Do You Really Know What Going Native Means?

[GregZ]

I read a lot here on the forum, especially in the "how much money can you live on" topics, about "going native", "living like a local", "simple life" and "cheap living".  There are more that I am not thinking of but you get the idea. 

 

My recent trip to the province got me thinking.  You know when they eat a chicken here they EAT the WHOLE chicken, everything but feathers.  How many reading this realize that?  For sure the folks that have not visited cannot grasp that one.  Or can you?  If you visit here in Cebu City the food vendors on the street have feet, heads, intestine and chicken blood on their little grills. 

 

I never really paid much attention to them because I got the meat that I am used to for me the few times we got food from them.  Most of the time our shopping is done in the supermarket and I don't notice those things there.  In the province though the chicken and the WHOLE chicken was for dinner.  One chicken fed 10 people.  We killed it; we ate it. 

 

Guess what?  They LIKE those parts I mention.  Internal organs of a pig also.  I never ate that stuff before but I am expanding my tastes currently.  I'll let you know if I get up to eating the feet and heads.  The intestine and 'chicken blood' are good.  The liver of the pig you can keep but I'll eat it if I am hungry.  For those that do not know, chicken blood is formed into cubes and put on bbq sticks to grill.  I have not asked how they get it to a solid form.

 

AND I also notice that when a roasted pig is put on the table the skin and back fat are prime targets for good eating right along with the meat.  I eat a little of the skin if it is well done and crunchy.  Just a little of the fat does me though.  I like to go a little deeper and get pure meat. :thumbsup:

[jpbago]

And the life expectancy of a Filipino is 61........

[Tukaram (Tim)]

I have tried some of those parts you mention.  Not all were bad... but in all honesty the chicken intestines did taste better when I did NOT know what they were.  I did not care for the blood sausage, but I bet their chorizo isn't much better "quality" parts - but is yummy!

[JJReyes]

A Hong Kong businessman was visiting an American chicken processing plant when he observed the factory workers hauling away the chicken feet and innards. He learned they had to pay a company to properly dispose the waste products. Before you could say, "Entrepreneur," a contract was signed to purchase all the leftover chicken parts at $.25 a pound, provided it was washed and packaged. He became a millionaire because America's waste is a delicacy in China.

 

Personally, I have gotten accustomed to buying chicken nicely cleaned and wrapped in a cellophane film sitting on a tray.

[Dave Hounddriver]

If you lived on a farm back in Canada (in the days when I was young) you would have noticed the same thing about animals killed there.  It was common for a farmer to butcher a beef, sell all the good cuts of meat and live on the brains, guts, balls, soup bones etc that no one wanted to buy from them.

 

My idea of going native, here, has more to do with living in a nipa hut.  I have quite a few friends who do it and they seem to have no problem with rats running freely, bugs everywhere, the occasional snake, neighbors walking in the door without thinking twice.  I need solid walls and roof so I can clean out the creepy crawlies and live in comfort. I have yet to see a nipa hut that does not have the creature problems I mention.  Even when camping back home I never put up with all the critters.

[JJReyes]

My idea of going native, here, has more to do with living in a nipa hut.  I have quite a few friends who do it and they seem to have no problem with rats running freely, bugs everywhere, the occasional snake, neighbors walking in the door without thinking twice.  I need solid walls and roof so I can clean out the creepy crawlies and live in comfort. I have yet to see a nipa hut that does not have the creature problems I mention.  Even when camping back home I never put up with all the critters.

 

The termites, wood boring insects, and creepy crawlers are attracted to green bamboo because the poles and bamboo paneling contains starch, a food source. Rats like to nest in the roofing materials. The presence of rats attract the snakes. The new treatment for bamboo eliminates the starch and replaces it with boron salt. The bamboo is more durable and fire resistant. If you use grass, nipa or anahaw leaves for roofing, you attract rats and snakes. The roof has to be replaced after five years. The new grass thatch roofing is made using some sort of polycarbonate. The material is non-flammable. It won't attract rats and snakes and the roof is guaranteed for 20 years. It will probably be okay for 50 years. Bamboo farmhouses in Japan are known to last 200 years.

