Welcome to the land of Piayas!

In Pampanga, I was lucky enough to meet a guy called Poch.  His real name alludes me at the moment, but in the Philippines, your nickname surpasses your real one at birth — both in use and in the creativity that inspired it! Take my cousins Ace, Bunny and Milka — while I do love my own name, there’s something decidedly cool about being named after a chocolate!

Poch is a top guy and as owner, along with his family, of one of the most popular and well-known eateries in Pampanga, Everybody’s Cafe, his food connections in town are as hot as the sizzling plate he serves his sisig on — and seemingly out of town too.

Hearing that I was next off to Negros for the second part of my article, I saw Poch stealing mid-meal breaths to text away to his friends down south. As we moved around town, trying the local delicacies of sweet tocino here and succulent longanissa there, my itinerary was taking shape. By the time I left, I was set to become the next ‘Sugar Baroness’ of Negros and even had a driver who’d be picking me, with a sign and all, at the airport!

Sugar is the mainstay agricultural crop of Negros, a lush, tropical island in the country’s mid region, and the cause of the region’s considerable wealth. It’s also the root of their sweet tooth and the culture of pastry making that nourishes it. While the landed sugar crop owners, or Sugar Barons as they were known at the turn of the 18^th century, have faded from their former hacendero glory, the prominence of sugar certainly lives on.

(And even if I didn’t meet my own prince in shining sugar, I was certainly going to consume enough of the stuff to warrant the title!)

As was my experience in Pampanga, I was again touched by the hospitality I was shown in Bacolod and Silay, the current and old capitals respectively of Negros Oriental. And with my new friends and food guides, friend’s of Poche’s, as well as fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers of those, I was taken behind the scenes, into the kitchen and then out to the tables of some of the best eateries in town.

Unfortunately I can’t share all the details of what I ate and where it can be found until the article is published — hey, they did pay for my ticket and eating expenses, so who’s a girl to complain with that? But let me tempt you, as the Negrenese would, with their local speciality: piaya.

The origins of this sweet baked snack are somewhat foggy — made from an unleavened dough, it resembles the Indian poori — but with an interior coated in caramelized muscovado sugar (grown in the fields just out of town), the recipe, it’s said, is wholly from Negros.  Variations of the piaya exist, with some being served small and puffier and others big and flat (some are even pressed to a thin crisp), but all are made with the signature light coating of sesame seeds.

Piayas can be eaten warm or at room temperature, but I like them best, expert that I now am, toasty hot or straight from the oven. Biting down into light crisp bread and experiencing the muscovado turn from gooey to crisp is a must-have experience.

If I was baroness, I’d make it so *.

* I’m in the process of trying to scrounge up a recipe to share — understandly, the piaya venues I visited were a little guarded with their decades’ old recipe and the source of their revenue. But, as soon as I do, I’ll be sharing it here — as I said, I’m a woman of the people :)

Tagged as: Bacolod, Negros, Pampanga, Piaya, Silay, Sugar Baron