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First Slow Food Community to participate to the Cordillera Food Fair in the Philippines

09.04.2019

As a part of the inaugural national celebration of the Filipino Food Month, officially proclaimed by the President last year, the Department of Tourism Cordillera Administrative region (DoT CAR) and the Tourism Promotions Board will be hosting a week celebration called: Mangan Taku (Let’s Eat)- Cordillera Food Fair, from 8th to 14th April in the Rose Garden (Burnham area Baguio City, Benguet Province, Cordillera Philippines).

Among the protagonists of the fair, there will be the first Slow Food Indigenous Community created in the country, which aims at preserving local traditional and indigenous knowledge of the food heritage of the Taguibong tribe in the Pasil Province and promoting healthy diets with good, clean and fair food.

Slow Food Communities were born after the International Congress in Chengdu (China) and identified as the new open and inclusive model to be followed. Made up of a group of people who share and promote the values of the international Slow Food movement, a community is based first and foremost on the assumption that everyone has the right to good, clean and fair food and that Slow Food will not give up the fight until every last person on this planet has access to it.

This first food fair is a week-long event featuring the various food offerings from the different provinces of the Cordillera, with specific reference to Benguet, Ifugao, Kalinga, and Baguio City and will promote the region’s heritage food culture. Thanks to this fair the different regions will be serving their typical and cultural dishes, prepared and presented by renowned local chefs.  Mangan Taku Cordillera Food Fair aims to highlight the importance of food as a value added to tourism experience and promotes understanding of culture and people, train food handlers to learn how to improve taste and food quality including food presentation, introduce to visitors and locals alike Cordillera food and generate interest and pride of place and culture.

This event and others will have the aim of promoting gastronomic tourism in the Cordillera, as a part of the Food and Tourism for Mountain Development, a project developed by the Mountain Partnership Secretariat, Slow Food and the Department of Tourism in the Philippines, to connect small scale producers with tourism service providers, promote high quality mountain products from the Benguet and Ifugao Provinces of the Cordillera, whilst allowing visitors to support indigenous food culture and traditions and discover new experiences.

People will have the possibility of tasting specialties such as the Benguet coffee, a product catalogued on the Slow Food Ark of Taste, while kiniing, a traditional Cordillera method of curing meat, will be served by Stobosa, a unique mountain community. The Kiangan Homestay Association from the province of Ifugao will serve pinunnog, the Ifugao version of a traditional meat sausage.

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News by Slow Food International Press Office 

Photo by ©BIND/Josa R. Berona