My Ongoing Affair of the Heart with a Fish
Bangus, Milkfish, <Chanos chanos>
My Ongoing Affair of the Heart with a Fish
1 Bone in My Throat
With a flashlight in one hand and a pair of long-nose pliers in the other, my husband was impatiently prodding me to open my mouth wider. “I see the bone sticking out. Let me pull it out now!”
It was after a hurried late dinner when a fish bone painfully lodged in my throat, a common occurrence among people who love to eat fish. When I was growing up, fish bones had sometimes gotten stuck in my throat, eventually passed through my digestive tract without any issues save for a little discomfort. But this was by far the worst bone-in-the-throat experience I had had since childhood. Swallowing a large bite of ripe banana did nothing to dislodge it. Balls of rice, soaked bread, and gulps of water didn’t help. Every swallow hurt and every forced cough drew blood, which only increased my panic.
To end my suffering, I had to choose between my husband’s menacing pliers or seek medical intervention. Visions of my father and brothers using the long-nose in their gasoline fume-soaked auto repair shop came to mind as my husband insisted on shoving them into my throat. I clamped my jaws even tighter and decided to rouse the good doctor from his sleep at the cost of embarrassing myself even more. We walked the dark street to his home clinic. The doctor’s clean pair of stainless-steel forceps in my throat seemed a bit less disconcerting.
The culprit was the silvery, fine-scaled fish that Filipinos call bangus. It has sweet white flesh and melt-in-the mouth fatty belly. These qualities, however, are not fooling anybody because the fish is characteristically bony. Of the over 200 branching spines buried in the dorsal and ventral muscles, the peskiest are the pin bones embedded within the thickest part of the lateral line of the fish. They make eating milkfish inconvenient or downright dangerous to some people. Milkfish lovers get past this inconvenience by dealing with them on the table with nimble fingers. Failing that, the tongue, which feels anything that pricks it, finishes the job. My eldest sister, Ate Norma, can separate bones from flesh with a bit of tongue work.
To illustrate, she loves to eat the bilimbi-soured dish with the smallish silver perch, locally called ayungin. It is a favorite among the Tagalogs living around Laguna Lake where the fish abounds. But it is one of the boniest fishes in the world, though it did not matter to my sister, who eats it with great aplomb. She takes one ayungin and holds it backside up with the fingers of both hands, like holding a harmonica. Lifting one end of the dorsal fin out, she bites into the thick flesh, and parks it momentarily in her mouth. Flipping the fish up, she pulls the pelvic and anal fins out with her teeth and takes the entire belly part into her mouth. Just as swiftly, she takes in the head, sucking the eyes and juices out. Her tongue works the mouthful of meat to feel for any renegade bones, separate them from the meat, and spew the discards out onto a pile of skeletons on the top side of her plate.
Filipinos get to enjoy juvenile and adult milkfish by pulling out the bigger rib bones and spines with their fingers. The tongue takes over in removing the pin bones that escape finger detection. The Indonesians have found a way to soften the bones by pressure-cooking milkfish, a process like canning sardines. But this works only with milkfish that have not reached full maturity. Pressure-cooking works best with smaller bones and spines.
Not until an “Iloilo housewife, wishing to spare her husband the trouble, undertook to debone it with tweezers,” says food writer, Dr. Doreen Fernandez, did the milkfish start to gain favor. Its marketability also improved, not only domestically, but especially among Filipinos overseas. Today, the new line of value-added deboned milkfish products has completely removed the stigma of danger attached to eating this bony fish.
My long, personal relationship with bangus made it possible for me to play a role in bringing it to the top tier of Asian supermarket products in the U.S. and in introducing it to mainstream supermarkets. Bangus may be a popular food choice back home, but that affection did not quickly manifest in the large Filipino diaspora in the U.S. where they were not easily available. But that soon changed on one auspicious day in 1998. My husband’s cousin, scion of a well-to-do family in the Philippines, paid us a visit, lugging with him a box of smoked bangus wrapped in layers of old newspapers as pasalubong to us. Here is a fish story you can believe.
2 We’re Eating Dinosaurs!
An archaeological fieldwork in the early seventies turned my interest in shards to real, live people and shifted my career to cultural anthropology. The dig being in a fishing village, my early morning beach walk got me bumping into groups of locals squatting over colorful plastic wash basins dotting the dark sands of Balayan Bay.
