Lechonnoisseur

Iwas a health buff. I used to jog Sundays some good stretch from home to an ultimate destination: Talisay lechon. It sort of developed into a real talent by some good measure and there is my topnotch cholesterol to prove it. So here I am now, a lechon emeritus with an occasional visiting professor status.

But, yes, I know lechon. I’m Cebuano enough to know which pigs bluff, and which ones linger like a requiem for a dream. Even if Pulse Asia or Social Weather Station takes the task, I wouldn’t buy the figures. Lechon allegiance is real-life rite, and any act of solemn reverence is beyond the discipline of statistics and marketing gimmick.

So how do you know if your lechon emerged from the cinder of a real pig pundit? Check the skin. No, not for its crunchiness. Check the whole pig for breaks in the skin. A true lechonero meticulously preserves the integrity of the skin by arresting a break with a hot press using an iron rod on the edge of a small tear. He takes pride in that piece of perfection lying prone on your table.

I grew up with an indisputable lechon absolute, and that was Talisay lechon. Nothing beats Talisay lechon, but the years diffused the fact because the old lechoneros moved on by getting employed by abled investors. And why not, any teeny lechon business seemed like a losing proposition, being beset by bureaucracy from unreasonable abattoir fees to whatnot. And that should be a message to the Talisay City Government. If it should pay reverence to the holy pig with a festival, let it on the other hand do the walk by crafting enabling policies to the lechon business. Provide incentives, build state-of-the-art facilities, un-tax the lechoneros, introduce new technologies to raise hogs that sport the look of sumo wrestlers.

The bureaucracy, the oversight, the large fees, the neglect, and all the oblivious eating, they all led to the whole lechon war that is threatening our national security, er, this social media hullaballoo. They all got Anthony Bourdain wrong. When he said he found the world’s best pork here, he meant Cebu lechon, and not just that one sliver that found its way on TV.

So it’s okay if you make that claim today as a true-blooded lechonnoisseur, and go about your day dishing out your best lechon listicles on social media. It all boils down to the true craftsmen that drive the skewer. They who pour a whole lechon tradition so you can, with the divinity of grand ceremonies, stab that magnificent red flake through which oozes magic and cholesterol.

I can understand this whole bashing on social media on who possess the best lechon in this part of the planet. This is mostly carried out by people in denial of their concurrent hypertension. Let us instead give each other a high five. By that I mean five kilos.

So how do you know if your lechon emerged from the cinder of a real pig pundit? Check the skin. No, not for its crunchiness. Check the whole pig for breaks in the skin