THE SIZZLING SENSATION Renowned the world over as a pillar of Philippine cuisine, sisig’s rise to fame began just outside Clark.
By Idge D. Mendiola Illustrations by Laraine Gazmen
09 | CLARK MAGAZINE
F
or visitors to Clark looking to try the local eats, good ol’ Kapampangan sisig should definitely top the list. What might otherwise be defined as a mishmash of odds and ends seasoned with acid has won the hearts of both local and foreign travelers in search of the region’s most memorable bites. The dish even has celebrity fans, including popular Korean actor Park Seo Jun and the late acclaimed chef Anthony Bourdain. “Sisig is everything I love about food,” Bourdain once told Philippine Daily Inquirer journalist Paolo R. Reyes. “Sizzling pork with all that good fatty, rubbery, crispy texture? Sisig is just wonderful. And it goes well with beer!” Learn the history of the so-called national pulutan (beer chow) to make sure you’re getting authentic sisig on your next Clark food trip.
WHAT’S IN A NAME? The first known record of sisig dates back to 1732. That makes the Kapampangan specialty almost three centuries old! It was mentioned in the Vocabulario de la Lengua Pampanga en Romance, a Kapampangan dictionary authored by Augustinian friar Diego Bergaño. Most likely, the Spanish missionary first encountered the dish in Mexico, Pampanga, where he served as parish priest from 1725 to 1732. Bergaño described sisig as a “salad, including green papaya or green guava eaten with a dressing of salt, pepper, garlic, and vinegar.” In other words, the sisig of olden times was a simple salad of greens drizzled with a vinaigrette and no meat at all. This might be a head-scratcher for modern foodies, but the dish’s name tells a clearer story. In Kapampangan, “manyisig means ‘to make salad’ while mapanisig is ‘one who makes a lot of salad, or frequently eats salad, or picks tidbits of it,’” wrote Robby Tantingco, director of Holy Angel
