SM Bonus Pork Head

You've been to the market, right?  Of course you have!  Hanging strips of meat covered with flies is a common sight at the market. But what about a supermarket?  In the Philippines there is not much difference.  The meat is not covered so it is swarmed with flies with the only difference being none of it is hanging and no one is shooing the flies away by constantly waving a wand with strips of shredded paper at the end.

Imagine you are walking around your local SM Supermarket and you see this:

None of that meat is covered!  Maybe you can't tell from the pic but in real life the meat was looking less than fresh. The colour was a dull red indicative of exposure to air. And what about that pork head?  Whew!  Only 92 pesos per kilo. Want a close up? Of course you do.

Can you see his eyelashes? His teeth? His booger? Look closer!

Only 92 pesos per kilo!! Oink, oink baby!

The pictures above were all taken on a Friday. Guess how Zuckerman's Famous Pig looked by Sunday.

That is Some Pig!  Looking rather Terrific and Radiant! The split snout gives the face a most Humble demeanour.

In all honesty though what is different between the way meat is displayed at SM and the way it is displayed at any market around town?

Lechon!!!!

If you live in the Philippines or are visiting the Philippines then you either have or will inevitably be chowing down on lechon. It's the national food. Rice, Red Horse, and lechon. That's what Pinoys live on. But have you ever considered the process of how that tasty pork makes its way to your plate? Let me show you.

First of all you need a pig.  Can't make lechon without a pig.

That's a right fat looking oinker going on the last tricycle ride he will ever take. Those two gentlemen are delivering that pig to a house where a fiesta will be had and a pig is needed to feed all the guests.

Once the pig arrives he has to be killed. Simply plunge a knife into his throat and drain him of his life. After that he must be washed and gutted. Slash open the abdomen and remove all the entrails and replace them with spices like lemongrass and garlic and whatever secret combination your family might have on hand. Then sew him up and shove a pole right through his mouth and out his anus and you are ready to go.

While you were getting the pig ready hopefully someone else was preparing the fire pit where he is to be roasted. 

That may not look like much but it will get the job done. After two hours the pig corpse should almost be transformed into tasty lechon. 

Notice the pool of pig juice in the ash pit. Hungry yet?

The next step after the lechon is fully cooked and ready to eat is to box it up for the fiesta.  When it's party time, eat and enjoy. Don't forget the gravy.

If you ever wondered how a pig becomes lechon now you know!

Panaad Festival Held In A Construction Zone

The second week in April was the premier festival of all Negros Island, Panaad.  This festival allows each city on the island to showcase their local delicacies as well as fashions and other cultural folkways like dancing.  On previous visits to this festival I was on the search for real honey. So I made my way to the organic section of the festival which was located in a different place from past years.

Because it was early in the morning not many people were out. Walking around nothing really caught my eye.  It seemed to be the same old products I have seen being sold at mall kiosks and other organic fairs. That this display of undisputedly fake honey was allowed into the Panaad Organic Village turned me off to the idea of actually finding any real honey.

That is a display of Wise Man's Food Pure Honey which I wrote about in 2017 and which incidentally if you search that name this blog is the first of only two results! Wise Man's Food is fake. Green honey is not to be found anywhere in nature. Who audits these vendors?

Ennui set in real quick as I realised I did not wish to spend much money anyway.  Certainly not P200 on a bottle of dubious honey. Walking across the area was a bit of a chore because there were large rocks and my slippers were thin. Rain had fallen the previous night and muddied up the place making the situation worse. Finally I found a vendor selling coffee for P15.  I bought a cup and sat down to drink it in peace.

Looking around it occurred to me that something was not right. Then all of a sudden it hit me. This is a construction zone! The organisers of Panaad had moved the organic market to a construction zone.  Look at these pictures:

Those steel girders are obviously the skeleton of a roof that has not even been completed. And how about all the rocks?  Those are not tiny pebbles.

In this photo you can see two tiny concrete pillars amongst the large rocks.

This is a trench filled with broken rubble surrounding one vendors stand. How is this even safe?

More rocks that must be traversed to access a vendor.  But this next one takes the cake.

These vendors have constructed a bridge to make access to their table much easier and safer. Otherwise there is huge trench that must be crossed. These people at least had the insight to know that having your customers navigate a deep trench is not a safe idea. So why didn't the organisers of the festival have this realisation? Who the heck thought holding any kind of activity in this construction zone was a good and safe idea? But remember in the Philippines safety comes last.

After finishing my coffee I looked around for a trash bin in which to toss it. I didn't see one at first but I did see these signs:

Where's the trash can so I can clean as I go?  It's right here of course:

What a joke. I really do not like Panaad and knowing that they moved the one aspect of the festival I have any interest in to a construction zone and that they allow vendors selling fake products makes me to never want to return.

