Consuelo’s pawikan

You have to understand. The only reason it got to this was because she could not bear the thought of killing it in the first place. It got caught in the fishing nets. It was not yet very big when this happened, a few hand spans at most or “pila lang ka dangaw” as people are wont to describe the length of anything here.

Here is a small coastal town 73 kilometers south of the big city. Its fishing industry competed at one time with its neighboring town, Barili. But that was some generations ago. Now this industry is practically dead. Dead after years of dynamite fishing.

But in the old days there were fishing boats that unloaded their catch here. They dropped their lines and nets at Tañon Strait catching bansikul, lumayagan, dalupapa, etc. They dropped their nets in the dead of night when there was no moon. The boats carried with them kerosene lamps to lure the fish.

From time to time, the nets caught the unexpected. Little sharks, dolphins and sea turtles, which were always considered a nuisance as they fouled up or tore the nets. None but those who were really close to the sea, the hard-core natives, knew how to cook them so they were palatable. They were always hard to sell.

But such was their respect for the produce of the sea that they never threw back into it what they caught. In their system of mythical beliefs, whatever they caught were gifts from God. To waste or refuse them was to invite “gaba,” the local word for bad karma. More often than not the consequence came immediately in the form of bad luck.

Part of the local mythology says the pawikan or sea turtle is sentient. It understands the tragedy of losing freedom and life. Which is why it cries in front of the knife. It cries real tears before the slaughter.

As it did now at the town market where the fishermen prepared to sever its jugular. And she took pity by buying the poor animal to prevent its death. But while everyone laughed at her alleged naivete, the pawikan’s reprieve from death was not at all difficult. Her brother owned the fishing boat.

At the back of her house was a washing tub where they always stored brackish water. The children bathed in it at odd times. For many decades thereafter it would be Pawikan’s home. In a sense, the pawikan grew up with her seven children. But while they had a whole planet to grow up into, Pawikan in time grew too big for the tub. It got so it could not even turn around inside its little world. To be sure, they could have set it free into the sea. But in a place where food was always scarce, to throw food away would have been the worst kind of sin. It just was not done.

She went away with her kids when Pawikan was finally slaughtered. She returned just in time to cook some of it herself making sure her stew would have just enough marbling. Pawikan fat is green and yellow in color. Care must be taken to make sure every dish will have the right mix of different meats, a bit of fat, a bit of lean and some liver, though not too much. It must simmer for hours in a cast iron wok over a slow wood fire. The trick is to put the ingredients in, meats, sambag, black beans, etc., at the correct time so the finished dish will have the correct flavor and mix of soft and chewy parts.

Out of love for Pawikan, she made sure the finished dish would be something for her children to remember her by as they might also remember Pawikan. Her children will all recount how well she succeeded.

The run of time would make her dish not only less popular to mainstream taste but also quite illegal as well, and rightly so. She herself would teach her children how the pawikan was coming near to extinction, how its eggs were often hunted to make aphrodisiacs and food to ensure long-life.

By this, she taught her own children that life is never as simple as it seems. It is never black and white. It is not grey either. It changes in the light of conflicting views, changing values and supreme divine irony. How, for instance, can the best meat you’ve ever eaten be also the worst meat you can ever eat? How in the run of time we will not always be choosing between bad or worse? Instead, we may have to choose between bad and worse over nothing at all.

In the end, we find the best foods are always eaten best by way of memory. And so we remember Consuelo and her pawikan, now both departed and dearly missed.