Lechon

Lechon is always a favorite for Filipinos may it be during celebrations or even on normal day. Back in the days, lechon or roasted whole pig was somehow considered food for the rich but today, it has been a common viand available in the market every single day but when there are occasions especially birthdays and weddings, Filipinos love to either roast it by themselves or pay someone else to roast it for them.

In Oslob, my husband's family is used to raising hogs intended for lechon on someone's special day. Back in November, our beloved grandmother celebrated her 84th birthday and so the relatives prepared a pig around 30-40 kilos in weight, prepared and roasted it from home.

This is a long process and takes a couple of people to do the task.

First, the pig is exterminated from the neck then the internals are taken out, then, hot water has to be used to clean the skin and inside of the pig. There's a dire need to use new and sharp blades to shave the skin, the requirement is that there must be no hair on the skin and all the other parts of the pig. The hot water will help with that too.

Spices are also bring prepared such as scallions, bay leaves, black peppercorn, garlic, salt, and distinctively tanglad (lemongrass). This is placed in the stomach, inside the ribs and then the skin will be sewed back together. A metal pole has to be inserted from the butt to the mouth of the pig, salt will be applied on the skin and into every part of the pig, and finally, it will be roasted over charcoal from coconut husks, it is then turned constantly to cook it evenly. The male cousins and uncles took turns to do this manually.

This process took more than four hours so the process started pretty early around noontime and ended before dinner starts. Everyone's favorite is the skin, it must be crisp and tasty. For me, my favorite parts would be the skin and the ribs, that's where the best flavors.

As it was grandmother's birthday, every son, daughter, cousin, nephew, nieces, and grandchildren came to celebrate that day, the lechon was surely the highlight and everyone took their parts, of course after a few minutes, the lechon was left with no skin and ribs. Most of the time, the head and the butt are always left behind.