by George Banez
“If not adobo, what food do you miss?” I asked Dr. Margarita Lavides, fellow academic residing in the U.S. Currently teaching at universities in the New York metropolitan area, she moved to New Jersey in 2015. After earning her Ph.D. in the U.K. and decades of working as a marine conservationist in the Philippines, she now trains future American environmental scientists.
“Ginanga,” Lavides said without hesitation. “I am salivating just thinking about it,” she added. Where she lives, the “Ginanga” of her childhood can be difficult to recreate. “Ginanga” is an everyday dish made with “Galunggong,” a Filipino staple fish known globally as Round Scad. The slender fish are wrapped together in banana leaves and slowly steam-cooked in coconut vinegar. Tucked inside are layers of sour fruit “Kamias” or Averrhoa bilimbi, garlic, peppercorn, and sea salt. They bring out the oily fish’s umami.
The “Ginanga” Lavides craved comes from the culinary traditions of Atimonan in the province of Quezon where she was born. Its edge lies in the amount of coconut vinegar used. It is only enough to steam the bundles of fish resting on a makeshift grill of bamboo skewers. The fish do not soak in the braising vinegar. So, the “Galunggong” meat remains firm, not mushy, while it imbibes all those flavors.
Traditionally cooked in “palayok” or the Filipino unglazed clay pot, “Ginanga” simmers over low charcoal heat. The porous earthenware allows steam to circulate inside, and the alkaline clay helps neutralize acidity. Flavor, moisture, and nutrients stay in the food. The charcoal, made with coconut shell or husk, imparts extra smokiness.
Enjoyed with steamed rice, the tart “Ginanga” goes well with other lunch or dinner fare of cooked vegetables. Left-over “Ginanga” tastes better a day or two later even without refrigeration. The acidity of vinegar keeps bacteria at bay for about a week. But beyond three days, leftovers could be enhanced by frying in coconut oil or by adding coconut milk. By then called “Ginat-an,” the name for dishes cooked in coconut milk, leftover “Ginanga” becomes another dish.
“Fresh ‘Galunggong’ at Our Doorstep”
Growing up in the coastal municipality of Atimonan, Lavides remembers fish hawkers on foot peddling all kinds of fish. Atimonan is home to a big fish port, where commercial and artisanal fishers bring their catch to sell. The “maglalako,” or itinerant vendor, arrives there at five every morning to pick-up fish caught off municipal waters. They then walk around town selling the catch of the day, including “Galunggong.”
Atimonan on the southern shore of Lamon Bay is cut off from it by Alabat Island. This 33-km (20-mi) long island creates a sheltered body of water, Lopez Bay, named after the municipality on its eastern shore. This municipal water is where local fishers harvest “Galunggong.” The greater Lamon Bay connects to the Philippine Sea on the margins of the vast Pacific Ocean.
Lavides recalls “Galunggong” in Atimonan being small compared to those sold in Manila. They average 3-4 inches in length. “Galunggong” is a silvery schooling fish with an elongated and somewhat round body. Atimonan “Galunggong” belongs to Decapterus macrosoma species according to Lavides.
In the Philippines, different fish species go by the name “Galunggong.” Most belong to the genus Decapterus and typically grow to an average of 7 inches (18 cm). Well-loved in Filipino cooking, “Galunggong” is now imported when domestic supplies fall short. Those sold in Manila likely came from China, Vietnam, or Taiwan.
Lavides spent most of her career life in Manila after finishing college in the ‘80s. There, at the huge “Farmers Market-Araneta City”, she saw fish branded as “Atimonan.” She surmised that they were caught by commercial fishers exploiting the rich fishing grounds of Lamon Bay.
Atimonan lies at the southern end of the Sierra Madre, the mountain range that runs along Luzon Island’s eastern coast. Atimonan is the northernmost municipality on the Lamon Bay coast before the road bends northwest toward Manila, the capital—where most of its catch ends up.
On a recent trip back to Atimonan from the U.S., Lavides noticed that the “maglalako” fish vendors were gone. She also could not find premium fish like “Ugapo” or Grouper sold at the local wet market.
Instead of selling a variety of fish, she saw more vendors hawking the freshwater Tilapia and the popular “Bangus,” or Milkfish. Both are fish farmed outside Atimonan. Lavides said other fish can be used for “Ginanga.” But insisted that Atimonan “Galunggong” is by far the best.
