🍳 The Flavors That Call Me Home

By Marie. January 22, 2026

There are cravings that have nothing to do with hunger. They rise not from the stomach but from the quiet corners of memory — the places where childhood, family, and the geography of taste live side by side. Whenever I return to Iloilo, it is these cravings that greet me first, long before the city’s familiar light or the cadence of Hiligaynon spoken in the streets.

I spent the first ten days of the year in the heat of Dinagyang fever. Iloilo City was a living tapestry of drums and devotion, with food stalls blooming on every corner. It's like the city is celebrating one of its titles: the Philippines’ first UNESCO City of Gastronomy. But amid the spectacle of heritage recipes taking center stage, I found myself longing for the unassuming: paksiw na bangus and nilagang pata ng baka. They are simple, but they hold the weight of home in ways that festival food never could. I asked my cousin Ting if she could prepare both. She laughed, the way Ilonggos do when affection and exasperation meet, and said, "Joan," her son-in-law, "will try."

Only one dish made it to the table — the paksiw na bangus — and somehow that felt like part of the story, too.

Paksiw is one of those Filipino words that refuses to translate neatly into English. You can say “fish stewed in vinegar,” but that leaves out the soul of it — the way the vinegar softens instead of sharpens, the way ginger and onions coax the broth into something tender, the way the aroma fills a home with a kind of quiet reassurance. In Iloilo, paksiw is never harsh; even the acidity knows how to behave gently. When Joan placed the bowl on the table, the steam carried the scent of crushed ginger and softened vinegar. The first bite of the tender milkfish—the richness of the belly fat cut by the sour broth—tasted like the kitchens of my childhood. I took a photo not out of habit, but out of gratitude. Some flavors deserve to be remembered twice: once by the tongue, and once by the heart.

The nilagang pata ng baka or simply Pata remained a longing, which felt strangely fitting. Our Ilonggo version is not the clear broth found elsewhere; it is thick, collagen-rich, and stained golden by atsuete. It is a dish of 'slow food' guardians like my grandfather, mommy and Tito Odong. "Too tedious!" they’d say. You cannot hurry tenderness. You cannot force the beef to surrender before it is ready. It was also my Aunt Milag’s favorite—her memory is stirred into every craving I have for it.

There was something beautiful about that. A dish that once lived only in our family kitchen was now stepping into the light.

Food has always been more than sustenance for Ilonggos. It is a language, a memory keeper, a way of saying ari ko — I am here. And perhaps that is why these dishes matter so much to me. They are not just flavors; they are coordinates. They tell me where I come from, and they remind me of the tenderness that shaped me.

As I continue to wander — from Iloilo to Laguna, from heritage houses to quiet riversides — I carry these flavors with me. They are part of my own “beyond the road,” the map of tastes that follows me wherever I go. And every now and then, when the craving returns, I know it is not just food I am longing for.

Read:
Finding My Way Home: A House, a Compass, and a Second Chance
Of Lake Caliraya, Golf, and Gold
My Life in a 200-Year Old Heritage Home
Laguna's Secret: The 900 AD Artifact That Rewrote Philippine History