Asked what they were doing, a young boy looked up at me and respectfully replied, “Naninirok po.” From the Tagalog stem word sirok, meaning a spoon or ladle, he was describing the activity of spooning or ladling out something from a basin half-filled with seawater. The ladle he was referring to was a plastic petrol container fashioned into a deep trowel. “What are you scooping out?” I asked again. “Semilya po ng bangus.” Curious, I squatted with them to understand what he meant from the context of their activity. I discovered that they were scouring the seawater in the basin for milkfish fry, a traditional method of catching milkfish fry in the wild.
Only the pin prick-sized black dots on the fry’s minuscule heads were visible. But even with my 20-20 vision, the specks of wriggly bodies were still impossible to see among the other debris. Maybe these children’s eyes had become sensitive to the ripples that these young creatures made because they pounced on them with quick stabs on the water, closing off any chance of escape for the fry.
Scooping the fry out of the basin then pouring them with some seawater into small plastic buckets is an eye-crossing, drool-activating, and sweat-inducing task. When asked what they were going to do with the buckets of milkfish fry, they said they were selling them to the kapitalista from out of town. I asked stupidly, “How do you count the pieces of fry to sell? “You count the eyes and divide them by two,” was the equally stupid reply. This is a running joke among these professional seed collectors to make fun of prying folks like me. Or, maybe to keep outsiders from stealing their trade secret. Milkfish seed collecting is a big part of their livelihood. It involves interrupting the natural lifecycle of the milkfish by redirecting their growth to provide a valuable protein source for millions of Filipinos.
Evolution has wired the milkfish to inhabit both marine and freshwater systems and propagate in ways that keep the species from extinction. This is how they have lasted for eons, from way back 145-65 million years into the Cretaceous Period, when giant saurus creatures cruised the prehistoric deep. Milkfish (Chanos chanos) is the only extant member of the family Chanidae that existed since the early Cretaceous Period, and we are still eating them today.
Milkfish inhabit the vast Indian and Pacific oceans. But the only time they are in open waters is when they are spawning. In the moonlight during the warm months, milkfish spawners release 3 to 5 million eggs in the oceanic water miles away from the coast. The eggs develop into larvae which, after two weeks, migrate onshore to grow into juveniles in inland freshwater lakes or the brackish water of the coastal wetlands. Mangroves and estuaries are places where food is plentiful and where gnarled roots of mangrove trees protect them from their natural predators. They then spend the rest of their adult life swimming in schools offshore and in labyrinthine coral reefs, feeding endlessly from water columns rich in plankton. When they become sexually mature, they swim back to the ocean to spawn, starting the cycle of life all over again.
Growing to a maximum length of six feet and weighing up to thirty pounds in the wild, milkfish is a prized game fish. They present a challenge to anglers and fly fishers for their ability to do aerial jumps, twists, and turns to evade capture. It also helps that they are not meat eaters and therefore uninterested in baits. I watched mesmerized by this stunning display of the milkfish’s agility and stamina while feeding in floating cages far away from shore. An explosive frenzy of lightning-fast silver blurs of uniformly sized milkfish vied for the artificial feed broadcasted by farm hands from the catwalks connecting the sea cages to each other. In inland ponds during harvest, the milkfish also go into a similar frenzy when the seine net closes in to gather them into one corner of the pond. There, they are sucked out of the water by a harvesting machine, through a wide chute, and into a holding tank fastened on a flatbed truck, but still managing to escape the net by leaping high over it.
Milkfish are popular as bait for tuna fishing from Australia to California. But it is in the Philippines where farming milkfish has existed for centuries because it is widely used as human food. Advances in aquaculture technology and aggressive international marketing will further ensure their uninterrupted presence on earth. My milkfish-loving daughter will be thrilled to tell her dinosaur-loving four-year old son that the fish she loves to eat used to swim the ocean waters with his favorite extinct marine reptile, the super colossal Mosasaurus!
3 Melt-in-the-Mouth Milkfish Belly
A U.S. military surplus enamel plate piled high with fried milkfish slices sat alone in the middle of our long table. To an 8-year-old, it was both a curious and mouth-watering sight. I had by then developed a strong liking for this fish, especially when eaten fried with rice drenched in broth-water or sabaw-tubig. Fried bangus, lending its salted flavor to the bland-tasting rice, takes me to seventh heaven where God and angels dwell.
I was not to touch it, though. Towards late afternoon, Mother wrapped the entire pile in several layers of newspaper sheets and placed the bundle in a lidded tin box. She dressed her young brood up, herded us into a jeepney, which took us to the nearest rail station for a long ride to Bicol in a packed third-class train car. Around dinner time, she took out a few pieces of fried milkfish from the newspaper wrapper, oil-soaked by then, and fed them to us with rice.
