“Hey, everybody’s talkin’ about the good old days, right
Everybody, the good old days, the good old days
Well, let’s talk about the good old days
Come to think of it as, as bad as we think they are
these will become the good old days for our children, hum
Why don’t we , ah
Try to remember that kind of September
When life was slow and oh, so mellow, hum
Try to remember, and if you remember then follow
Oh, why does it seem the past is always better
We look back and think
The winters were warmer
The grass was greener
The skies were bluer
And smiles were bright”
GLADYS KNIGHT and the Pips’ Try to Remember-appended rendition of Streisand’s The Way We Were easily came to mind listening to City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez rhapsodized about the frog.
In his pasiano youth, Rodriguez says, “frogs were a source of food and livelihood as we would sell part of the catch in the market. The best recipe then was ‘tortang tugak’ (minced frog meat cooked in soy sauce) and of course the all time favorite ‘betute’ (fried stuffed frog).”
In my own youth as anak-ortelano (son of a landless peasant), frogs were abundant and free for the taking – by the hand or by paduas (improvised rod and string with flies for bait) – in just about every wet rice land or riverbank. My favorite frog dish though was tinola (a soup of dressed frog cooked in ginger and spices with slices of green papaya). It was a staple for post-fever recuperation.
Aside from frogs, plentiful and free too were crabs we caught among the mangrove roots lining the creek right in our own backyard, prawns, shrimps, even the delicious kanduli (a sort of a white catfish) we netted in the kailugan (the main river channels), and exotic, truly exotic camaru (mole crickets) we drew out of their wet underground lairs by stomping our feet over the piarayan (post-harvest remnants of rice stalks).
Then, there were the talangka (small crabs) that literally filled the rivers and creeks at the onset of rains, crawling to the very barrio roads. These were given away by the sack loads, the female of the species prized for its taba (fat or whatever the orange-red thing in it is called). Burung talangka (the small crabs salted until dead and only the fat is taken of it) mixed with steamed rice was a taste of ambrosia.
Ah, how easy was life then. Money may have been scarce for our farming family. But the table was ever laden with food, made more glorious in remembering. And painful, in missing.
Gone were those days. Gone – at least from still-bucolic Sto. Tomas town – were the crabs, the kanduli and the talangka, even the balulungi, that tiny swordfish we never were able to raise in aquariums. Gone to extinction, exterminated as much by pollution as the transformation of their habitat to purely human dwellings, read: agricultural lands turned to subdivisions, industrial estates or commercial areas.
In a few years, even the frog – the edible kind, that is – may be going too.
“Because of rapid urbanization, we have observed that the edible frogs are fast disappearing and maybe nearing extinction. Subdivisions are taking over farmlands. River banks, because of the necessity to avert flooding, are being paved as concrete embankments, driving away the frogs from their natural habitat.” So said Mayor Oca so rightly.
Hence, this year’s Piyestang Tugak “will divert from the usual aspect of frogs as food and the catching process, but rather move to preserve and protect them by giving emphasis on their benefits to humans, the environment and ecological balance.”
“We are seriously considering a program to preserve these species of frogs, snails and crabs along with moves to culture them and save them from extinction. I have asked City Administrator Ferdinand Caylao to discuss this project with our Technical Working Group to maintain, propagate and link-up with other local government units nearby to encourage culturing this vanishing species for the benefit of generations to come,” Mayor Oca furthered. “If we don’t act on their diminishing population now, the future generations might not even recognize these frogs anymore.”
Yeah, we rhapsodize about the frog. And remember, nay, relish the good old days, when the skies were bluer, the air was fresher, the rains cleaner, and the garbage all bio-degradable.
Oh, why does it seem the past is always better…Easy, Gladys, because the past is perfect, the present tense, and the future, er, fearful?
Everybody, the good old days, the good old days
Well, let’s talk about the good old days
Come to think of it as, as bad as we think they are
these will become the good old days for our children, hum
Why don’t we , ah
Try to remember that kind of September
When life was slow and oh, so mellow, hum
Try to remember, and if you remember then follow
Oh, why does it seem the past is always better
We look back and think
The winters were warmer
The grass was greener
The skies were bluer
And smiles were bright”
GLADYS KNIGHT and the Pips’ Try to Remember-appended rendition of Streisand’s The Way We Were easily came to mind listening to City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez rhapsodized about the frog.
In his pasiano youth, Rodriguez says, “frogs were a source of food and livelihood as we would sell part of the catch in the market. The best recipe then was ‘tortang tugak’ (minced frog meat cooked in soy sauce) and of course the all time favorite ‘betute’ (fried stuffed frog).”
In my own youth as anak-ortelano (son of a landless peasant), frogs were abundant and free for the taking – by the hand or by paduas (improvised rod and string with flies for bait) – in just about every wet rice land or riverbank. My favorite frog dish though was tinola (a soup of dressed frog cooked in ginger and spices with slices of green papaya). It was a staple for post-fever recuperation.
Aside from frogs, plentiful and free too were crabs we caught among the mangrove roots lining the creek right in our own backyard, prawns, shrimps, even the delicious kanduli (a sort of a white catfish) we netted in the kailugan (the main river channels), and exotic, truly exotic camaru (mole crickets) we drew out of their wet underground lairs by stomping our feet over the piarayan (post-harvest remnants of rice stalks).
Then, there were the talangka (small crabs) that literally filled the rivers and creeks at the onset of rains, crawling to the very barrio roads. These were given away by the sack loads, the female of the species prized for its taba (fat or whatever the orange-red thing in it is called). Burung talangka (the small crabs salted until dead and only the fat is taken of it) mixed with steamed rice was a taste of ambrosia.
Ah, how easy was life then. Money may have been scarce for our farming family. But the table was ever laden with food, made more glorious in remembering. And painful, in missing.
Gone were those days. Gone – at least from still-bucolic Sto. Tomas town – were the crabs, the kanduli and the talangka, even the balulungi, that tiny swordfish we never were able to raise in aquariums. Gone to extinction, exterminated as much by pollution as the transformation of their habitat to purely human dwellings, read: agricultural lands turned to subdivisions, industrial estates or commercial areas.
In a few years, even the frog – the edible kind, that is – may be going too.
“Because of rapid urbanization, we have observed that the edible frogs are fast disappearing and maybe nearing extinction. Subdivisions are taking over farmlands. River banks, because of the necessity to avert flooding, are being paved as concrete embankments, driving away the frogs from their natural habitat.” So said Mayor Oca so rightly.
Hence, this year’s Piyestang Tugak “will divert from the usual aspect of frogs as food and the catching process, but rather move to preserve and protect them by giving emphasis on their benefits to humans, the environment and ecological balance.”
“We are seriously considering a program to preserve these species of frogs, snails and crabs along with moves to culture them and save them from extinction. I have asked City Administrator Ferdinand Caylao to discuss this project with our Technical Working Group to maintain, propagate and link-up with other local government units nearby to encourage culturing this vanishing species for the benefit of generations to come,” Mayor Oca furthered. “If we don’t act on their diminishing population now, the future generations might not even recognize these frogs anymore.”
Yeah, we rhapsodize about the frog. And remember, nay, relish the good old days, when the skies were bluer, the air was fresher, the rains cleaner, and the garbage all bio-degradable.
Oh, why does it seem the past is always better…Easy, Gladys, because the past is perfect, the present tense, and the future, er, fearful?
