#Club100 | 1th Traditional Food Weekly Challenge : Lechon, Every Filipino Favorite!

The Philippines, being colonized by the Spaniards for a long time had adopted a lot from the Spaniards including food. So today's traditional food that I will be sharing might look similar to other country's versions of it but allow me to share it with you today because this is our fellow men's favorite and it can be seen at every party, celebration, and so on, even on a regular day, a household may have this as it can be available in the market already in a daily basis, a lot has been selling this for business too!

On the 29th, my mother-in-law will celebrate her birthday but we have to make an advance celebration because her second child's traveling for work, so the celebration was both a birthday and Despedida party. Since it's a celebration, lechon won't be absent.

The preparation starts early, although the event was dinner time, everyone was already busy preparing as early as ten in the morning as cooking would take a lot of time and hours. First, of course, the pig has to be slaughtered. I decided not to include a photo of that process as it might be gross to other readers.

The relatives started cleaning the pig, it has to be hair-free so they used boiling water and sharp blades to clean the skin. Most people's favorite part of the lechon is the skin so it must be smooth and flawless. I'd admit, it was my favorite too as there's a lot of flavor in it however, as I grow older, I switched to enjoying the flavors of the rib part instead.

And while the others were cleaning the pig, taking the intestines out, and all, there were others who were also preparing the spices which will be placed in the inside of the lechon, this will give flavors and aroma to this delicacy!

As soon as the pig has been cleaned well, which by the way takes a lot of time, there were at least five people who had cleaned up the pig, a long steel pole will be inserted into it starting from the butt part up to the mouth. This steel will keep the pig in place during roasting. By the way, the pig was bought from a relative too which was worth Php 5,000 or 267.10 Steem.

I made sure to blur the pig part here a bit by focusing on the metal pole. This was of course cleaned up before inserting it. However, I missed taking a photo of them while they were putting all the spices into the stomach of the pig. Once the spices were in, they stitched the tummy back to keep them intact.

And then, soy sauce and salt were massaged into the skin. This was applied as a whole. It took a lot of soy sauce. The pig was around 30 kilos. This was just three months old, it was born in early December.

And now, the tedious part comes, the men will start turning the metal pole which will then turn the whole pig too. This was a manual process, however, in some areas and provinces, they already use electric options, especially those who are roasting for business. But since this is just a homemade one, roasting will be manual.

They started roasting from around one in the afternoon. There were again at least five men who took turns. They used barks of trees that had fallen down during the typhoon Odette so there was no problem with the wood. I regret not trying out this task, I will do that in the future instead. The in-laws always prepare lechon on every occasion, in fact, they buy newborn pigs so they can grow it and then make it into a lechon. They prepare beforehand for birthdays and other occasions.

Now after three to four hours of turning and turning, putting on oil and some flavors into the skin of the lechon, it was already showing a crispy red skin color! They have to poke into the skin down to the bone using a long knife to check if it is fully cooked.

Once confirmed that it is cooked, it will be taken out of the fire and will wait for it to cool a bit before transferring it to a banana leaf. Other households would also have a huge wooden container specifically made for lechon. But for us during that occasion, it's just banana leaves.

We shared the entire lechon with family, neighbors, and friends. I took a few slices of the crispy skin but I ate around four rib pieces. The flavor was all good! The skin was also crispy and since it was still warm during dinner, everyone enjoyed it!

It was paired with steaming hot rice too, and an ice-cold drink as well to top it. The guys even had their liquors.

It is always a tradition to have lechon, it's a way of fellowship too as everyone gathers around the lechon as we take part in the celebration. Of course, we can't eat it all so it is also expected that the remaining lechon meat will be cooked tomorrow as "paksiw" or "to cook and simmer in vinegar".

This video below was taken on another occasion, last year's birthday of our grandmother, still in Oslob, I did mention that they always prepare Lechon for birthdays right? I am adding this video here too!