The soothing rhythm of the train wheels gliding against the metal tracks and the shadowy vistas racing outside the windows stirred up feelings of well-being and happiness in me. I have come to associate these feelings with the times Mother roused us from sleep to feed us fried bangus on rice. My youthful liking for bangus endured because of these early associations, coupled with the anticipation of another memorable summer in the province spent with our cousins.
I later learned that there is more one can do with bangus than frying it. It can be grilled, steamed, smoked. It can headline a soup soured in tamarind, guava, or bilimbi, kamias. Not only that, but it can be stuffed with diced vegetables, or its own shredded meat mixed with vegetables and flavoring, or sautéed in finely chopped onions and tomatoes, salty black beans, shrimp paste and many more. But, in any of these presentations, the choicest cut, the prized boneless belly, goes to me. Why?
I was the middle child in a brood of 11. Being in the middle meant being left out of the excitement and challenges of everyday existence. The young ones needed constant nurturing; the older ones taught the responsibilities of adulthood. Often ignored was the middle one. The result was that I developed a moderated lifestyle, exacting from our parents the least amount of parenting.
Unobtrusively, I topped my classes, learned to play the piano through my efforts and worked to keep myself enrolled in college. I pursued a career path that was not derailed by getting involved in a gang, teenage rebellion, drugs experimentation, and God forbid, a pregnancy and untimely marriage. Our parents noticed and rewarded my independence by giving me complete freedom to live on campus, have a car of my own when we could hardly afford a family car, and yes, the belly in every bangus dish.
If there was only one bangus in a dish, the belly went to me. If there were two, the second one went to our father, which he gladly shared with a sister or a brother who asked for it. Constrained financially, we never got beyond two pieces of bangus in every single meal. The clamor for bangus belly among us made our mother wish for a bangus that was all-belly parts. My siblings loved me enough not to regard this as favoritism on my parents’ part, or so I wanted to believe.
Milkfish processors cut the belly away from the rest of the bony fish along the skin where the white underside meets the dark-toned backside to get to the flavorful gelatin-like fatty layer covered in a thin, blackish film. People who are squeamish about such things scrape them off altogether. But they do not know what they are missing. A bite of milkfish belly quickly melts inside the mouth, releasing the most sought-after milkfish taste. To most people, it is deep but mild, sweetish to some, and salty-sweet to others. What it is not is strong, off, or fishy.
The belly is the major star in a constellation of value-added milkfish products resulting from advances in aquaculture technology and from opening the export market serving the Filipino diaspora. It is the most expensive cut one can find in the coffin freezers of any Asian supermarket in the U.S. Designed primarily as an export product, it has been gaining popularity in the Philippines.
Its earlier iteration, in which the cut only included the flesh closest to the boneless fatty part, leaves most of the remaining meat practically unmarketable. Until I noticed that when I cook sinigang na tiyan ng bangus at home with my husband and me gunning for the black fatty part, my daughter eats all the remaining white meat with such relish. I realized there are health-conscious people who prefer it over the fatty part. A more desirable product was thus born, the butterfly fillet. It is the entire body of the milkfish sans head and tail, resulting in two fillets attached by skin which, when spread out, take the shape of a butterfly. It is a modified milkfish belly that fat and meat lovers can both share. Cheaper to produce, it fetches the same price as the original milkfish belly.
Turning the milkfish belly into dinner is quick and simple. Fish does not need long marinating. A quick dip into a mixture of one part soy sauce, one part vinegar, a handful of smashed garlic cloves, and a sprinkling of black pepper in a tray is all that is needed. While oil is heating in the pan, quickly immerse a thawed-out fresh-frozen milkfish in the marinade, shake off any solids, and fry. Easier still is to pour the marinade into a gallon-sized Ziploc bag and slosh the belly around in it. If your preference is for a char and smoky flavor, lay it out with other roasters on a grill for a quick sear and cook-through. In the oven, simply lay them out on a baking pan lined with foil and bake in 350 degrees for 15 minutes. There is no overcooking the milkfish belly fat. Because it is gelatinous, soft, and moist, it is hard to dry out. When cooked into a soup, the fat emulsifies with water, rendering the broth slightly milky, velvety in texture, and extremely delicious in taste!
Salmon, trout, halibut, and tuna bellies are now trending in upscale restaurants for their delicious taste, sustainability, and health benefits. Milkfish belly is not only as delicious, but is now sourced from fish farms, and is likewise rich in omega-3 fatty acids. We are familiar with the health benefits of omega-3 such as fighting mental illnesses and promoting eye, brain, and heart health. It also keeps the skin soft, supple, moist, and wrinkle-free.
