Keeping Kapampangan food culture alive: Meet the food-loving Medina clan of Arayat

Aside from the panara and puto, we were also greeted with a fabulous pitichan (chicharon from Pampanga) that they served with spiced vinegar purchased from a local supplier. Popular Filipina chef Miko Calo—a cousin from their mother’s side— recounts how that particular chicharon was a favourite treat for her in her younger years. She moved from Butuan to Makati to live with her Calo-Medina cousins to study at Assumption College where all the women in the family went, at least for their primary and secondary studies. “I remember coming home from school, and when we had that chicharon in the house I would have that for merienda,” she recounts. “We bought it par-cooked from Arayat, then it was fried again right before it was served. I will have it with room-temperature rice—it had to be room temperature—hand-crushed tomatoes, and fish sauce.”

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Calo grew up with her artist cousin Lui, Marcos’s younger sister. Since the two were the same age it was easy for them to grow close, inseparable some would say. They would bring their school friends to Arayat where they spent their summers. There are funny stories of cigarettes smoked in secret, late afternoon rondas with the local boys, and as in most old houses, their close encounters with the spirits that linger. 

The original house was made of nipa and bamboo and it is where the kitchen still remains. With no electric stove or gas range, they only make use of the wood-fired kalan that their ancestors’ kusinera used to cook with. Generations of her descendants lived and served in the same house, and they still do, including their current matriarch Lucia Ramos y Mutuc vda de Mallari, and so the legacy of her cooking lives on through them. 

The now formal dining room used to be where the bridge was that connected the original house to the newer wing they added in the late-1800s, its design reflecting the style of that era. However, Marcos is in the final stages of his restoration, working with architect Ning Encarnacion Tan (known for her expertise in bamboo), to raise the ceilings for better ventilation and give the entire house a more cohesive look. 

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The antique dining table that comfortably sits 14 is draped with hand-embroidered linen that Marcos commissioned from an artisan in Austria. These are kept in the cabinets along the wall that also house the good china they use often, and display framed photos of the Calo-Medinas’ milestones. There are smiling photos of their parents and of them as teenagers, some of Christmases abroad which could have been the time Marcos matriculated in Oxford. These are hallmarks of the current custodians, indications of their moment in time. However, one thing that never changes here is the food.

Marcos describes the cuisine of their home perfectly: “My grandmother’s cooking is disciplined but not high-concept—it’s all about waiting.” Food that they started preparing two days ago is laid out family-style on what would usually be plant boxes by the window. There is fermented rice or buro served with mustasa, eggplant, and fried catfish, and chicken adobo cooked without soy sauce as they used to. That brown sauce is attained through low and slow cooking, scraping up bits from the bottom of the pan after the vinegar is cooked off. “Do not stir that vinegar,” Marcos warns, lest you might be left with the astringent zing of uncooked suka. It is served with the house bagoong guisado with crushed tomatoes, red onions, kamias, and grilled finger chillis which are a highlight in itself. 

The pancit langlang is another favourite, with this version different from the other regional varieties that are more akin to stir-fried noodles. Its sauce is cooked for quite some time, to conjure the gelatinousness and richness of pork and prawn, ladled generously over white noodles so it's almost a thick soup. This classic dish is served the sisig matua or their version of tokwa’t baboy so the sweet/sour vinegar-based sauce cuts through the richness of the pancit langlang. I wish I had not too liberal with my serving since the lechon—cooked in the town bakery’s pugon—was still waiting. 

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Arayat’s lechon is inherently bland, and that is because it is paired with liver sauce which is where all the flavour is meant to come from. Every household has its own recipe, and each claims to be better than the rest. The lechon is served alongside the bringhe—a paella-like dish cooked with coconut milk—and the Medina’s cooks make sure theirs are toasted on both sides, so halfway through it is carefully flipped to give the top side its nicely browned crust. Throughout the meal, a serving bowl of their prized aligue or crab fat is in the middle of the table to add more luxurious umami to a plate that needs it.

Lunches in bale maragul never really end. Dessert of pastillas made from carabao’s milk by popular Kabigting’s halo-halo are eaten throughout the afternoon with some coffee. Then, as conversations continue into the azotea the merienda of icy and milky halo-halo is served to accompany the sweet and salty chitchat. If this was during holy week, then it would be the perfect time to gather there as they look out into the street where the procession of carosas will pass. But, that day, with the sun blazing down on the quiet streets of Arayat, there was only the soft hum of a sleepy provincial town, and sounds from the kitchen as they prepared for dinner. 

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