ALL THE FOOD IN THE TAAL PUBLIC MARKET WITH ERWAN HEUSSAFF

Do you always have breakfast like that? Everyday. Everyday? Don't you get tired of it? No. Why? Because it's too much. Poetically referred to by its ancient name, Kumintang, Batangas is thought to have gotten its name from the term Batangan, which means a raft that people used to use so they could fish in the nearby Taal Lake. As the first province in Luzon explored by the Spaniards, it's one of the last few preserved heritage towns in the country, where one could walk along cobblestone streets lined with traditional houses. Being so close to Manila, it's an easy day trip that I hope everyone gets to make one day. Naturally, our favorite way of getting to know a location is through its food. When you say and talk about Batangas food or Batangas cooking, it's basically traditionally just putting all ingredients together and come up with the best dish. They'd say, There's an eerie sense of contained energy that you know that within the next 30 minutes this place is just going to blow up. It's currently still only 4.30 a.m. and we're after some breakfast and we wanted to kind of try to shoot everything as it was made fresh to really give you that insight and that access to what makes these places tick. There was no better place to start than at Mang Bikos, a little no-sign eatery off the main market where people line up as early as 4.30 in the morning to get their breakfast noodles. They go through close to 80 kilograms of pancit every day. Pancit ni Biko traces its origin from Ludovico Militar, who people referred to as Mang Biko. He told me, There are people who buy almost every day. We told them, They said no, they really like it. And it seems like they don't have enough time to eat the pancit. I'm just in awe of just how many people all of a sudden rushed. Once the pancit came out to the counter, everyone kind of just converged and wanted their order. So I feel like it's something people want right away, quickly, eat right here on the street. Sustainable packaging, standing up. Craziest part about it is, not only have they arrived, but they've already eaten and they've left. So it's a bit quieter now. 5.15, 5 pancit. Finally got my order. Let's try this. Mmm. Two predominant flavors really come in. One is that pepper. It looked like a lot, but it feels actually really well balanced, so the guys know what they're doing in the kitchen. And because you want that extra protein in the morning, that extra chicharron that you can put on top. And I'm getting an oiliness at the top of my palate, on my lips, so you know there's some pork fat in there as well. And that's what makes this so good. And I can understand why this is something people would line up for in the morning, because if you're looking for quick, delicious sustenance, you have everything you need right here. We sell pancit for 20 pesos per packet. And tamales are 25 pesos. We're the ones who make it. We make it in malagkit, and it has meat and eggs inside. Tamales, egg, you can see the echuete and natto there. I'm not sure what the filling is, but I'm seeing some chicken. It really makes such a huge difference when it's freshly steamed and still extremely hot. It's such an underrated kind of snack that we have in the Philippines. I think everyone should experience it. It's hot. It's still hot. That's why it's still hot. Once everyone was done eating, people were ready to open up their market stalls, and I couldn't come here without learning more about their tapang tal, which has its roots in the early 50s, when the western side of Batangas had many native black pigs. To preserve their meat, the locals decided to marinate it. Now there are dozens, if not hundreds, of stalls selling it here and around town. Dindo, I love coming to markets because for me it truly is the heart of a city, of a town, and it gives me a good idea of what people here are like because I feel like the market is where you are at your purest, right? I'm glad to know that from you. And when I walk into here, the heart of the heart is the tapang tal. Yes. I'm not going to pretend and go two ways about it. I was very ignorant of what is food in Taal, but I didn't know one thing, and that was tapang tal. Each stall would have their own identifying formula or recipe. However, it boils to the same thing. Of course. Enormous amount of garlic, enormous amount of calamansi, the native lemon, and soy sauce. And that's very important. And that's the vibe I get. A lot of the recipes here are passed down and passed down and passed down. Yes, handed down to the nephews, to the children. Just a few steps away from the entrance, we met Ate Lori, who has been selling this delicacy for the last four decades. I am Lori de Leon, the owner of Mar and Lori de Leon Special Tapa and Longanisa. I have been making tapas for 40 years. Tapang taal is really pork, not beef. But when someone requests beef tapa, for example, other religions want beef, we make beef and they order it to us. Piggy of pork, like this one. What is piggy? Piggy is pork belly. Pork belly. Because the meat is there. The marination of tapang taal is like this. We mix our mixture with the tapang slice, then we mix it like this. Our process of making paninfla, we also have a secret. There is a little prayer, I hope it will be delicious. There is love involved. So that the blessing will enter. When I started, I was really having a hard time because I didn't have vinegar back then. I was still mixing vinegar. But if I wasn't patient, I would give up. Until we had vinegar, it came back. This is the cooking of tapang taal. So nana was telling us we have to eat this very hot, right? Yes. It should be eaten while it's still hot. Very tender. I was almost expecting this to be a bit chewy, but it's not. It's very bone tender. Very tender. So in 40 years, did you ever change the recipe? Or always the same recipe? The same. From the old. Was it written down? Yes. Or just estimate? Written down. It's written down? Yes. I never changed the recipe. So you follow it? Yes. Oh, wow. But what is the minimum time of marination? It's better if it's fresh. And the secret sauce? I'm not going to tell you guys what her secret was, but it made a massive difference when she was cooking. I'm pretty curious about taal's famous empanada since they only use vegetables. Cabbage, upo, sotanghon, and hibe, or small dried shrimps. The one I'm going to get it from, Ate Wena, has been selling it for 32 years. She inherited the recipe from her late father and sells 600 kilos of taal empanadas every day. What I appreciate here is that everything is cooked fresh. So I love it when we find places that batch cook every few minutes to make sure that people are getting their food hot. So this is one of the things that I find the most unique, is they're pumping out empanadas on one side. The market is fully alive. And they've expanded so much, and the volume surpassed what they could produce from this central stall here. And obviously you're in a market, so it's really hard to expand your space. The one thing you need to do is open more stalls. So what they've done is they've separated the production, one place for all the cooking, for all the insides that are going inside, and then the other place over there for all the rolling out of the dough and putting that together. So quite ingenious. Logistically, maybe a little challenging, but at least it gets them to serve hungry customers quickly and fresh food. The most popular actually is the empanada ng gulay, which is just a mix of vermicelli, the tabayag or the upo, and a little of the shrimp flavoring. It's really hard to be a parent when you're teaching your child, you're looking for a job, and when they're out on the streets, you need to have a place to sell so that you can buy food. Before, we only had a small table. I was with all my children when they were looking for a job. They were under the table. I was discarded for my children. Wherever you go in the world, especially in South America and in the Philippines, you have empanadas, and they are different in each place you get them. This is probably one of the most unique because it has some sotonghong noodles inside. But more importantly, it's really just vegetables, pepper, a very seemingly simple filling, and because of the light crispiness and slight doughiness and pull of the dough, it really comes together quite well. I understand why people are such a fan of this stall. Because right outside, you get that sweet crunchiness, crisp. Inside, you have that doughy pull. I could eat tons of this. Immersing yourself into the town's culture, it's simply just the basic exploration of every corner of the town. When I noticed that Biko has become a part of the town's culture, my heart was filled with pride. What I've learned in life is that even if you make a wrong choice in the market, you're still cool. Even my people, even if I'm too brave, as others say, but my people, I've been around for 11 years, 12 years, no matter what comes their way in life, they're still brave on the ground. Always like that, brave on the ground.