 

As a precaution, coconut trees in Hawaii are wrapped with a sheet of galvanized metal. Rats can't climb. We have no snakes in Hawaii. Something similar with your nipa hut should work in the Philippines against both rats and snakes.

 

Gawd! The things I learn while doing research. An investment group is interested in bamboo farming. Each hectare absorbs 100 tons of carbon. You can sell the carbon credits. The current price for treated bamboo is $12,000 per container load or you can use bamboo to build quality homes in the Philippines. The bamboo farms in Colombia sell at $15,000 per hectare. First harvest is four years after planting. You continue to harvest for 50 or 60 years.

Edited July 2, 2013 by JJReyes

[GregZ]

If you lived on a farm back in Canada (in the days when I was young) you would have noticed the same thing about animals killed there. It was common for a farmer to butcher a beef, sell all the good cuts of meat and live on the brains, guts, balls, soup bones etc that no one wanted to buy from them.

 

I know what you mean with this eating of everything nobody else wants.  I had a friend that was born in a shanty in the swamps of Georgia.  He was raised to consider that everything off the animal is just made of different molecules, but they are all worth eating. 

 

My friend would eat the gristle off the bones from a chicken.  He grew up eating that and it tasted good to him.  I grew up NOT eating that so it does not appeal so much to me.  In my last 14 months living here in the Philippines I have begun to eat more of things I discarded before coming here.  Maybe an acquired taste?

 

Plea: It is appreciated if we keep this thread about the food.  I know the living accommodations are part of living cheaply also, but that is covered under other topics extensively.  I realize the title doesn't specify food but I'd like to read more on that.  Thanks.

Edited July 2, 2013 by GregZ

[JJReyes]

There use to be a restaurant named "Mariposa" (Butterfly) whose dishes were very exotic. Crunchy locust was a typical appetizer. Stewed larvae in peanut sauce was a popular main dish. The signature dessert was chocolate covered ants. Never went myself. It was more, "I dare you." rather than tasty dishes. The restaurant closed sometime ago. 

[Dave Hounddriver]

Ahh yes, you want to have people understand what it means to 'go native' pertaining to food only.  What about the way filipinas will have a perfectly good stove in the kitchen but prefer to go outside to put some Oling (native charcoal) on the ground and cook their food over that small fire because they like the taste better.  you can take the girl from her native surroundings but its harder to take the native out of the girl.

 

Then there is the way she serves the man (me) the best cut of the chicken, waits until I am done, then picks apart whatever is left on my leavings because I do not chew it all up and suck the marrow.  It used to bother me but now I let it go. Its what she likes to do.

 

And nobody who 'goes native' uses utensils.  Thats what fingers are for.  Ever tried eating rice with you fingers?  What about slurping soup from the bowl?

 

EDIT:  Or in the same theme, sitting around after eating and drinking from the same cup.  Tuba, beer, or Emperador . .  everyone drinks from the same cup, then passes it on.  

Edited July 2, 2013 by Dave Hounddriver

[GregZ]

What about slurping soup from the bowl?

 

The rest of what you said works for me.  :kidding:  There are some very fine points to eating rice with fingers.  AND when you do use utensils: spoon on the right, fork on the left... push things onto the spoon.  :th_goodidea:   I was so stupid in the USA when I chased around the peas with a fork.

 

WHEN do you use fingers?  When utensils?  There are particular rules around this.  I believe I understand them.  It is dependent upon hygiene.  If we can wash the hands first then we can use them.  If you eat somewhere and don't trust the dishwasher... just use hand sanitizer and dig in. :omg:

 

For the soup, we use spoons.  :7_4_17[1]: