Tags: Seafood, Truly Pinoy Food and Drinks
By Alexander Villafania
DAGUPAN, PANGASINAN — Dried, deboned, smoked or marinated, the milkfish is one species of a truly all-around fish.
The riverside town of Bonuan in Dagupan City is perhaps the most popular spot for buying milkfish, or bangus in Filipino. Rows upon rows of cages made of hold stocks of farmed bangus line up the river that runs across Dagupan City. The stocks of these fish farmers are among the prized products in wet markets. In some cases, fresh supplies of bonuan bangus run out even before they land in some of the stalls as baskets of these are hauled away by traders who would transport these to other places within and outside Pangasinan.
Bangus is so important to Pangasinan that the province has its own annual event called the Bangus Festival, which ostensibly celebrates the popularity of milkfish. It happens every year in mid-April.
But bangus is not just a staple product from Pangasinan, certainly not only from Pangasinan. The fish, with the scientific name chanos chanos, is actually a wide ranging, ocean-going fish that is found in many coastal areas and estuaries in Southeast Asia. It can also be found in the cold waters of Japan and Australia, and warm waters of Hawaii and Galapagos. Because it lives close to coastal areas and also often upstream in freshwater rivers, the bangus is easily harvested and can be farmed. They can even survive in muddy or brackish water. They are also not that hard to feed as they eat only zooplankton, soft algae and sometimes larva of other fish.
But even with the same type of food that all bangus eat, the species from Bonuan is especially favored primarily because of its sweet taste. Not even the fish farmed from other areas in Pangasinan and even from Pampanga, La Union, and Zambales could match the taste of Bonuan bangus.
Dagupan City’s river system is composed of a few small inlets and larger waterways such as the Pantal River. All of these connect to each other and reach out to Lingayen Gulf. Also, Dagupan City’s riversides have some mangrove forests, which helps in spawning algae that the bangus feed on. According to Dagupan City’s National Integrated Fisheries Technology Development Center Director Westly Rosario, one of their hypotheses for the Bonuan bangus species’ tasty flavor is the composition of the clayish soil in Bonuan, which helps in producing algae for the bangus to eat. Likewise, the soil also contains high concentrations of calcium that make the fish bones bigger allowing for more meat. Also, the location of Bonuan, between Lingayen Gulf and the downstream rivers, is ideal for growing the fish.
Bonuan bangus also has distinguishable marks that set it apart from other types of milkfish; it has a shorter head and a smaller lobe (lower) tail fin. Rosario explained that these genetic uniqueness of Bonuan bangus are due to the feeding system employed by farmers over the century, wherein the milkfish were fed with sun-dried algae that has been set under water. The fish would thrust downward to reach the algae instead of upward where aglae are mostly found. This process took years until a unique type of milkfish was produced.
There are about a dozen types of cooking methods for milkfish and Dagupan City’s wet market helped in creating new processes of preparing milkfish. The most popular is boneless bangus, which is essentially splaying the fish and removing the bones. This method makes it easier for people to eat the fish without having to worry about swallowing the fine bones. Deboning milkfish can be tricky as it also requires the need for forceps the get to the smaller bones.
After deboning, milkfish can also be marinated or “tinapa.” This is done by soaking the fish in salt, pressure cooking it for about two hours, drying it under the sun and then smoking it. Another process is “daing na bangus,” which is marinating the fish in vinegar and garlic. This also makes bangus even more delectable.
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