Magic Powder

Lots of knockoffs in the Philippines. Fake Nikes, fake Louis Vuitton handbags, fake you name it!  Then there is appropriation of other companies logos or characters. Having a large cast of characters to choose from makes Disney especially vulnerable in this regard. All one has to do is slap a picture of a popular Disney Princess on their product and it is sure to sell. Like this Magic powder.

What does Magic Powder have to do with Elsa and Frozen? Is the powder supposed to be like shaved ice? Like snow? That would be weird because Olaf is hanging onto the hem of Elsa's garment as they ride off. Is she taking that singing and dancing snowman to the factory to be ground up into Magic Powder? Do you want to eat a snowman?

The ingredients are all sugar. There is no magic at all! What a gyp. Or maybe the magic is that if you share this candy with your sister you will be friends again? But Elsa is giving her too trusting sister Anna a rather devious and unfriendly look. Did Elsa poison her? Is this Magic Powder poison!?

Despite being only 5 pesos, a mere pittance, I did not buy this laughable product. Who knows what is really in this Magic Powder. Happy Star Food Manufacturing Marketing Corp. is listed as the distributor and they are also likely the maker. If you look them up you find the following:

Agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) have arrested three illicit trade violators in three separate areas in Northern Mindanao. 

Suspects Ricardo Rabago Jr. and Melodina Sabala  of Gusa were separately held while in the act of selling 6,000 and 4,000 packs, respectively, of fake Mighty and Marvels cigarette brands in two different locations of Barangay Poblacion, San Fernando, Bukidnon. 

Aside from the packs, NBI agents also seized a sales invoice of the fake cigarettes issued by a certain Happy Star Food Manufacturing and Marketing Corp. to Rabago. 

https://businessmirror.com.ph/2017/01/04/three-illicit-trade-violators-fall/

A food manufacturer that also manufactures fake cigarettes? In the same plant? Does it really matter if they manufacture them or are just the middle man? Why is this company allowed to be remain in business? The FDA and DTI should take their business permit and Let it Go.

The Filthy Pig Table

There is this night market kind of place where they slice up a pig and sell the meat every single evening. I have wanted to get a picture of that but I have not been able to do so. But recently I was able to get a picture of the table on which the pig is slaughtered. Here it is in all its gory glory!

Can you see what is going on with this table?  No? You want a close up? Ok. Here is a close up.

Can you see it now?  Can you see all the filth?  The dried blood and flecks of flesh? You would need a microscope to see all the salmonella and e-coli and listeria embedded in this wooden table but you know it's there.

Contrast this foul, unclean, blood caked table with this table down the street.

This is a stall where fish is sold. You can see the scales on the floor.  Pretty gross. But a tarp is covering the wood so they can place the fish on the tarp and even cut them up and then wipe it clean. The germs won't stick! Or they will stick less.  Anyway it's a heck of a lot more clean than the bloody pig table.

Do they wipe it clean? I don't know.  But I know the table where they slice open the pig is absolutely disgusting and whoever is buying pork from that butcher is risking their health.

Pop-Up Restaurant

One thing the Philippines is famous for is it's food. Balut, dried fish, adobo, lechon manok, liempo, lumpia, chickenjoy, Jolliburgers, Philippine cuisine is very well known globally due to the diaspora and annually there are rumours it is poised to take the culinary world by storm.

That's all well and good but just because one has eaten a piece of chicken prepared the Pinoy way doesn't mean you have partaken of Filipino cuisine in the proper manner. There is more to food than just cuisine. In three words it's location, location, location. It's the difference between eating fish and chips at a chip shop in the UK and eating a fish filet and french fries at your home in the US.

The only way to truly enjoy Filipino eats is to consume them in a pop-up restaurant. 

These types of restaurants are popular all throughout the Philippines. The premise is simple: find a vacant lot or stretch of sidewalk and quickly set up shop. Then start serving food. That's it. Be sure to find an empty space close to an area with a lot of traffic like right outside the mall.

Attracted by the smells wafting through the air and guided by their hungry stomachs customers will come pouring right in. And they had better act fast before you are forced to close up shop forever because you have no permit to operate, no running water, and are a major health hazard to anyone who would venture to consume the food you have prepared.

Time to move to another location, location, location!

Brother Murders Brother Over Sack of Rice

Another Cain and Abel story from the Philippines.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1030547/farmer-shoots-brother-over-sack-of-palay

An argument as to who owned a sack of palay led to the shooting of a farmer by his older brother in Barangay Bialong here on Monday afternoon. 

