This is a long delayed post, more than a month ago in fact. What can say, I have been busy with work – pollinating and harvesting corn as well as visits to our sites in Northern and Southern Mindanao. August brought many long weekends and one particular weekend stood out. The Tuna Festival started on the last weekend of August and this was accompanied by the Tuna Festival Culinary Expo. From an obscure event the first time I read about this from What’s on in General Santos City (when I decided to accept the job offer to move to Gensan) to a real live experience for me, the highlight of which is to judge in the students’ culinary competition. That was a lot of first for me – watching a culinary competition, judging in a culinary competition as well as hobnobbing with a real chef and a food writer. I didn’t even know what to do… Anyway, I had great tips from my fellow judges – Chef Datu Shariff Pendatun and Christine Nunag. It was a lot of fun, there were a lot of hit and misses, and overall a great learning experience for me. There was one moment when I felt trepidation, I felt I was no expert at all, when each of the judges were asked to give their comments. My main point was for the students get exposed to different cuisines if not directly, then vicariously by reading cookbooks, magazines and blogs.

On a reflective note, it’s not enough to read about food. I would have added that students should also go to the market, observe, talk to vendors and cooks, to touch and feel the different ingredients. We are very lucky in Gensan to have  diverse food ingredients in the market.  This is what I would always do when I go to the market each Sunday. I talk to the fishmonger about the type of fish, get ideas on how to cook them and generally chat about where the fish came from. The same with the longganisa maker whom I always try to coax into giving me longganisa skins to no avail.

So that for me was my experience at Tuna Festival Culinary Expo. Can’t wait for next year!

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