Her wish is for Bicol to become the country’s next culinary destination

When Rica Dakudao Buenaflor left her life in Las Vegas to move to her husband’s hometown in Camarines Sur in 2001, she had no idea that she would one day become one of Bicol’s most ardent champions. Camarines Sur belongs to the Bicol region in southeast Luzon and is one of its six provinces. Known for its agricultural produce of rice, coconuts and abaca, it is also home to Mayon Volcano, dive areas like Donsol – where whale sharks can be spotted between November and June – as well as caves and archaeological sites.

What not many outside the region know, however, is that the province also boasts a rich and diverse culinary scene. Popular Bicolano dishes include laing, taro leaves cooked in coconut milk that’s been seasoned with lemongrass and chili, as well as sinantolan, grated santol (cotton fruit) rinds with shrimp paste.

This oversight is what prompted Buenaflor, a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu in Paris to start the three-day Best of Bicol Food Tour.  It was launched in 2019 and runs based on bookings for groups with at least 10 people, but it has been temporarily put on hold because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“There’s just so much about the region to be discovered and showcased, and this is also an opportunity to work with local communities and create livelihoods,” Buenaflor says. “We have a coordinator who leads the tour and local chefs conducting food demonstrations. The cities are also tapped to assist in our market tours, and a hotelier in Sorsogon personally hosts the guests. It really is, in the truest sense, a community effort to showcase our region.”

The tour only covers three cities: Naga, Legazpi and Sorsogon. Activities include observing how farmers harvest nuts from tall pili trees, as well as diving for fresh sea grapes and oysters in the sea.

Each stop offers a chance to taste authentic dishes that are often available only locally. There are also learning experiences, such as a crash course on the different varieties of laing (sundried taro leaves cooked with meat or seafood in coconut milk).

“It’s the right and ripe time to advocate regional cuisine. My hope is for Bicol to become a culinary destination that will attract both local and international markets,” Buenaflor says.

Buenaflor is also the proprietor of Que Rica, a line of bottled Bicolano delicacies. Apart from laing and sinantolan, she also makes taba ng talangka (baby crab fat), Bicol Express, a stew made of coconut milk, pork, red bird’s eye chili and shrimp paste, and New Look, a type of dried fish, in preserved in oil.

Her brand has also extended and gone beyond bottled items. It now has pili nuts in Himalayan salt or truffle pecorino, limas-smoked bacon, chorizong hubad (skinless chorizo sausage), and her very first offering, the laing longganisa (sausage stuffed with laing) which until now, has continued to be her bestseller.

“When people found out that I was promoting Bicol cuisine and that I went to culinary school, I started getting requests to either cater or deliver food from the province. Then people would ask me how to serve laing and what to pair it with. Because of that, I decided to put laing and pork in one product – that’s how the longganisa came to be.”

In the process of promoting regional food, she is able able to impact the lives of the city folk by giving them livelihood. “I discovered communities like the women of Gainza who now bottle my products. Through Que Rica and the tours, we all work together to champion our region.”

Angelo Comsti writes about food in “Tall Order“, his weekly column in Philippine Daily Inquirer.