“Ginanga” for the Homesick
Fortunately, delicious “Galunggong” can still be fished out of Lamon Bay according to Nenengco De Guia Amparo. An enterprising Atimonan native, Amparo currently runs her own catering business, “Kusina ni Inang Choleng.” She recently renamed it as a tribute to her late mother, Choleng, who cooked local favorites at the canteen she owned. It was there where young Amparo learned about food. When she opened in 2017, she first called her business “Nenengco’s House of Ginanga.”
“I can tell you that growing up we always had ‘Ginanga’ in the ‘palayok’ (clay pot). But I was never picky with food. I ate what was on the table because that was what we were told to do. So, I did not really miss mother’s ‘Ginanga’ even when I left Atimonan to work in Manila and Japan. Only when I started cooking it myself that I truly appreciated Ginanga.”
Since then, Amparo had made her mark. She won the “Ginangang Galunggong” cooking contest sponsored by the municipal government in 2019. Her winning recipe uses aromatic Pandan, Pandanus amaryllifolius, instead of banana leaves to bundle the fish. She adds lemon grass, chillis, coconut oil, and a secret ingredient to spice it up. She gushed that her innovation was a big hit among the youth who were judging. They loved her less-fishy version.
As the 2019 “Ginangang Galunggong” champion of the “Atimonan Tagultol Fishing Festival,” Amparo was invited to sell at the “Niyogyugan Festival” in Lucena, the provincial capital. There, the governor who sampled her “Ginanga” requested her to judge other cooking contests. And more importantly, asked her to continue participating as a vendor thereafter.
Today, aside from preparing Atimonan favorites like “Pinangat,” taro leaves cooked in coconut milk, Amparo cooks “Ginanga” for “Balik-Bayan” Filipinos. Those returning home after living overseas seriously crave them. They order these everyday dishes as fiesta fare. But instead of “Galunggong,” Amparo uses “Buyo,” the local Tuna for her “Ginanga.” She even pounds the bigger, firmer fish to tenderize and enhance its absorption of flavors.
Can the Catch Sustain Demand?
Many Filipinos rely on fish for food, and their numbers have increased. The Philippine 2020 Census reported that the municipality of Atimonan had 68,857 people. In 1980, just before Lavides and Amparo left town to work in Manila, Atimonan had half that at 33,300. In Metro Manila, the fish catches’ destination, the population was 13,484,462 in 2020. Forty years earlier, 5,925,884 people called it home.
Marine Conservationist Dr. Margarita Lavides and team asked 2,655 fishers, aged 21 and older, how much fish they recalled catching from the 1950s to 2014. Analyzing the responses, the researchers inferred which fish species disappeared from their catches in five marine conservation sites.
In 2016, Lavides and team published their findings in an open-access article on the PLOS One Journal. They reported that fifty-nine (59) different finfish disappeared from catches between 1950 and 2014. Fishers reported zero catches of five important fish species in the sites they studied: (1) green bumped head parrot fish, (2) humphead wrasse, (3) African pompano, (4) giant grouper, (5) mangrove red snapper.
Serendipitously, Nenengco De Guia Amparo’s first job in Manila, in 1982, was with scientist Dr. Inocencio Ronquillo of the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR). Ronquillo earlier wrote a review of “Galunggong” in the Philippines in 1975.
In 2024, Drs. Jobelle Tapia and Mudjekeewis Santos updated this review on “Galunggong” (Decapterus spp.) in the Philippines. They concluded that Round Scad species are the most harvested fish in the country, and catch had decreased in the last 30 years of assessment.
Steps to prevent fish populations from collapsing are already underway. Marine environments (or ecosystems) need time to recover if life within them were to regenerate. So, local and national governments, along with coastal communities, have begun setting aside protected areas. Together, they restrict fishing in these designated waters and enforce other conservation measures.
Amparo mentioned a seasonal ban on fishing “Galunggong” implemented in Atimonan. The BFAR-mandated fishing closure protects fish during peak spawning periods, allowing adults to reproduce and the juveniles to grow.
Will there be enough “Galunggong” for the younger generations of Atimonan to enjoy “Ginanga?” Both Lavides and Amparo think so.
About the Author:
George Banez is a writer of Filipino descent and is a retired non-profit professional living in Florida.
