hong Kong (Yuk sor), Indonesia (Bandeng), and Malaysia (Pisang-pisang).

Whereabouts

This same species is abundant on the Pacific Coast of the United States; its range extends also to the Red Sea, East Africa, Japan, Australia and Taiwan.

Characteristic

This fish has, however, a characteristic that bequeaths exclusivity, and had prevented wide popularity: it is boney, with many spines, which Filipinos have learned to pick out of the flesh on the plate, or to soften by cooking in vinegar so that they can be ignored.

Working it

Some two decades ago, however, an Iloilo housewife, wishing to spare her husband the trouble, undertook to debone it with tweezers.

Now her technique for removing the 38 branching spines (between the dorsal muscles), 14 along the lateral muscles, and 16 fine ones (along the ventral muscles) has caught on.

In the Iloilo markets, young boys chat and sing, barely glancing at their hands working the tweezers.

Boneless bangus of all sizes are found in markets, supermarkets and restaurants.

Bangus is hard to catch, since the adult fish decline bait and leap over nets. The technique for many years has been to catch the fry at sea and transport these for breeding sometimes a hundred miles distant.

An old account says they used to be captured in April, May, June, July, then placed in large water-filled jars (palayok) for conveyance to ponds.

Today,

advanced aquaculture techniques have enabled the mixing of sea and fresh water in the fish farms, the production of fry, and their speedy transfer to ponds, where they are fed mechanically then harvested, leaping and live, sorted for the market (anything short of perfection, even a few missing scales, is rejected), blast-frozen.

They thus reach customers' tables only a few hours away from the water -- certainly more freshly and quickly than they could from any fish market.

Filipino gastronomy

Bangus is cherished by Filipinos in many forms and for various reasons.

Many remember:

-Fishpond picnics, where the fish are not scaled, just gutted, stuffed with tomatoes, onions, salt and black pepper, and thrown on coals till the flesh is soft and white, and the skin fragrantly charred.

-Sinigang: cooked in broth soured with tamarind or kamias, or guavas and with vegetables

-Paksiw: cooked in vinegar with eggplant and bittermelon (ampalaya)

-Blackbeans or bean cake

-Onions in a soy sauce-calamansi marinade

Although pond fish are not usually prepared kinilaw (briefly marinated in vinegar, ginger, chili, and other condiments) where bangus is available live and fresh, it is, as in Dumaguete, Negros Oriental.

-Chicaron: some restaurants have taken the silvery skin, dried and crisp-fried it into a kind of crackling

-For breakfast it may be split open, marinated in vinegar, salt and pepper, and fried crisp to go with garlic-fried rice.

-Tinapa: Sometimes it is available smoked golden, to eat with a salad of ripe tomatoes, onions and salted duck eggs.

-Bangus Relleno: Mostly at party tables, stuffed with its own flesh sauteed with vegetables and condiments, then fried golden brown.

- The belly is specially treasured for its melting tenderness, and is now luxuriantly marketed in belly-only packages, which has encouraged some restaurants to offer a constellation of "prime-cuts" (fried, grilled, sinigang, paksiw, etc.)

Young chefs to invent nouvelle delights:

-Al Porbe style: cooked Spanish style (with garlic) or wrapped in bean skin and steamed.

Availability

Bangus is now available to all who love it.

It can be small and inexpensive, or large and pricey; it is a constant in wet markets and supermarkets, and as an export product for Filipinos abroad and for non-Filipinos.

At the 1999 Anuga Food Fair in Cologne, where bangus bellies were cooked with ube, squash, seaweed or saluyot (Jews' mallow) noodles, foreigners asked: Where has this tasty fish been hiding?Where?

in the Filipino heart, of course, and in the food memories of many generations.

(Note: Doreen and I have worked together in various projects that promoted Philippine culture. When I left for the States and became involved in the importation and distribution of value-added bangus, I did not have to ask Doreen twice to work with me on a little compilation of bangus recipes.

Together with a very talented designer, Carminnie Doromal and working over the internet, we produced BANGUS DISCOVERY:

A Culinary Treasure from the Depths of Sarangani Bay for Alsons Aquaculture Corporation.Dr. Doreen Fernandez, PhD, chairperson of Ateneo's Department of Communication, writer par excellence and a foodie at heart passed on a few years back. She will be sorely missed.)