It was almost noon when I reached Bugarin, Rizal (Sitio Bugarin, Pililla, Rizal) after 3 hours of land travel from Manila, to cover the town’s late annual harvest of crops, and check on their humble festivities a few days before the year 2006 came in. I was simply there to check what was left of the traditions of the old folks who used to settle there after World War II: the coconut dishes with pineapple and traditional Rizalian food found in places from Marikina to Laguna and Quezon.

With the sun’s heat on my nape, and the blistering yet cool wind blowing on my face, making my dry lips crack, I headed to the town’s boundary, which faced a thick, lush mango tree plantation overlooking Laguna Lake (or perhaps what was left of it).

Bugarin people celebrate the town’s feast  by sharing their local produce to their neighbors as a way of gratitude to God.

When I reached the highway curve which served as the entrance point of San Miguel, Laguna, a farmer was baking fresh Casapay from homemade cassava flour by the road. Dry wood chunks were set on fire under a handmade roofing of natural granite that served as the table for the baking sheet made out of old aluminum plates. Inside the farmer’s hut (which was more of a fruit store, full of bananas, ube, taro, ginger, pineapples, and coconuts), the farmer’s wife had put the well-proofed "yeasting" in the flour before kneading, then added some water. Her yeast was made of old fermented coconut juice (which was somewhat vinegary) and the white residue from the leaf of an unknown plant. After that, she kneaded the mixture and turned some good dough in a doubled amount, rolled it into shape (as big as pan de sal), placed it on the baking sheet over the heated granite, and covered it with a tin bucket or timba. She said it would be

ready in an hour "…but you have to let it breathe every 10 minutes to release the natural poison of the cassava." She was referring to the natural cyanide in the cassava. Of course, one has to let it evaporate during cooking time, without a cover, to prevent it from staying in the mixture.

2:00 p.m.

After I had some of the farmer’s bread, I went to visit the Bugarin Multi-Purpose Cooperative Store to check if Rizal’s most delicious Buko Pie (baked by the Villanueva Sisters) was available. Sadly, it wasn’t.

Just a few meters up the hill-house, I visited the town’s farming adviser, Rolando Villanueva. I asked for a bit of background on Rizalian cuisine, but he simply said that everything around us—everything I saw growing around me, was part of the town’s cuisine: guava for Sinigang, buko or niog for ginataan, and so on.

I was directed to the kitchen. An old tapayan (earthenware for water storage) was at the sink, which had a view of the greenery. A pile of fresh lumpia was heaped on a large plate, while a weird yet very aromatic scent was filling the whole kitchen.

Rolando’s wife Guadalupe was sautéing garlic and onions in a puddle of vegetables in a pan over a wood-fired stove made out of concrete. Rolando said, "My wife is cooking pancit," but when I checked the wooden table, there were no noodles.

Guadalupe said that she was using noodled fresh coconut meat in place of the pancit canton. She advised me to follow the traditional method of cooking pancit while substituting fresh coconut meat for egg noodles.

When the onions clarified with the golden-brown garlic bits in the boiling vegetable oil, she added some brined pork meat cubes with the fat intact. She added some peeled shrimp, and as they turned orange when the pan started to smoke, she sprinkled in about 2 tablespoons of patis, which sent a light, savory smoke piping out of the pan. That’s when she added the buko, along with some ground-chili, chopped cabbage, pechay, and some stock from the evening’s boiling of duck with leeks, pepper, and onions.

She let it simmer for a while, and advised me to wait on the terrace, which overlooked an intersection of the highway going to Quezon and Laguna.

4:14 p.m.

I ate some of the pancit buko with a soft drink bought from the sari-sari store across the road. It was a mixture of spices, creamy, and savory inside the mouth. It was perfect; especially when Rolando brought out some freshly-seared burger patties, sandwiched in a regular bun with banana ketchup.

I tasted the burger and it was good. It was as if I were eating a fast food sandwich, but it tasted really heavenly when he told me that there was no beef included as an ingredient in the patty. It was made of flour, desiccated coconut, salt, pepper, and egg. It was great.

I had to leave early for Manila, because buses were available only until 7 p.m. I said goodbye to the couple, but was prevented from doing so for quite some time. "Don’t worry, I’ll be back," I told them, and they smiled.

They gave me a large plastic bag with freshly harvested ube with brilliant purple color inside the skin, and a bunch of semi-ripe saba banana. Rolando followed me and said, "There is something inside."

When I arrived in Manila, I found a paper with the recipe for a traditional Rizalian dish called Minanok. It is a dish for when no meat is available for the table.

I found it sad that half a day wasn’t enough to absorb the culture of this humble town.