Mindanaotoday.com | Cagayan de Oro’s dying local culinary heritage
RAI Bollozos Sanchez | Historyahe!
HI there!
Last month, a benefactor invited local cultural and historical advocates and me to have lunch and discuss local history at a Kagay-anon restaurant featuring renowned cuisines in Region X.
At lunch, we were served chicken surol, famous from my ancestral province, Camiguin, beef rendang, and pork binagoongan, whose notoriety for its mouth-watering savory tastes satisfied our starving stomachs.
Still, the history adds more to the palatable nostalgia.
After lunch, we discussed the local history by reviewing a historical portfolio awaiting publication for tourists and locals alike.
Besides the delicately prepared food we ate, I wondered if there was something Kagay-anon served on the table.
Well, perhaps, we did not notice to order something notable from Cagayan de Oro City from the menu—however, was there really something Kagay-anon to order, though?
I think there was none, and my mouth led me to say my “historical dismay.”
Yes, I sourgrape because nothing was historically documented about the local culinary heritage of Cagayan de Oro City.
You see. Covid-19 brought much discernment about the plight of the local heritage of Cagayan de Oro.
Many local businesses tried to stay afloat, especially in the food industry.
However, many closed down because of the devastations brought on by the pandemic.
Some of these business establishments are part of the local heritage of Cagayan de Oro City.
For example, Yee Restaurant, a “panceteria” that many Kagay-anons love, shut down because of the pandemic.
The closure of Yee Restaurant discerns to many heritage advocates the lack of documentation of local heritage cuisines of the City and the inability to save the local heritage.
During the closed-door discussion, I proposed documenting the local heritage cuisines of Cagayan de Oro, commemorating them through a coffee table book as a final output of the project.
I once discussed this idea with my peers and colleagues. Whenever I talk about cultural documentation, I mostly fall on deaf ears and blind eye as if nothing important to our local cultural heritage.
Documenting local Kagay-anon cuisines could feed us the soul of becoming a Filipino.
Its history speaks to the wide range of culinary history and also significantly preserves the identity of the Kagay-anon and can bring pride to the Kagay-anon identity.
It is essential to document local Kagay-anon heritage cuisines because it shares rich historical knowledge and traces the development and progressive contributions to Kagay-anon history.
Unfortunately, the lack of historical documentation negates its importance, and the rich narrative of Kagay-anon consciousness may die along with the negligence.
Over the next few years, Cagayan de Oro City will eventually become part of its ambitions of becoming an economic metro.
Because of its progress, its history speaks of countless migration patterns, which mainly concentrated on economic growth and evolution to a more robust local economy because of its progress.
Nevertheless, these current changes are also shaped by the loss of local history, its cuisines, and its people will lose local consciousness.
The inability of the government, its tourism, history, and heritage sectors contributes to the decline.
Eventually will lead to a stable local economy and a dying cultural and historical heritage, contributing to the loss of the historical unconsciousness of the Kagay-anons.
The current state of amnesia and denial is so severe for the decline of the Kagay-anon consciousness. (MT)
(Ryan Albert Ignacius “RAI” Bollozos Sanchez, 40, is a native of Cagayan de Oro City. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History and currently finishing his Master of Arts in History at Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan. He is currently a full-time faculty in the Department of General Education and Interdisciplinary Studies in Xavier Ateneo – teaching Readings in Philippine History, The Life, Works and Writings of Jose Rizal, and Interdisciplinary Studies subjects. He taught part-time at the Liceo de Cagayan University teaching Southeast Asian History and Government, and U.S. Government and Foreign Policy. You may reach him at rsanchez@xu.edu.ph)
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