PASTILLAS, MACAPUNO, ETC.
Sweets and delicacies have long been famed products of Bulacan. These generated income opportunities to many Bulakeños knowing that this type of industry can be easily manufactured even at home.
Among the well-known manufactured sweet goods in the province are pastillas de leche, pastillas de yema, pastillas de ube, macapuno/ube balls, minasa, inipit, ensaymada, cassava/rice cakes, puto, kalamay, suman, and among others.
Pastillas de leche is basically a candy made out of milk and sugar. It is rolled into thumb-size pieces, wrapped in white paper and then packed in different colorful papers.
The best thing about the pastillas de leche is that once popped inside the mouth, the partaker finds the grits of sugar and the slow, gentle melting of it in the mouth and offers a heavenly goodness of pure carabao’s milk. It gives not just sweetness but also creaminess and softness of a candy that one would crave for more.
Coming in different varieties, this delicacy in San Miguel town has become an addiction to travelers and most especially to its locals.
A gateway to Nueva Ecija and Cagayan Valley region, San Miguel town is a favorite stopover for travelers who crave for mouth-watering pastillas de leche out of carabao’s milk.
According to Rafael Payawal, popularly called as “Ka Ape”, who is one of the oldest living residents in San Miguel, the pastillas industry in the town traces its history to the Spanish period.
“San Miguel as an agricultural area has many carabaos. Because of this, people thought of capitalizing it for other uses aside from farming activities. And so they came up with collecting its milk and developing it into pastillas,” Payawal said.
Due to growing demand, pastillas has become at par with farming as the main livelihoods in San Miguel.
Now, the number of commercial pastillas makers is growing in number. Among these are Ocampo Sweets, Sevilla Sweets, Andrea Sweets, Garcia’s and Ricmar’s. Their common secret? It’s the freshness of the carabao’s milk, which is pasteurized immediately upon delivery and uses it for pastillas making.
They are prominent because of the extraordinary ingredients used and procedures done to achieve a flavor that one will continually look for once tasted. This unique quality of Bulacan sweets has made them favorite “pasalubong” to love ones.
CHICHARONG BABOY
DAYS before Valentine’s Day, Sta. Maria town in Bulacan province celebrated a festival dedicated to a snack that sometimes brings heartburn.
Makers of “chicharon” (pork rind crackling) in this first-class urban town were given their well-deserved recognition during the 9th Chicharon Festival held on Feb. 10.
Sta. Maria’s chicharon industry is composed of more than 20 chicharon makers, providing the town its unprecedented economic boom in years, said Fortune Lorenzo, municipal planning and development officer.
It has also made Sta. Maria a tourist attraction, drawing people who want a taste of the town’s most famous product, said Marina Concepcion, municipal tourism officer.
“We inherited this industry from our grandparents,” Concepcion said.
The Sta. Maria chicharon is billed as a Bulacan brand at par with the “sisig” of Pampanga, said Jimmy Corpuz, ex-officio chair of Bulacan Heritage Conservation Society.
STA. MARIA’S famous “chicharon” CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Pacencia de la Torre-Tuazon started the local chicharon industry as a backyard trade to make use of leftover portions of a butchered hog in the early 1900s.
Some producers have their own “secret preparations” for making chicharon, but others have been importing pork skin from Spain, Australia, United States and Canada.
“The demand for chicharon is high and because Filipinos have consumed a lot of the snack, we now have a supply problem with pork skin,” said Reynaldo Buenviaje, 69, owner of “Daboy Chicharon.”
Buenviaje started his chicharon business in 2002, taking lessons from an aunt.
Jennifer Torres, producer of “Jenny’s Chicharon,” said she and her husband started the business in 1986 and had made a killing selling microwavable chicharon packs.
Last week’s festivities included a cooking festival for college students who showed new recipes that would make good use of chicharon. Students of St. Joseph’s College won first prize for their “chicharon steak.”
