LechóN

(Music fades in)

            Hello everyone. Kumusta ka. Welcome to today’s episode. Also, it’s December, so I guess we’re welcoming the most festive month of the year in the Philippines. After all, this is not only the month of the Christmas season but the month when the overseas Filipino workers go home, which means, packing all the big life events you can into those couple of weeks when everyone can be together. Efficiency for the sake of family and little else.

            Or that’s what my family did. And that’s why we have eight wedding anniversaries in the days between Christmas and New Years, and yes that does mean we doubled up on some days. But hey, you can always share parties. It’s about being a family, and weddings are just a way of expanding that family, right?

            Okay, I mean, I’ll be fair and say that I don’t necessarily advocate that approach as someone who gets easily confused about what we're celebrating when because you think the clustering would make things easier, but the opposite is true in my experience. Very much so.

            Whatever, that’s not the point. The point is that this month is also a time of feasting because it’s not a party without food and we sure do love celebrating during a celebration. And hey, when you’ve got food like ours, can you blame us?

            One dish in particular always stands out in my mind as a true celebration food. Namely because that’s the only time we had it. When we were in the Philippines celebrating something. Emphasis on in the Philippines because this isn’t the sort of thing that can easily be found in other countries. You certainly can’t just hop over to the nearby WalMart for it. And even in the Philippines, it’s something reserved for truly special occasions.

            It’s expensive, not just because of the prestige but because it’s a bit of a labor intensive process. And it takes an entire pig.

            Yep, I’m talking about Lechón. And that’s making me pretty hungry, but you don’t need to worry about that.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

            And that shouldn’t be so surprising, should it? That on a podcast about Filipino culture, I bring up a quintessential Filipino food. I mean, Anthony Bourdain called (quote) “Best pig, ever.”  Which is an opinion a lot of people share, but his opinion was certainly an informed one. But across the board, as far as pork dishes go, it’s a highly celebrated one. Even if you have to overlook the first impression, as in, the face of the pig staring back at you.

            When you grow up in an environment like the US--where everything is packaged neatly and in such a way that you don’t have to think about where you food came from--the fact that the pig is served with its face very much intact can be off-putting to some or many, but that’s just at the equivalent of what a carving station is. Maybe just avoid that table at a wedding. When you’re not getting food, of course. And hey, you could always just keep sitting with your family and not the pig , so there’s that.

            In the spirit of all the festivities happening this month, I thought it might be fun to look a bit deeper into this celebrated dish. Maybe I’m not going to be able to partake this year because Inay and I are going back in Spring not December because of my grandmother’s birthday, and time with her is the best times ever, so yeah, there’s that. But I can still reminisce fondly, but I probably should have had a snack before recording this episode.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

            Lechón is the sort of food that is so delicious, you really don’t care how it came to be or what its history is. You just want to enjoy it. You want to sit in the moment with the joy this food is bringing to you and have that be that, especially at a celebration.

            Honestly, and I recognize this is a bit of tangent, but part of what I have always loved about the food on my visits to the Philippines was that it seemed to bring us together. It was the anchor that kept us around the table, talking and laughing together. Even when the conversation lulled, as all conversations eventually do, even if the laughter died down for a moment, no one wanted to leave the table becase at least, it had food. You know what I’m saying: delicious, delicious food. Eaten kamayan or with the hands. Especially lechón. Any other way is just a bit impractical if you ask me.

            I so closely associate lechón with my childhood and those few visits that I can’t really imagine where it might have come from. Sure, other places have their equivalent of a suckling pig, but it’s not lechón.

            Funny then how lechón is actually a Spanish word then or not actually funny. It’s probably expected with that whole colonization that happened, some of the things that were brought into the colony were going to be made  useful with a little bit of local flair. Oh, wait do you think I mean that the dish itself is Spanish? Well, not necessarily. Linguistically, yes as lechón is the Spanish word for suckling pig, but that isn’t to say that the concept was strictly Spanish.

            Pigs are one of the native domesticated animals of the region. And given that Chinese trade missions started in and around the 13th century and the prevalence of roasted pig in Asian cultures, it’s definitely a food with a history that predates the Spanish.  It’s just the word is definitely Spanish. And there might be some herbs or herb combinations that came from them as well, but the major influence, the one you can’t really deny is the name.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

            Now as someone who is now learning Tagalog after studying Spanish in high school, this is definitely not that surprising. There’s quite a bit of linguistic influence in this case. It’s not quite what you would expect to see from a family of languages. Romance languages might be   the one you’re most familiar with: French, Spanish, and Italian. But there is still a lot of overlap, and I appreciate that because similar words are a language students’ best friend, I know it cuts me a bit of slack as I go about this linguistic endeavor.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

            But Filipino lechón actually comes in two different styles. Which I didn’t know, and I’m going to be generous to myself and say that a lot of people might not have realized that. If lechón is a food you only ever ate with your family and the different styles are somewhat tied to geography which is also where your family is tied, this is not something you would be inclined to realize. You just wouldn’t naturally be exposed to the other version, and you wouldn’t really have cause to think about it.

            Both are slow roasted suckling pigs. On the other hand, there are other dishes that have a a lechón style flair to it, like a chicken dish or handy recipes for when you have leftover lechón, which is a somewhat rare occurrence in my family, but I have been told that this is a thing that can happen. Okay, we’re a big family. As evidenced by eight wedding anniversaries being a thing that we have and that is not being all the wedding anniversaries in this lot of people.

            Okay, it’s also really go at it really enthusiastically.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

            But I’m pretty sure my family’s version of Lechón is a bit of a mix of both, but it definitely leans more towards Luzon styles lechón. In that, we always have what could be thought of as the signature liver-based sauce, made with vinegar, brown sugar, mashed liver, garlic, onions, and breadcrumbs that admittedly I also put on whatever I was eating lechón with. It’s just so good. And you know, you don’t want it to go to waste…

            The actual preparation of the pig is a bit more basic. It uses salt and pepper over a wood fire.

            To contrast, the other main style of lechón, Visayan lechón, is a bit more complicated upfront but is only served with a simple sauce like a salt and vinegar sauce. It’s stuffed with spices like garlic--which I am pretty sure is a staple of Filipino cooking--scallions, bay leaves, among other things and that’s all cooked over a charcoal made of coconut husks.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

            Of course, many lechón pigs don’t fall completely into each category. Each place has their own recipe and slight variations to their inherited style. And that’s why every Filipino household usually has a favorite lechonero, or roaster, that they go to for their big events. You just know what you like, and you trust your vendor with consistently.

            That’s a fairly quick and easy guide to what you might expect should you find yourself at a Filipino event, staring down the pig as it were. The only other thing of note is that Filipinos definitely have their preferences, and we’re a proud people, and all that. And we’re a happy one as well. So there’s plenty of occasions for lechón and for getting together. And from all that practice, we’re pretty great at feasting.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

            This has been a production of Miscellany Media Studios with music licensed from Sounds like an Earful. Thank you for listening. If you like the show, please consider leaving a review or checking out our other productions.

(Music fades out)