My Conversation with Simpol
Simpol is no other than Chef Tatung Sarthou. He is the author of the recipe book entitled, Simpol.
Our conversation with the chef was postponed 3 times. It was first arranged by the staff of the Bohol provincial tourism office thru the recommendation of Atty. Dhoy Nunag who heads the office. The original date was March 14, 2020 but Covid intervened. The second date was supposedly immediately after the tourism bubble when Secretary Verna Romulo was here, but there was a surge. The third was scheduled during the holy week, but again travel restrictions prevented us to hold the meeting. Finally on June 25, 2021, we had our face to face conversation here at our Blue Apartelle with his staff of 7.
Who is Chef Tatung?
As a boy, he loved to eat and to cook in his grandmother’s kitchen. He grew up in Cebu and finished his studies at the University of San Carlos. Having shared the same school and his being a Cebuano gave us reasons for an opportunity to develop easy rapport. The chef used to have a column in a Cebu daily and again another connection with my son-in-law Raymund Fernandez who also had a column in the same daily.
Simpol is in u tube as well as in print. His book is friendly in the sense that it gives one an ample space for developing techniques in cooking thru tanchatancha . The focus in our conversation was about local cooking and local ingredients that can identify Bol-anon cooking. These were the two things I could think about that limited time that we had. I was his last stop from Loay, Loboc and Carmen.
- Boholano cooking is simple in the sense that everything is fresh. Kinilaw is one example. Many would just kilaw food fresh from the sea. Ilunod lang ang kilawon sa tuba, butangan ug luy-a, sibuyas bombay ug asin. Payts na, di ba?
- Trese klase for holy week was another beautiful issue we tackled where 12 kinds of vegetables will just be picked by you from your garden. These could be: alugbati, udlot kujapa, bago, kamunggay, udlot kalbasa, talong, atsal and all the rest could be bought from the market like monggos, kalbasa, nangka, tamabalijong – basta moabot lang ug 12 ka klase nga utanon. Ang ika-13 mao ang isubak. According to traditional belief, the 13th represents Jesus Christ.
At present, for our 13th nga isubak, we have to contend ourselves with the tinap-ang tullingan or dried fish otherwise called as buwad. We used to have balilan or sanga. That was before, because people are now prohibited from catching these varieties of fish as they are becoming extinct. The kijampaw or pagi could also be another good material for our isubak.
Talking of the sanga, I really don’t know why most people, including me, love this kind of fish. Ambot bitaw gyud nga mingawon man ta anang klaseha sa isda karon. Tinuod, bisan matud pa nila lain kuno ang baho apan lamian kaayo pagakan-on ug usapon labi na gyud ug isugba. I remember that our friends from the island of Pamilacan would bring the sanga and the balilan and the pagi from their island to the mainland. I also remember my Lola Danday’s way of cooking the sanga. Paghuman ug sugba sa sanga, palopalohan aron mahumok. Igo ra man tong isawsaw sa tubang suka, butangan ug asin ug hiniwa nga kamatis na dili kaayo hinog.
Otherwise, the linabog style of cooking the sanga was also good. But this was done only on very special occasions.
And I met Chef Tatung and I found out why the tinap-anan tulingan dili asinan. I have always been wondering why our tinap-an tulingan dili man mobukad ug dili man guapa. Kung ato diay kuno nga asinan ang isda, musamot diay kay kupos ug ok-ok iyang gidak-on.
I remember the very good cook LINO REAL with his fried chicken. He would just pour into the dressed chicked some vinegar or calamansi when he was about to fry the chicken meat. The perfection to a dish is something you have to discover yourself as you go along in your journey to the kitchen. And your heart must be in your cooking. They say that we should not cook when we are angry because the outcome would be a disaster.
Our conversation with the chef strayed for a while to our heritage walk organized by BAHANDI: Baclayon Ancestral Homes for Development Initiatives. We were not able to bounce back after the earthquake, and now that we are slowly organizing things, Covid intervened. Oh, by the way, I was not able to mention to the chef the vegetable called bago. This is a rarity in other provinces like Tacloban and Ormoc. But here in Bohol, there’s bago everyday. Lahi ra gyud ang init sa nilaw-oy kung dunay bago. Pero nihit na baya pud ang bago dinhi sa ato-a karon. Sa mga batan-on pa mi, mamago man mi. Lisud man gud ang pagbuhi ug bago.
Aaahhhhh, cooking is fun! I love it. Mangaon na ta!