4 Bangus Invades Silicon Valley
The box full of smoked milkfish from our relative’s processing plant in Mindanao was too much for our small family to consume. I gave some to a few close friends, including one who owns a Filipino restaurant in Vallejo. Three days later, that friend asked where she could buy that marvelously delicious tinapa to include in her restaurant’s breakfast offering. That gave me the idea to go into the business of marketing bangus in the U.S. From my music studio, I began researching for likely customers. I also read on how to import frozen food products into the U.S. and mastered the FDA regulations and the U.S. Customs procedures of food importation. In less than a year, I was grossing millions of dollars selling the line of value-added milkfish.
What did it take to move 40-foot container loads of milkfish and make them one of the best-selling products in Asian supermarkets and groceries in the U.S.? What did it take to make milkfish tinapa, once a specialty product that Filipinos could barely afford back home, into a staple in Filipino American dining tables? Finally, what did it take to make second- and third-generation Filipino Americans eat a notoriously bony fish?
Commercial milkfish production in the Philippines in the '70s suffered from persistent problems like urban sprawl and the pollution that went with it. Sewage and effluents from streams and rivers that fed water into the fishponds of Bulacan, Malabon, and Laguna adversely affected the quality of the milkfish habitat and eventually the milkfish itself. A marketing disaster involving a shipment of milkfish bound for the U.S. that tasted like mud, lasang gilik, stigmatized the Philippine milkfish, allowing the ascendance of the Taiwan milkfish in the market.
Years later, in 1998, I experienced the pushback in a meeting with a supermarket buyer who flinched at the first mention of my offer. “From the Philippines? Nah, taste bad!” said the buyer of a Vietnamese-owned Asian supermarket in the Bay Area. Supermarkets and groceries are slow to try new products, especially if they have had an unpleasant experience with them. At the time, consumers had embraced the Taiwan fresh-frozen whole milkfish. But I had a new tack to convince the skeptics. I explained to them that things were better now at the production end in the Philippines because growers raise the milkfish in sea cages and ponds with brackish water, giving the fish more flavor. Customers say milkfish raised in freshwater concrete pens in Taiwan taste comparatively bland. Other than better taste, what I offered was convenience. Our milkfish were boneless. Deboning milkfish is labor-intensive, something that Taiwan cannot do without raising their price.
In an interview with a leading Filipino newspaper in the Bay Area, I pointed out our advantage:
“We could not compete with Taiwan where the price of its fresh milkfish is half that of ours, direct from the fishpond at that. But we have found another way of competing in the U.S. market. Instead of selling fresh-frozen whole milkfish, we sell value-added milkfish. We sell vacuum-packed, fresh-frozen deboned, deboned smoked, deboned marinated, or the milkfish belly. They may fetch higher prices, but once customers have tried them, they come back for more.”
I then developed a network of home dealers who would sell to their families, neighbors, and friends. The parents of my piano students became my first home dealers. By word of mouth, the milkfish gained popularity. People were buying by the caseloads, putting them in their car trunks, and selling them in their places of work. At the time, tech companies employing hundreds of Filipino workers in Silicon Valley were doing good business, too. During breaks, their Filipino workers would go to the parking lot and open their car trunks to dispense frozen milkfish to coworkers direct from their boxes. Business grew exponentially, and the big stores took notice. Before long, food wholesalers were beating a path to my warehouse, practically begging to let them buy from me, in cash. Like in any success story, the rest is history.
Value-added milkfish are now available in most Asian supermarkets and groceries, in small, out-of-the-way Filipino stores, and in some mainstream supermarkets. Much of the success can be attributed to the vision of Filipino entrepreneurs who invested in the production and processing of milkfish for export. Government assistance in aquaculture technology and export financing also played a notable role. America-based importers, distributors, and retailers who turned from skeptics to believers and every Filipino-American household who patronize their own also deserve kudos. Finally, I would like to think success may also be due to my ongoing love affair with this fish.
In one of my doctor visits, my American-Caribbean doctor, upon learning of what I do, described the fish that they bought from one Asian supermarket which they grilled and flaked to make fish sandwiches. She said it was convenient and tasted delicious. She was thrilled to learn I was the source of it. This is the future of the Philippine milkfish, a crossing over of one Filipino-oriented niche product into larger mainstream markets. Such a crossover can give a boost not only to our national pride, but the country’s coffers as well.