Investigator PO3 Albert L. Tajan, of the Mlang police office, said Danny Platon, 43, was shot by his older brother, Pepito, 47, both of Barangay Bialong, Mlang, North Cotabato,  about 1 p.m. after a heated argument. 

Tajan said Danny and his twin brother Dante hauled one sack of palay from a drier owned by one of their nephews. 

Pepito confronted the two and castigated them for taking what was not theirs. 

This angered Danny and his twin brother who both punched Pepito. 

During the fight, Danny reportedly picked up a wooden club to hit Pepito, who pulled out a handgun and shot his brother. 

Relatives rushed the wounded Danny to the hospital while responding police arrested Pepito. 

Pepito is now detained at the Mlang police jail facing for frustrated murder charges.

This happened in North Cotabato a region not known for being peaceful. Likely the gun was homemade. Likely there were deeper issues between these brothers. Given the violent response when confronted it seems Danny and Dante stole a sack of rice from their nephew and Pepito was not ok with that.

Now a man is dead and his brother is the one who killed him.

All over a sack of rice.

Stolen Bananas Drives Man to Murder His Own Brother

Brother killing brother is as old as Genesis 4 and the story of Cain and Abel.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1029809/cafgu-member-kills-bro-sis-in-law-over-stolen-bananas

A member of the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit (Cafgu) beat up then killed his brother and sister-in-law after quarreling over bananas allegedly taken from his farm in Pinukpuk town on Sept. 4, according to a belated police report on Saturday. 

Rafael Madayag allegedly battered his brother Basiano and his sister-in-law Irene with a piece of hardwood then hacked them, said Inspector Carlos Damagon, officer-in-charge of the Pinukpuk police. 

Madayag buried their remains at a vacant lot near the slain couple’s home in Sitio Sagongab Palong in Barangay Taggay, police said on Saturday. 

The couple’s nine-year-old son managed to escape and reported the murder to village officials and the police, who collared Madayag at a checkpoint. 

Damagon said the brothers have been feuding over the family farm.

Never steal another man's bananas. But now who will watch over the family farm?

Big Mak, Super Mak

A while back an article about a copyright infringement case caught my eye. A Philippine restaurant had been selling "Big Maks" and McDonald's sued over the name which is obviously a rip off of "Big Mac." The defendant was cleared of any wrong doing because they switched the name to "Super Mak."

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/988685/super-mak-not-big-mac-copy-sc-says-in-ruling

The Supreme Court said testimony and documentary evidence showed that LC Big Mak was now selling “Super Mak” burgers and not Big Mak anymore.

I had never heard of this company before but shortly thereafter I saw one of their delivery trucks.

The Supreme Court rules selling "Super Maks" is not copyright infringement but calling the company "Big Mak" is just fine.  

Clearly there is still copyright infringement going on just with the name. Or maybe not. Maybe L.C. Big Mak Burger, Inc. is in the right and it's all just a misunderstanding like McDowell's from Coming to America.

Me and the McDonald's people,
we've got this little misunderstanding.
See, they're "McDonald's".
I'm "McDowell's".
They've got the golden arches.
Mine are the golden arcs.
They've got the Big Mac.
I've got the Big Mick.
We both got two all-beef patties, sauce,
lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions.
But they use a sesame seed bun.
My buns have no seeds.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=coming-to-america

"See, they're "McDonald's". I'm "McDowell's". They've got the golden arches. Mine are the golden arcs. They've got the Big Mac. I've got the Big Mick. We both got two all-beef patties, sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions. But they use a sesame seed bun. My buns have no seeds."

See, they're "McDonald's".
I'm "McDowell's".
They've got the golden arches.
Mine are the golden arcs.
They've got the Big Mac.
I've got the Big Mick.
We both got two all-beef patties, sauce,
lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions.
But they use a sesame seed bun.
My buns have no seeds.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=coming-to-america

All those little changes make a big difference right?

Let's take a look at the Super Mak.

Gross. Definitely nothing super about this burger. It's like every other burger you can buy at any two-bit "restaurant" in the Philippines. How about instead of covering that footlong red hot dog in cheese slices they place the cheese on the burger?

This burger is so pathetic I doubt Wimpy would ask Popeye to buy him one. Not even Jughead would eat this sad burger with its greasy bun, shrivelled meat, and lack of condiments and dressing. Oh wait there is a bit of sauce but what is it? The same gross pink concoction you find everywhere else.

Nothing like getting your condiments in a bag!

Different burger from different store but same pink sauce.

It is mayo and ketchup? Maybe. I don't know but it does not exactly taste like it. As for the taste of this red hot dog and shrunken burger? Take a wild guess.

Bland and tasteless.

If you happen to see a Big Mak in your area don't go. Save your money.