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This Culinary Contest Helps Preserve Ilonggo Heritage

Tabu-an is a unique regional culinary competition that spotlights Ilonggo heritage cuisine and ingredients

How exhilarating to be back in Iloilo City not only to attend but also to judge the tenth year of Tabu-an, the Western Visayas culinary competition. While this tenth year had bigger tents for each group, set amidst the grassy open area of SM City Iloilo, the early years had venues that looked like a driveway and one that seemed like part of a garage. No matter, one could feel the enthusiasm of the contestants to show off what they know of their province’s cooking. Then, on its 8th year, to use the term of the younger generation, the “level-up” happened when the location moved to the Iloilo Convention Center though the cooking was still done outside considering how the methods involved using firewood and charcoal.




Tabu-an will always be the best culinary competition for me because it preserves the heritage cooking of the region by using the ingredients of the place, the cooking vessels, and the cooking methods. And while the final outcome will reflect the taste and aroma that are needed, the presentation brings such heritage cooking to the present, worthy to be served as gourmet cooking anywhere in the world. After all, the contestants are from the culinary schools in the region.


The indefatigable founder and organizer of the yearly Tabu-an is Rafael “Tibong” Jardeleza. He had just ended a successful food festival “Flavors of Western Visayas” at The Manila Hotel in August where he cooked and showed just how to present his region’s cooking to the capital city. Then immediately after, he conducted several competitions throughout the region to choose who would represent the Western Visayas provinces. The ten contestants for 2023 were from Lambunao municipality of Iloilo, Guimaras, Roxas City in Capiz, Aklan, Antique,  and in Negros Occidental, San Carlos City and Bacolod City.




With the teams’ recipes on hand, I disturbed their cooking by asking about ingredient names or cooking methods which are usually in Hiligaynon. Even if I’ve judged through eight years of the competition, there are still new terms to learn. For instance, bichuelas is white kidney beans, agihis is small clams or tulya in Tagalog, papisik is cooking in a pot, kinusipad is shredded. The funniest was an Aklan dessert–nagaeugaeog, by competitor Team Blue Flame. This is a milky dessert named after the Aklanon word, "to wallow," and is a reference to a popular Aklanon tongue twister about a carabao wallowing in a mudhole. You may not be able to pronounce it correctly, but they got the last laugh because their dessert won third place — it is cassava cake with carabao’s milk, toasted desiccated coconut, paired with ginger ice cream topped with coconut curd (latik).


Appetizers were first to be cooked. Yet appetizer in the Ilonggo context is quite different from the Western meaning. Jardeleza explained that it is the Ilonggo abregana can mean breakfast food, merienda, as well as a small tastings at the beginning of a meal.


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Tabu-an celebrates traditional cooking using the old methods | Kevin de Asis

Apart from appetizers, each team had to cook a main course and dessert. But once a course was finished, it was presented to the judges, complete with the explanation of the dish and including instructions on how to proceed to taste.


For the abregana, top winner was Team Uma who cooked the ubiquitous batchoy—soup of pork innards with miki noodles. While quite simple and seemed ordinary, it was outstanding in flavor, had no pork pieces but the flavors were there and accompanied by the usual puto the team made from scratch.


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First prize, appetizer category: batchoy by Team Uma | Kevin de Asis

Second place was Team Cocina Brigada who cooked a rice porridge, linugaw nga ugat (beef tendon) kag prepilla (with beef tripe) nga may tinapa nga tiloy (with smoked tamban or herring)


Third place was Team Iloilo Province who presented pinamarhan na alumpiran nga pantat kag urang (braised mudfish and fresh water shrimp soured by a wild vine called alumpiran).


The main course had Team Kasinamnam as top winner with their Callos de Iloilo. The team was quite impressive because they made their own chorizo Español and morcillas on competition day itself, worrying that those would not be ready when it was time to cook.


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First prize, main course: Callos de Iloilo by Team Kasinamnam | Kevin de Asis

Second place was Team Uma again with their Tuba sa Nipa Pato. The pato (duck) they roasted onsite was stuffed with lemongrass and sambag leaves, an herb also known as sampa-sampalukan because its much like the tamarind leaves, then presented with a wrapped glutinous rice (pusô) cooked with tuba sa nipa (sweet sap from the nipa palm).


Third place was Team Cocina Brigada whose entry needed a longish name because all ingredients were mentioned—bat-ang nga pata sang kanding (grilled then boiled goat shank) saVino sang Bugnay kag tablea Tsokolate (then cooked in bugnay (ild berries) wine, fruit juices and alcoholic flavorings and thickened with chocolate).


Dessert top notcher was Team Kasinamnam who presented an array of sweets known at specific places in the region—Balasan cassava bibingka (rice cake), Ilonggo butterscotch sorbetes (ice cream), casuy bandi (cashew brittle) from Antique, bugnay (wild berries) -poached mango with Calinog Tsokolate Ah.


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First prize, dessert category by Team Kasinamnam | Kevin de Asis

Second place was Team Cocina Brigada with Dinulce nga Ube Sorbetes, Pastel de Leche, Quezo de Bola-Pinipig (milk cake spread with ube ice cream and ube halaya, and a tuile of queso de bola and pounded young rice). 


Third place was introduced earlier, the tongue-twister from Aklan.


We, the judges, all agreed that through those ten years of Tabu-an, this group was the best, so far, dishes cooked perfectly with creative presentations. The overall champions were decided by the number of winning entries in each category. Team Cocina Brigada was the topnotcher with a place in all the categories. The runners-up both had two winning entries—Team Kasinamnam and Team Uma. 



Shortly after, the announcement of winners was made during the program all receiving trophies with the heavy mortar and pestle, the symbol of Tabu-an, medals and congratulations from the judges. For us judges, a well-deserved thank you to sponsors SM City Iloilo, Southwest Tours and media partners. 


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