Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The offal that was awful, and the one that wasn't



Okay, so it didn't taste awful, but these innards reacted poorly with my innards. However, this is probably my own fault, as I decided to eat pork sisig at a food court at the mall (the Mall of Asia to be specific).

Pork sisig is sometimes served as a breakfast food or as an accompaniment to serious boozing. They are often served on a sizzling platter with a fried egg. Sisig is a term that is used to describe foods that are sour or have been marinated in vinegar or lemon juice.

Traditionally, pork sisig is made from pork head. Like, all of it. Pig ears, brains, snout, tongue and cheeks. Non-face offal can include hearts, livers and lungs. I have not received confirmation that trotters are used in this dish, but I can't see any reason why the Filipino people would draw the line there. Basically any part of the pig that a western person wouldn't normally put in their mouth is fodder for pork sisig.



After we finished the kilawing sisig above (which did not make me sick), I asked the waitress what part of the pig it was. "It was delicious," I said with a large, toothy smile plastered across my sweaty face.

The waitress looked nervously at us, as if we might upend the table when we found out the truth, which was that we had just eaten a plate of pig's ears.

The table remained intact--I'm not keeping kosher here. And these pig's ears, drenched in vinegar, were unbelievable.

2 comments:

  1. Maybe now you'll be willing to try scrapple, that delicious combination of cornmeal,pig liver, and pig...other. And lot of pepper.

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  2. Finally, some natural food! This was beginning to look like the Great Asian Processed Junk Food Tour.

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