Filipino food

What a catch! The exotic fish dishes of Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental

Mike Baños

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What a catch! The exotic fish dishes of Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental
The most prized fish of them all, the magnificent Tapiroid Grunter, sells for as much as P1,500 per kilo in the local market, if you can get it

The waters off Camiguin Island and Misamis Oriental abound with barracuda, jacks, wahoo, skipjack, and Spanish mackerel, which not only make good eating, but are also prized by sports and leisure fishermen for their fighting qualities.

According to the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, some 45 of the 54 major species of Philippine fishes are found in the Camiguin Channel and Gingoog Bay, which are both contiguous with the adjacent Macajalar Bay.

Similarly, the Cagayan River abounds with mudfish, catfish, spotted scat, tarpon, and other indigenous species like goby, Goldie river mullet, Loach goby, Bluespot gray mullet, Bengal eel, and the most prized fish of them all, the magnificent Tapiroid Grunter, which sells for as much as P1,500 per kilo in the local market, if you can get it.

For a somewhat cheaper but no less tasty treat, there’s also the green-yellowish freshwater snapper, which can be had for P300 per kilo.

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What to look out for when buying fish

What to look out for when buying fish

While that seems by itself already a wide menu to choose from, still there are more that make a truly unique gustatory experience.

Kagay-anon Titus Velez recalls the time when there used to be a bamboo fish cage owned by the community in Cagayan River.

“We used to make inun-un with a yellowish fish,” Velez reminisced. “Some time ago, sarap and hipon were still easy to catch in Zone 7 Carmen and Macasanding.”

“We also got two types of shellfish (bivalve and suso) from Zone 7 Carmen which we would let stand in a pail or basin of water for a day to allow the shellfish time to spit out any dirt or any other substances they may have ingested before cooking.”

Inun-un means to stew with vinegar, salt, and spices such as ginger, onions, shallots, pepper, salt, and sometimes chili pepper, with very little or no water added to the broth.

Another Kagay-anon knowledgeable in indigenous fishes, Felipe Abrogar, said inun-un is the best way to cook the Cagayan River’s fishes.

“I find tadlungan (Mangrove red snapper) tastier because it has a meat-like texture. During our summer vacations before, we would just bring some rice wrapped in banana leaves and eat kalaykay (clamshells) by the riverbank because they were so abundant. But now they have disappeared as a result of the sand and gravel quarrying upriver,” Abrogar said.

A constant traveler and mountaineer, Carl Cesar Rebuta loves ginataang suso (shell) or sinabawang kalaykay (miniature clams soup).

Kalaykay is also the same Bisaya word for rake, or raking because that’s how one can look for these small clams under the sand. It also falls under the more general term of manginhas (shell gleaming in the sand), which residents along the seashores or riverbanks indulge in during low tide.

Chefs Candy Lu of Candy’s Cafe and Cathy Dano of Thai Me Up both expressed a penchant for the exotic pigok (Tapiroid grunter), although Dano said she also likes pinyahon (oilfish) and banak (sea mullet).

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US-based Kagay-anon Gwendolyn Ramos-Garcia, author of Memories of the Old Hometown, said she has fond memories of the more esoteric portion of the pigok which is its bihod (fish roe), because her late mother Pureza, a former city councilor, used to cook it for their family.

Garcia said, “We don’t cook the bihod whole. Instead, we break it up and season it with a dash of salt. First saute minced garlic, sliced tomatoes, sliced onions, add julienned ginger strips in olive oil or any kind of cooking oil. Add the bihod and mix well. Add some green onions. Bon appetit!”

The bihod serves an appetizer that one can put on top of rice.

“[It’s] super delicious because it’s not salty unlike guinamos (fermented anchovies sauce),” Garcia said.

Another exotic dish, from Talisayan, Misamis Oriental, was the meat of the whale shark, locally known as tawiki, which is now a protected species.

Medel Tacna, who hails from the town, recalled how they used to enjoy the meat of the gentle giants.

Tacna said there used to be a whale shark fishery in Giwanon in Talisayan which has since been shut down by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR).

“Tawiki meat was very tasty and we used to buy them from fishermen in Giwanon,” Tacna recalled.

A small eatery there called Nita’s Place was known for its tawiki dishes.

Tacna said there was dried tawiki meat which was either fried or broiled, “but if the meat was fresh, it was deliciously cooked in coconut milk.”

Although not exactly a fish, the sea urchin, locally known as tuyom or swaki, was another favorite dish. The jelly-like creature tastes very fishy and is best eaten raw like kinilaw (raw seafood in vinegar and spices).

Pickled and bottled, it can be bought from itinerant vendors along the seashore and in fish stalls along the highway in Talisayan, according to Nana Malferrari Uy, whose family owns the famous Mantangale Alibuag Dive Resort in Balingoan town. 

Not the least, a favorite exotic fish dish in Misamis Oriental is the deep-water pinyahon or pinya-pinya (oilfish), one of about 25 species of the Gempylidae family of perciform fishes commonly known as snake mackerels or escolars.

Elongated and similar to the barracuda, the largest species grow from two to three meters long. 

Local gourmands call it Darigold (after a brand of evaporated milk) because when one has had too much of it, the effect will be very much like drinking a full can of evaporated milk. The fish has a high proportion of wax esters that are not digestible.

Because of its dubious reputation, pinyahon is relatively cheap at around P140 per kilogram, but rarely exceeding P200. 

It’s easy to cook: simply season with a little salt and pepper and smoke it on your grill, carefully brushing back the oil drippings and turning it as needed so it won’t blacken and singe. 

It remains a perennial favorite among those who can reasonably tolerate it, so don’t dare leave Cagayan de Oro or Misamis Oriental without at least tasting it. – Rappler.com

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