Chicken Heads, Flowers, Pig Meat | The Many Colors of Cebu

Walking in Bogo City Cebu 12-22-08

Flowers of Cebu

Snapped a pictures of these beautiful Philippine wild flowers growing along the highway to San Remegio town.  We turned down a side road toward the bay long before heading on out of town though.  It is the rural part of my walk though.  One of my main routes.  The buses come zooming down this road at way to high a rate of speed and a couple of times coming way to close to me.  I took a bit of artistic license with this photo but I love it and I don’t usually love my pictures or even like them until they are at least three months old.

It is true, I’ll look back at a shot I took several months ago and like it.  Yet, when I first “developed” it on my PC I didn’t like it at all.  Usually, I think its just okay, nothing great, but not bad.  Others tell me my pictures are wonderful.  I don’t see it until much later.  The one exception is taking pictures of children at play.  If you can get the pictures without them paying attention to the camera, they tend to be fantastic.   Doesn’t matter to me whose children they are.  With that said, some of my favorite pictures that I took are the pictures of my children at play in the park.  Often at Arkabutla lake in North Mississippi in the USA.

Native Filipino Chicken

Thought I’d highlight this next scene. Its native Filipino chicken.  That is what Jessie calls it.  All the BBQ’s down at the bay have these.  However, I’ve never seen anyone eat them  I suppose they do though, this particular night was a very busy night and the BBQ stall usually has lots to choose from but they are nearly out on this night.  There were a lot o f people out that night as it was the night of the city Christmas Party.  That was held in the town square with City Workers performing.  I’ll post a picture of that soon.    These are chicken heads and Feet; look close and you can see the eyes.  Very common BBQ in the Philippines.

One of the main feast here in the Philippines is lechon.  In the states we grow up seeing the feast in Hawaii where they roast a pig over an open fire.  I don’t know what they call it in Hawaii but in

the Philippines it is called lechon.  We ran into a guy preparing it near the side of the street.

I had it one time but not much of it.  We ordered some when I went to meet Jessie’s family.  The man making this may have been making for his family or he might have been hired to make it for someone else.  It was clear to me he was taking great pride in his work.  I’ve run across this a couple of times in the Philippines but its not an every day thing.  That is to see it being prepared.  I thought when we got some there would be a big party outside at Jessie’s home and all the family would hang around waiting for it to finish while talking and drinking and having a great time.

Most people hire someone to prepare it for them as it takes several hours to prepare.  I want to say four to eight but I would be guessing.  I’m sure I’ve been told but I don’t recall how long it takes.  It depends on how big the pig is.   They don’t use a full size pig for lechon.  I’ve been told the smaller ones are actually the best tasting.

If you wanna start a debate, just say which Island has the best lechon.  From what I’ve seen, this is a serious matter of pride.  I have my doubts any self respecting Filipino would ever agree another Island has the best lechon.

[View with PicLens]

Popularity: 10%