Laing Laing Laing Laing Laing
Champorado with tuyo is comfort food. Guinataan is comfort food. It’s what you have when you’re glum or stressed-out or when Roger Federer is leading Novak Djokovic two sets to love then up a break in the fifth set at the US Open semis, and the Djoker somehow slips through. Preferably in a bowl that you can hug as you rock back and forth in fetal position, humming to yourself. Coke and Chippy is Roby’s comfort food. Teddy Boy’s comfort food is…food (Though he is way fitter these days so he must not need it).
Laing is not comfort food to me; laing is more like a blood transfusion. I will take a plate of shredded gabi leaves, coconut milk, pork and searing hot chilis over any ten-thousand-dollar ten-course molecular gastronomy showcase served in test tubes any time. (I don’t see why my food has to come out of an autoclave.)
Laing is my madeleine out of Proust. I cannot see a tray of laing behind the glass in a turo-turo without becoming eight again. It is my time machine, my childhood, my mom.
Photos from My City, My SM, My Cuisine at SM City Naga, Camarines Sur. Of course the main event was the Laing competition. All photos by Wayne Lim. Thanks, Mang Wayne!
Read Laing is my I.V. drip, my column this week at interaksyon.com. Should be up later today.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
September 12th, 2011 at 12:09
Two match points! Are you kidding me? It’s hard being a Federer fan.
September 12th, 2011 at 13:12
Thanks Jessica! I got the book :) and you’d be happy to know that I was in La Union over the weekend and I overheard a group of people chatting enthusiastically about zombadings (currently being shown at one of the small cinemas in sflu). And yeah they were using zombading lingo :D
September 12th, 2011 at 18:10
Laing! Yum. My mother has the same level of fussiness with her laing as your mother. Personally I like mine with a lot of pork fat. I’d suggest crisping up some pork (like the Ilokano bagnet) before adding the leaves but my mother would pfsh me.
When I was in Jakarta I had something like laing, only they used cassava leaves and flavored it with lime leaves. It was delicious. Lime leaves would add some zing to our laing I think. I dont know where we could get the lime leaves though. We do have a calamansi plant in the back yard so… hmmm…
September 12th, 2011 at 21:10
I cannot eat super spicy food to save my life but I will eat a delicious laing to fulfill a coconut craving hehe :)
September 12th, 2011 at 23:30
Noooo! My kryptonite! I do not like gata or spicy food. I am prepared to be cast out as a heathen!
September 13th, 2011 at 00:53
Awww, laing is love, laing is boss, laing is sex on a plate… Hay!
September 13th, 2011 at 12:47
Must. Have. Laing Cake. Now. That, *and* Bicol Express. And my Mom – who’s from Tabaco, Albay – avoided the whole haggling matter altogether by letting us grow our own taro and coconuts, not too far from the labuyo plants. ;)
I never really appreciated laing much until I moved to Hawaii and discovered laing’s Polynesian cousin, the laulau. Similar ingredients, except the pork (or chicken) is wrapped in the taro leaves before they’re wrapped in another layer of banana leaves and steamed in an underground oven. The only thing missing is the coconut milk and the chili peppers.
Then there’s also the Chicken Luau, which works with the same principle as laing but with coconut milk (sili na lang ang kulang). Unfortunately, it’s not as popular in Hawaii as laulau.
September 13th, 2011 at 23:11
It was only when I teleported here in Luzon that I tasted laing. At first taste, I liked it. Then as my stay here lengthened, I tasted different versions of laing. Some had ground meat and some had dilis. Based on this column, I may have not yet eaten “authentic” laing.
The tastiest version of laing I had was the Laing Pasta at a restaurant in Greenbelt. Wait, that was almost two years ago!
I’ve also eaten many versions of Bicol Express. There must be an “authentic” version too.