BALANGA CITY – The 6th Tuyo Festival was held Monday here to showcase the city’s well-known and muchsought merchandise under its One Town One Product.
Highlighted in the festival were the longest tuyo-laying contest and different ways of cooking dried fish mostly produced in the fishing villages of Puerto Rivas Ibaba, Puerto Rivas Itaas and Tortugas.
Bamboo platforms were installed along the road in the middle of the St. Joseph Cathedral, Plaza Mayor de Balanga, city hall, big commercial buildings where participants in different colors of shirts laid the fish.
Nerrisa Mateo, city agriculturist, said there were five groups who participated in the tuyo-laying contest. Each group arranged on the drying boards 15 “banyera” at 45 kilos of fish each for 15 minutes. “Kung sino ang maayos ang pagkakasalansan, pantay- pantay ang linyada at pinakamahaba, sila ang panalo,” Mateo said.
Special cash prizes were readied for the winner and runners- up. Also presented in the festival were different ways of cooking tuyo some of which are sizzling vegetables con tuyo, ginisang sinigang na tuyo, tuyo curry, tuyo con ananas comosus, apritadang tuyo, escabecheng tuyo and wall-to-wall na tuyo.
A boodle fight followed with rice, sliced fresh tomatoes, itlog na maalat and tuyo as principal menu. City Mayor Jose Enrique Garcia III and Vice-Mayor Noel Valdecanas joined a big crowd in the boodle fight.
