"The kinilaw moment is that instant when the raw fish (or other seafood, or meat) meets the vinegar or other souring agent, and transformation begins from the raw state.

In cooking vegetables, there is a spectrum of textural change: from the hardness of the raw, to the limpness of the overcooked. The perfect moment is somewhere along the line, at the point when the vegetable, e.g. ampalaya (bitter melon) retains the crispness of the raw, but acquires the softness of the cooked without being either hard or limp. 

With kinilaw, the perfect moment is marked visually by a change from translucence towards, but without reaching, opacity. Texturally, it is a moment when the fish or shrimp retains the firm softness of the raw, but reaches a new state of being that has been called niluto sa asim - "cooked", or more accurately transformed, in sourness. It is not an opaque solidity, with the fibres white and the flesh texture that of poached fish. Along the spectrum, it is nearer the raw than the cooked, the flesh just a breath away from the natural state, mediated only by the vinegar-acid. This is achieved in different ways.

Theme

The generic or "theme" recipe of kinilaw is this:  take the uncooked fish/shrimp/sea creature/meat, and skin, de-bone, slice it as needed. Wash it. Prepare the desired condiments - ginger, onions, chili peppers (optional) - by slicing or chopping. Add these, salt and vinegar to the main ingredient, and serve immediately. 

As with all generic formulae, however, this is open to all manner of variation, nuancing, timing, ordering, invention, creation, and adaptation to particular circumstances like geography, taste, budget, custom, and the individual characteristics of the fish or meat at hand. To use a musical analogue, the fish-vinegar-condiments recipe is a theme, for which innumerable Mozartian variations are possible, such that the thread of melody can grow to symphonic proportions. The cooks who compose these variations must know their fish, meat and seafood, and their vinegars and condiments, and then create afresh each time. 

Well within the formula, for example, Bohol fishermen wash fish not in water but in tuba ( (coconut wine)
for drinking), so that when the tuba vinegar is added, the kinilaw has already been "pre-vinegared," and thus taken one step towards the desired flavour. When it is served with tuba, a unity is achieved.

Vic Fuentes of Dumaguete City first brings together the onions, ginger, salt, sili (chili), and vinegar, leaving them to synergize. They are added to the fish just before serving, so that the kinilaw moment comes just moments before the first bite. 

In Hinatuan, Surigao del Sur, a wild onion called seyboring is used instead of sibuyas Bombay (round purple or white onions) ; in the Ilokos region the purple shallot (sibuyas Tagalog) is preferred; in Sagay, Negros Occidental, spring onions are chopped into the vinegar for sunlotan (sea cucumber). Ginger may be sliced, grated or squeezed into juice. Sili may be added whole, chopped, mashed-or it may be marinated in the vinegar, as in the Ilonggo sinamak. 

Vinegar may be added to the kinilaw or kept separate as sawsawan (dipping sauce). It may come from nipa, coconut or cane-or from other palms like idyop or pugahan. Or, in an urban emergency, from a bottle from the supermarket. Salt may be rock salt, refined salt, or only the salt from the seawater in which the fish but lately swam. Dinagat, the Ilonggos call this. 

Variation One

Taking the generic recipe-vinegar/salt/onion /ginger/sili (optional) as theme, the first variation would be the use of a souring agent other than vinegar. If vinegar "cooks" by acetic acid, citrus fruits do the same through citric acid. Kalamansi (tiny sweet Filipino lime) is therefore a logical substitute. It is said to be good for fish that have more lansa (fishy smell) than others. 

It alone accompanies the "jumping salad" of San Fernando, La Union: a plate of tiny river shrimp comes to the table covered with a saucer bearing kalamansi. One squeezes this on the live shrimp and they jump, stung into their last throes, and at that perfect kinilaw moment, one pops them into the mouth. 

In Borongan, Eastern Samar, tuna and dorado (dolphin fish)  are washed quickly in vinegar, squeezed with salt, and then dressed with kalamansi. 

Other sour fruit serve as well: green mango, the tiny tart paho (small very tart mango) , kamias (Averrhoa  bijimbi, a very acidic fruit) , balimbing (starfruit, carambola) , and even green siniguelas (Spanish plum) . Lime (dayap, called biyasong) may be used for souring, but is more often added for aroma. In Batanes a local citrus called valatinog contributes both tartness and smell.

