At this year’s Philippine Book Festival, I came across “Culinary Heritage of Antique” by Dr. Mary Rose Gemma Rodriguez, president of Advance Central College (ACC) in Antique and a passionate culinary heritage advocate.
I was happy to meet Mary Rose, who is from Antique and who took the time to document the province’s food and cooking traditions.
I have always appreciated books like this because they remind us that food is not just about recipes. It is also about place, family, ingredients and how people actually live.
To me, the most important part is how she likewise gave space to the gatekeepers of Antique’s culinary heritage — the men and women from Antique’s towns who keep traditions alive, using ingredients that are available, local and indigenous.
Antique is beautiful because it is raw and rugged in many ways. It has the mountains, the sea, the rivers, the farms, and the kind of landscape that naturally shapes what people eat. In places like this, food is really connected to what is available around you. This is also why its ingredients matter. You will find food traditions that use what is already there. Some ingredients and dishes may not be as familiar to those outside the province, such as alupidan leaves, lupo-lupo, pinindang, sapal and bandi. But these are exactly the things that make regional food interesting.
This brought me back to my recent conversations with Chit Juan, especially on sustainability, local producers, and the Slow Food movement. She has always been consistent about the need to know where our food comes from and to support the people who grow, prepare, and preserve them. It is not just about eating local because it sounds good. It is also about making sure that local ingredients and food traditions continue to have a place in our homes, communities, and markets.
The Slow Food movement talks about food that is good, clean and fair. Antique naturally fits into that conversation. Its food is connected to biodiversity, small producers, farmers, fisherfolk and home cooks who still know how to prepare food the way it has been done for generations.
Sen. Loren Legarda has also been consistent in supporting the documentation and preservation of local food biodiversity, including that of Antique. In one of her speeches, she said that there are “more than 100 listed products across the whole province of Antique,” with 34 for nomination to the Ark of Taste Catalogue, including Sapal and Bandi Mani. She also explained that the Ark of Taste aims to preserve unique products that are in danger of disappearing.
Preservation cannot just stay through the written word alone; food survives when people continue to cook it, eat it, buy it, serve it, and pass it on.
This is where the province has so much potential. Antique already has the ingredients, stories and landscape. Pinindang, for example, is not just dried fish. It is connected to coastal communities and the people who know how to prepare and preserve it. Local leaves like alupidan and lupo-lupo are not just ingredients. They tell us what grows in the area and how people have learned to cook with what is available. Sapal and bandi are not just delicacies. They are part of memory, pasalubong, and everyday local food culture.
When seen this way, food becomes more than something served on a plate. It becomes part of how a visitor understands Antique, making for a stronger food tourism story. It simply builds on what is already there.
Done properly, food tourism can support local communities while also preserving food traditions. Visitors get a better understanding of the place, while farmers, fisherfolk, home cooks, local guides, and small producers become part of the experience.
“Culinary Heritage of Antique” is a reminder that many of our best food stories are still in the provinces, waiting to be documented properly and shared with more people.