An Authentic Taste of Native Delicacy
I am Rowena Bayangan Gonnay, an organic practitioner from a village with less than 500 residents in the municipality of Pasil, Kalinga, Cordillera Administrative Region, the Philippines. The recipe I introduced in the workshop is a sacred snack in my culture called “Inanchila”. In our Indigenous language, “chila” means tongue, and the name Inanchila indicates that its shape looks like a human tongue. Inanchila was nearly forgotten because many different kinds of commercial snacks flooded into the market in the recent decades.
The ingredient of Inanchila is the precious heirloom variety of rice, “Chaykot”. This variety of rice is strongly linked to the local Indigenous culture. For us, people in the Pasil Valley, Chaykot is what we inherited from our forefathers. To recognize the value of it is to pay respect to our cultural heritage, as well as to support women farmers in Cordillera who toil in the field to preserve the seeds. People tend to forget the original variety that was planted and sustained by Indigenous Peoples with the introduction of hybrid or high-yielding varieties.
That’s why I have been devoting myself in the effort to continuously cultivate Chaykot to revive the production and sustainability of this crop in the community and to preserve the authentic taste of our native delicacy. In addition, the system of farming we have long been implementing in the rice terraces helps to mitigate impacts of climate change and to preserve biodiversity and the environment. Also, to pass on the knowledge, and the best way to learn is by doing, I have involved youth in the farming cycle from land preparation to harvest.
However, even though we have been promoting the cultivation of Chaykot, it does not mean that we want to have large-scale production. We are concerned about the use of chemical fertilizer to produce more heirloom Chaykot or glutinous rice if there is more demand. Fortunately, the local government assisted us through introducing and teaching farmers how to produce and use more environmentally-friendly organic fertilizer.
The Chaykot rice is often presented as a gift for newlyweds since it symbolizes prosperity and food security. That is also why in the past, Inanchila was sacred and only prepared when there was a newly wedded couple or if people were going to visit elders. And in return, the couple must butcher animals like native pigs or cows. During the process of preparing Inanchila, youth is especially needed because it requires strong women to pound and mash the rice and youth are the ones to serve the snacks.
It is important to acknowledge the role of food plays in our lives, and the bond it has with our cultural heritages. Biodiversity also means food diversity and thus makes the recipe developed accordingly unique to a particular region reflecting the rich gastronomic heritage our forefathers had bestowed from generation to generation. This fact needs to be appreciated and respected. I have the vision to let the whole world know that there is good, clean and fair food in every Indigenous community. Every one, no matter Indigenous or not, should work together on preserving and sustaining all Indigenous products, especially those embedded in our culture and tradition.
Rowena Bayangan Gonnay
Cook
Host of Slow Food On AirA member of Slow Food Community
– Preserving local traditional/indigenous knowledge of the food heritage of Pasil