Green mango chopped up is preferred by the Taosugs in Mabini, Davao del Norte, to sour kinilaw na tamban. In Sagay, Negros Occidental, it is scraped off the fruit and used with salmunete. The sour action on the surface makes the flesh turn a paler pink, yet when one breaks a piece open, it is still transparently fresh within. 

Even within this variation there are variants. In Dingras, Ilocos Norte, the favoured dressing for beef lomo is a vinegar and kalamansi mix. And in many of the dips used for shellfish in Bantayan, kalamansi accompanies and tempers the vinegar taste.  

Variation Two

The addition of tree bark or fruit pulp to remove the lansa, or fishy smell/taste, as well as to contribute other flavours, is still another variant. Tabon-tabon (Hydrophytune orbiculatum)  is the most frequently used in Mindanao. The fruit pulp is scraped, then squeezed in water and into the kinilaw. It is also said to prevent stomach upsets and thus, as Butch Bustalino of Dipolog, Zamboanga del Norte puts it, "allows us to have as much kinilaw as we wish without suffering." 

Bakawan, the bark of a type of mangrove, is used in Negros Oriental. This versatile bark, which also colours and flavours tuba, neutralizes the fishy taste/smell, and gave its name to the dish. The original binakhaw, says Mario L of Zamboanguita, was made with small fish, bones and all, since those varieties had "bones that melt” in the vinegar dressing. Binakhaw with bones was once distinct from kinilaw without bones. Today, however, with less bakawan available, such distinctions have blurred (most kinilaw is boneless) and kinilaw in Dumaguete environs is generically known as binakhaw. 

Other ingredients in this category would be: siniguelas bark, also squeezed over kinilaw; dungon, the powdery pulp of which is sprinkled over the dish; and in Babag, Agusan del Norte, the flesh of pungango, (a young coconut the size of a duck's egg), which is scraped on a large crayfish leg (a natural scraper, with its rough texture) and added on. 

Variation Three

Gata, coconut milk, is frequently a kinilaw ingredient in the Visayas, especially in Cebu, Leyte, and Butuan cities. This sweetens the mix, and also absorbs some of the sourness, explains Vicente Lobaton of Sagay; it is good for a firm-fleshed fish like tangigue (Spanish mackerel). In Butuan City the coconut is toasted before it is squeezed, so that a further nuance enters - the toasted coconut tasting faintly of latik. Gata can be added to kinilaw with or without tabon- tabon. 

Variation Four

A wide range of flavour-adjustments makes a multi-faceted variation. Here the island cooks and  devotees adjust their kinilaw cookery in fine and subtle ways. There is the addition of lime for fragrance. Garlic, for example, which is not in the standard mix, is used in the Batanes islands, where kinilaw is called lataven. In Sagay, vinegar too mild may be made more tart by the addition of paho or of green sineguelas; and vinegar too sour may be sweetened with a touch of sugar, or tempered by slices of salted egg, which absorb some sourness. Tomatoes, not part of the standard mix, may add another nuance of sourness, and are good for fish that swim near the surface of the water, since their lansa is slight. "Put them on top," says Vicente Lobaton, "and do not mix them in, because they make the mixture slippery." Tausi, salted black soy beans, may substitute for, or mediate the taste of salt. 

Certainly the most unique addition is the bile or papait, which in the Ilokos contributes a tinge of bitterness - the regionally preferred flavour principle. The animal or fish bile has, some say, a "chemical" taste. More desirable is the taste of papait, a liquid from the intestinal tract, and pinespes, the partially- digested green grass found in the intestines of herbivores (cow, goat), which is squeezed out after boiling. 

In Victoria, Tarlac, the goat is given a special grass to eat as its last meal, to clean the intestinal tract and create this flavour. In Laoag, cleaning is further aided by a "last drink" of eight ounces of sukang Iloko before butchering.  On Bantayan Island, manlot, the large tridacna clam, can be prepared as kinilaw with or without its apdo, and illustrates the special quality bitterness can give to the sweetness of the fresh. 

