The great food open house
Food picks for your Christmas shopping
This year’s 11th MaArte Fair transformed itself into MaArte oPEN House by taking over 29 guest rooms at the Peninsula Manila last month. It recreated the laidback atmosphere and inspired energy of the famous open-house parties of the North Syquia apartments, where once a year, the residents would leave their doors open for guests to apartment hop for cocktails, food, live music, and even all sorts of performance art. An invitation to one of the famous open houses was like gold in those days.
A fundraiser for the National Museum of the Philippines, the MaArte Fair is organized yearly by the Museum Foundation of the Philippines, Inc. (MFPI). It’s become famous for chic, unique, handmade, creative, innovative, local items that are handpicked from merchants who champion Philippine art, crafts, and heritage.
There was also a curated selection of local food items on offer—quite a few of them not yet available commercially. These are some of my favorite products from this year.
Auro Chocolate’s Premium Reserve Collection
The three bars in the collection are single estate chocolates, which means the cacao for each bar comes from just one farm. This makes the chocolate like wine, because each chocolate bar picks up flavors from the farm’s terroir, and each variant tastes different. Tupi is from a farm in South Cotabato where the cacao grows next to pineapples. This gives the chocolate bar a fruity, slightly tangy flavor. Saloy is from Davao, and has a rich mouthfeel and vanilla undertones. Paquibato, on the other hand, is smoky and has the flavor of coffee running through it. Auro Chocolates have won international awards for bean-to-bar chocolate. The company is all Filipino and a passionate advocate of social entrepreneurship. A 100-gram bar from the Reserve Collection is about ₱290, the perfect pasalubong for chocoholic friends.
Felicisimo Gourmet Homecooking Kaffir Lime Tinapa and Chicken Liver Pâté
What started as a little home business now provides a small community of local housewives in Pasig with additional income. Felicisimo Gourmet’s owner, Jamie David, sources most of the seafood from her home province of Bataan and believes in making everything from the freshest raw ingredients, with no preservatives. The Kaffir Lime Tinapa is a fairly new offering that pairs fragrant, tangy Kaffir Lime with the smokiness of tinapa. A welcome addition to the usual flavors on offer from other merchants, it’s perfect on crostini or with a bowl of rice. The Chicken Liver Pâté has a whiskey kick to it, with a slightly rough, rustic texture and clean flavors. Other things to try are a slightly sweet homemade bagoong, and bottled flower crab fat. Prices for the bottles range from ₱350 to ₱450.
Green Babes Spicy Bicol Express Tinapa and Sinantol
The owners of Green Babes consolidate and offer products from small food businesses that do not have a mall or commercial presence. While their primary commodity is organic eggs, including very highly regarded 16-day balut and salted duck eggs, their product offerings from Bicol are also very good. The Bicol Express Tinapa is smoky, spicy with the kick of red and green chilis and rich with coconut cream. Sinantol has a sour tang that is smoothened out with, yes, more gata. If you need a present for Bicolanos living abroad, or want to stock up collegebound kids with a taste of home, these products are perfect.
House of Bacolod by Creative Definitions
The company has consolidated the best of Bacolod’s famous food products under one roof. At the MaArte Fair they sold the famous
ensaimadas from Felicia’s, as well as cheese rolls (which are being offered for the first time), Casa Carmela bottled products,
piaya from Virgie’s, and many others. My top picks after the ensaimada are Felicia’s sweet and chewy Pili Crumble, and the bottled smoked bangus, pompano, and chorizo
pudpud from Casa Carmela. The smoked ban
gus is subtle and delicate, with just a mild smoky flavor, a clean taste, and no harsh garlic flavor. It is my favorite bottled smoked bangus.
The bottled pompano has the same garlic and tomato flavors as bacalao, without the overt saltiness.
iBuen Provecho (By O&M Home) Naranja y Ajo, Spiced Fig and Olive Tapenade, and Spiced Green Mango Jam
iBuen Provecho recreates BicolSpanish flavors from the owner’s memories. Among the range of bottled items, my favorites are these three variations on fruit preserves and chutneys. Naranja y Ajo is like a savory orange marmalade that will go well as a relish for fried pork, as a salad dressing if mixed with olive oil, vinegar, and Dijon mustard, and as a pairing for hard cheeses. The Spiced Fig and Olive Tapenade will work well as a condiment with chicken relleno or roast turkey, while the Spiced Green Mango works as chutney for curries or can be mixed with cream cheese to create a spread. These make great additions to a gift basket for a Noche Buena spread.
Tsaa Laya’s Cacao Tea
What a way to make use of all parts of the cacao plant! Tsaa Laya takes the unused portions like the husk and some nibs and turns them into a tea that tastes like tea with the chocolate’s fruity undertones. The Cacao Tea comes in various flavors, including Cacao Mango and Cacao Mint. The Cacao Tea is new on the market and builds on Tsaa Laya’s focus on rediscovering the Philippines’ herbal tea traditions, taking local herbs, fruits, and spices and transforming them into modern tea ingredients. As a social enterprise, they partner with farmer communities in developing sustainable herbal livelihood programs. Colorfully packaged, the products make excellent
pasalubong because they are light and don’t spoil.
While the MaArte Fair is really all about the beautiful and artistic items that can be purchased, there was also a curated selection of local food items on offer—quite a few of them not yet available commercially.