Green Mangoes

Tabo-an Market, Oroquieta City

I found these mouth-watering very young green mangoes at the Tabo-an Market and bought a kilo. Since these are baby mangoes, they can be sliced in half through their seed. They don’t have that hard seeds yet. I am a huge fan of crispy baby green mango dipped in bagoong with native vinegar and some chili. That tartly, salty and spicy flavor of every bite brings back some good old memories in my childhood.

These baby green mangoes are being sold at Php20.00 a kilo.

Organic and native vinegar. Made from fermented coconut water. Sold at Php5.00 per pack.

Benignit / Ginataan / Stewed Rootcrops

Oroquieta City, Misamis Occidental

In my hometown, Benignit or Guinataan is a popular dish that is served during Good Friday. My mother cooks it very early in the morning on Good Friday and we eat it throughout the day with no other accompanying food like bread or rice and viand as our way of fasting. It has been a belief I have grown up with.

Benignit is a stewed rootcrops composed of kamote, gabi, ube, ripe saba banana, landang  or sago balls and rice grains cooked in coconut milk sweetened by brown sugar. 

Ripe saba bananas

Sidewalk vendors selling different kinds of rootcrops

Cooking Benignit requires much work and effort. The preparation is so laborious and painstaking. My mother would spend more than an hour of cooking this dish. With all her devotion and attention, our Benignit at home is incomparable. The yummiest I must say.

Prepping ingredients for the Benignit: Banana saba, kamote, gabi, ube, landang (in plastic), green and purple sago