Variation Five

Cooking or half-cooking results in still more kinilaw variants. Puso ng saging  (banana bud)  is eaten raw, but is sometimes blanched. Meats are eaten raw but sometimes half-cooked or, especially in the case of pork, thoroughly cooked. The kilaw principle is retained by cooking in vinegar or kalamansi-and over fire -and the dishes are called kilawin by the Tagalogs and kilayen by the Pampangos. The Malolos kilawing hipon has blanched peeled shrimps cooked briefly with shrimp juice, kalamansi and salt, and garnished with fried potatoes or young mango shoots (usbong ng mangga). The tokwa't baboy that goes with Pancit Malabon has boiled pork head meat and fried tokwa (bean curd)  squares dressed with vinegar and onions. The well-known San Fernando/Angeles kilayeng babi consists of pork liver, tripe and meat cooked in vinegar. 

Variation Six

"Combo-kilaw," one might call this variation. Imagine the further fillip, the additional excitement of  taking kinilaw with an accompaniment, or two kinilaw together, or kinilaw mixed with another dish. Simple and basic is the Davao way: fresh barilis (yellow-fin tuna) is accompanied by sliced radish and/ or cucumber (raw and therefore also kilaw, although not so called). At the Wednesday morning market at Malatapay (Zamboanguita, Negros Oriental) cornmeal is steamed in a large upright bamboo tube to make sinalok, an accompaniment to kinilaw. In Hinatuan, Surigao del Sur, and in Catbalogan, Samar, the accompaniments are boiled bananas, kamote (sweey potato) , cassava or gabi (taro) ; at Kainggit Beach in Tagbilaran, boiled kamote and tuba go with kudya (scallops). Unusual is the Ilonggo lamaw, in which raw fish is marinated in tuba, after which one eats the kinilaw and drinks the tuba. 

In Guiuan, Eastern Samar, squid and danggit (small fish) are mixed together, both fresh, uncooked and vinegar-treated. In Iligan City sugkilaw is the intermixing of sinugba (barbecued) pork strips and fish kinilaw. Suglaw in Pagadian City is pork (fat and skin included) slightly charred, with tangigue kinilaw; sinuglaw in Tagum, Davao del Norte, is tuna mixed with half-cooked grilled pork belly. Sutokil ("shoot-to-kill," for sinugba-tonola-kinilaw) is a meal offered in Surigao City and in Iligan. Pareha is they call it in Hagonoy, when kinilaw na puso ng saging is with inihaw na bangus as separate but paired dishes.

Fugue

What else and can the creative Filipino do with kinilaw? He can have it pristine, untouched by condiments, its flesh-freshness and soft sensuality at its simplest. Here the voices that touch in counterpoint are the essences of the material: the suppleness, or crunch, or yielding of flesh textures; the individual flavours of freshness; the benison of salt water and life- juices; the explicit or implicit quiver of life. 

Abatud, coconut beetle larva, and tamilok, shipworm, taste, devotees say, like cheese, and those who know them in Babag, Agusan del Norte, prefer them as is, although they can be dipped in vinegar. Suwake, the velvety sea urchin coral, is best sipped from the shell, its perfection needing no enhancement, although it can be eaten with a little ginger and vinegar. 

The height of kinilaw, one hears from fishermen, can be had only in a boat on the seas, when the fish dipped out of the water or the net (tabagak (round herring) in Bantayan and Sagay; the seasonal tulingan (big-eyed tuna) in Camiguin) is stripped off the bone, swished in the sea both for cleansing and salting, and eaten, or pinapangos, just as one eats sugarcane off the stalk. 

Knowing all this, one realizes that the truest and best kinilaw can only be had on the sea, on the beach, in the provinces, and in the city only by great good luck and rigorous effort. Frozen or chilled fish may be edible, but are many steps away from the vital freshness. Kinilaw on a buffet table also vitiates the  definition, since it sits there, turning opaque and overcooked, the freshness principle forgotten. Leaving kinilaw to wait on any table is certainly unwise, because the delicate present moment so quickly slides into the past. 

