City as Public Market
“Talangka! Puros babae!”
It must’ve been a side-effect of the recent typhoons and floods. Assortments of seafood are now being peddled in the city. Someone selling female crabs just passed our apartment. Several days ago in the streets I heard someone selling mussels. A week earlier we bumped into a wooden cart with three plastic pails of fresh fish in ice.
Earlier, a woman has started plying the streets selling papaya and pineapples. This is in addition to the regular peddlers of roasted or boiled peanuts, suha (pomelo), red watermelons, mangoes…
I kind of like the way the city is transforming into a public market, especially a market of fresh produce - from the small farms, the sea, the ponds.
Flying fish from the sea in Baclayon, Bohol.
I miss life in Baclayon already, quite unexpectedly, it wasn’t easy. But there was so much more to learn and enjoy.
There I taught myself how to debone a bangus (milkfish). On full moon days, when there is less catch from the sea, the market sells plenty of bangus. I love bangus but the tiny bones are quite a nuisance, so I learned how to remove them, marinate and then fry. It wasn’t so difficult after all. I also had to do it in a dark mosquito-ridden kitchen with no running water. 
Oh, but I love that house … 
It was also there that I learned to like flying fish - there are two varieties, as shown in the photo above, and some people there say that the winged one is male and the slender ones with the slightly long noses are female. I haven’t had the chance to ask the fishermen about it, but I suspect they are actually different types of fish. I see smaller version of the slender ones whenever we go swimming in the sea… People say that they are actually dirty, because they eat all the stuff that other fish wouldn’t. Someone said they eat sputum and shit. Sounds horrible, but whatever, the fish actually tastes very good … perhaps why they taste very good!
Nevertheless, I have to learn how to dry and salt these inexpensive fish. The fishermen have a special net for the flying fish too. Next time, when we return to Baclayon, it would be nice to see how they catch flying fish … we’ve already done the dilis (bolinao in Bisaya, anchovies in English).