Bizarre Food in the Philippines

Tamilok 

Just like in any other ecosystem, a mangrove forest is a place for many creatures that are both beneficial and detrimental for the mangroves. During our visit there, we want to “meet” the latter. We’re talking about an ugly, slimy creature called a tamilok, commonly known as a shipworm. Shipworms burrow through mangrove trunks, timber, and other wooden items that are submerged in the sea. They aren’t called termites of the sea for no good reason.

To get some tamilok, we hired a guide to saw off a piece of dead mangrove trunk. There are plenty of these pre-cut trunks, which are used to culture the tamilok

Here’s a closeup of the tamilok. It looks like an ugly, gross, fat worm, doesn’t it? But actually, it’s more related to an oyster than a worm.

After all all the tamilok has been harvested, we took out the inedible parts—the head and the tail. The head is made up of two bivalve shells that the animal use to burrow through the wood. The mollusk anchors itself to the wood using its sharp tail.

We gutted the tamilok to get take out its digestive system, which is filled with inedible wood pulp. The meat that is left is then washed with plenty of fresh, clean water.

Here’s a bowl of wet and gooey tamilok, ready to eat! We also prepared a small amount of native vinegar to soften up the blow.

Locals eat tamilok as pulutan, or finger food, during a serious drinking session. They also believe that it’s an aphrodisiac.

A swish in the bowl of vinegar and into the hatch the tamilok goes! We have eaten our first tamilok in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, but it was chilled to keep it from spoiling.

Freshly harvested tamilok is a hundred 

times better than chilled ones. 

The Filipinos combined best with Spanish technology. The Spanish were a colonial force there for 500 years, leaving behind adobe and cooking in vinegar - the techniques that apply to those tropical Asian ingredients, is a miracle. "

I have always wondered why Filipino food does not stick to foreigners in the way Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thai and other popular Asian cuisine have become popular all over the world. I hope Mr. AbdulAziz is right, 

Food is definitely more fun and delicious in the Philippines. I can’t wait to see saudi doing  Tamilok Tamilok  in the streets of jedha City.

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26‏/03‏/2018