To prevent this, Glenda Barretto lightly paints raw tuna, salmon and lapu-lapu (grouper, rock trout) on the plate with onion- and ginger-flavoured vinegar; or briefly marinates a tangigue (Spanish mackerel) log whole so that when sliced for serving it is still translucent within; or brings together fish and vinegar mix at the last possible moment before serving; or serves them separately. Kinilaw in home or restaurant, when presented as it should be, indicates that the cooks have adapted theme and variations to sing the many melodies of kinilaw. 

Considering how many islands (7106) compose our kinilaw-loving country, how many towns along seashores, how many fish varieties and fishermen, how many kinds of vinegars and shades of sourness, how many condiments and possible combinations, how many experts who have lived with and made kinilaw all their lives, and how many drinking and eating occasions give rise to invention and creation, one can be sure that there are many other kinilaw variations yet unrecorded, and many others yet to come. The art lives".

Seafood & Sensuality

A fresh oyster must be the epitome of sensual food as most of us know it.  I have heard a rough old Irish labourer, in a Galway pub, describing the taste as 'like the most heavenly part of an angel, to be sure!'

We English are notoriously ignorant and insensitive about food; and so are our cousins, the Americans. (Who else could have the sheer gall to put a bit of minced meat in a bun, sell it worldwide, and claim it as a vital element of their culture?). The English have no more to say than Steak & Kidney Pie. It’s just nosh, and the English don’t wax lyrical about it.

Except for Elizabeth David, who, fifty years ago, was the pioneer food pornographer (reading her detailed description of how to make mouth-watering spinach (it takes a week) was my next best early adolescent second-hand sexual experience – after reading Frank Harris’ Memoirs). Another early high in erotic food was the dinner scene in the film 'Tom Jones'.

The French are not much better. Ever since Escoffier, they have described their (sometimes) exquisite dishes with names of generals, cooks, opera stars and emperor’s mistresses (just think of Marengo, Parmentier, Marie Claire, Marie Louise).

And the Germans are hopeless (Kartoffeln mit Fleische, indeed !).

There must be very few languages that can express the real delights of gastronomy; Filipino (Tagalog) is one – read the following:

 “*Be it maligat no pusit, or the precious softness of crab meat, malambot na buhaghag; be it the lambot of white fishflesh or the ugat of reddish fishflesh; the texture as the teeth bite into the core, and the tongue caresses its sweet secrets in the slow rhythms of Bach and Beethoven. And all these in the privacy of the mouth: lips closed, you savor and explore the surface (hipo, hilatsa): pino, magalasgas, magalas, mabuhangin, magaspang. It is also indicated by the degree of yielding or resistance to the bite: malambot, malabo, maligat, makunat, maganit, matigas. Texture is also determined by liquid content or viscosity. If the focus is the solid aspect - basa, panat, tuyo; if the water aspect - lusaw, malabnaw, malapot. It can also be a combination of surface feel and degree of viscosity: malata, malabsa. There are specific nuances between, e.g. lo’ok is watery and crumbly, like the inmost core of watermelon. Lo’oy refers to the degree past crunchiness of cooked kangkong leaves and stems. Hinga is the state of labanos (white radish) after a day or two: when fresh it is translucent, all white, crunchy and moist, that is, malutong; later the whiteness becomes opaque, its crunch moves to a soft, crumbly stage, and its wetness is no longer uniform but spotty. This is hinga. Finally the aspect of stickiness: malagkit if referring to the gummy stickiness of its solid content, madulus when referring to the stickiness of its water content.”* **

If you didn't already know this was describing just the textures of kinilaw, you might suspect it was an Irish bard delineating the delights of an angel's c**t.  It’s a bit overdone; but what do you expect of a poet? (I can’t really imagine eating anything that sounds like Beethoven).

Anyway, he’s written a wonderful book about taking food, fresh from the sea (or sometimes the land) and eating it, tasting it, savouring it, sucking it, dibbling it around in his mouth, and so on (here I have run out of English words to describe what he says).

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Richard Parker  - Siargao Island - November 2004 (Last updated Thursday, April 27, 2006)  

I welcome comments or corrections on my site and opinions, so please feel free to email me at:  richardparker01@yahoo.com