Story and photos by Mau Victa | Correspondent
CANDON City—the center of commerce, education and trade of southern Ilocos Sur—hosts an average of 150,000 tourists every year, courtesy of its two main festivals, the Tobacco Festival in March and the year-ender Feria de Candon Festival, which aim to attract tourists to spur the city’s economy.
In an effort to level up these crowd-drawing events, Mayor Ericson Singson said they always come up with new and interesting activities for the public to watch out for, such as the Calamay (glutinous rice cake) Festival, the city’s one-town, one-product pride; and Kornikfestival, both recently included in this year’s Tobacco Festival offerings.
In the one-day event, a calamay packaging and eating contest was held, graced by the city mayor, other city officials and Ilocos Sur Rep. Eric Singson.
A mosaic and miniature contest using kornik, popularly known as chichacorn, was held, participated in by all 42 barangays of the city.
Both events were a way of paying tribute to Candon City’s most popular products, given life by its residents’ industry and actively supported by the city government.
Nana Caring’s ‘calamay’
CARIDAD Dario, 82, of Barangay Bagar, has earned money to get several college diplomas, including that of a midwife and several for teachers and seamen—all courtesy of her seven children and a bunch of nieces and nephews, all of whom she sent to college, as college was something she was not able to achieve for herself.
After she was called home by her mother upon finishing high school in Manila, Nana Caring devoted her life to countless, laborious hours of stirring a sticky mix of ingredients they would later meticulously line in plastic and sell as calamay, one of Candon City’s age-old native delicacies which has helped shape this Ilocos Sur city’s image as an industrious and proficient city.
Like its makers, calamay, as a product of Ilocano craft that has become a not-to-forget pasalubong item among tourists, requires patience and technique before achieving the proverbial fruit of labor.
For some who are eating calamay for the first time, the intricate process of taking out the calamay from its package doesn’t matter: The messier, the better and more fun.
The family of Nana Caring is among those who pioneered calamay making in Candon City. Before her, her parents were into the craft and among the first four residents in their area who mastered the recipe. The practice was passed on to Nana Caring and stuck on with her for decades, and now with her children.
Nana Caring didn’t mind the laborious process of calamay making.
“Quality comes with patience,” she said in the vernacular. That was the reason the calamay with the “Nana Caring” label is trusted and the one searched-for in the market. In a talyase, or a giant pot, placed over an antique stove her family has been using for decades, the calamay mix has to be stirred with a long, antiquated steel stick for a minimum of four hours continuously to achieve the desired stickiness. The mix is made up of brown and white (refined) sugar, young coconut milk (gata), aged coconut (niyog) milk and coconut meat strips.
“Constant stirring cooks the ingredients evenly and makes the calamay last longer. It will not spoil immediately,” Nana Caring said. A quality, properly cooked calamay, she added, should last for a week.
The product started to be sold in the Candon City plaza with other Ilocos native delicacies. It became a hit among early patrons and, decades up to now, remains a must-bring-home item for tourists and travelers. Nana Caring’s calamay supply expanded to Vigan City and Baguio City, aside from those bought in bulk and brought home as pasalubong. She developed a loyal clientele who keeps coming back to their stall in the plaza because she gives freebies for items bought, which she used as a marketing strategy.
Calamay is packed in strips of clear plastic, wrapped in brown paper and sold by the bundle for P100, its quantity depending on its size.
As the business boomed, many residents also started engaging in calamay making, providing clients more brands to choose from. Nana Caring’s brand, however, remains one to reckon with in terms of quality, taste and freshness. It is for this reason her business was chosen as a recipient of local-government support. Through Ilocos Sur Rep. Eric Singson, Nana Caring was provided a concrete structure put up within her lot that now serves as a calamay factory, housing her cooking equipment, as well as the packaging area for her repackers, who are mostly relatives.
In fact, two of her children who have Education degrees have taken after what she has started and are continuing the legacy of calamay making, at least relieving Nana Caring from the backbreaking hours of stirring calamay mix in the pot. Nephews and nieces and her children’s children complete the picture of the family business, helping in the cooking preparation and packaging the finished product. They have also hired outside help, thus providing work in the locality.
“It is nice knowing that the calamay business has helped provide for my family, as well as that of others who are trying to improve their lives. I’m glad my children are willing to continue the business,” she said.
“We also love knowing that we help bring tourists to Candon City, so we do our best to give them a taste of quality Ilocano hospitality through our calamay,” Nana Caring said, who may not have a diploma to boast of, but is seeing the meaning of achievement through her children.
LSJ ‘chichacorn’
ANOTHER trusted name in the Ilocano delicacy industry of Candon City is LSJ Chichacorn, one of the biggest and the maker of the original kornik chichacorn delicacy in Ilocos Sur.
The success of the business of Ilocos corn bits is no wonder. On an ordinary working day, LSJ Chichacorn owner Lydia Sy herself was chanced upon busy on the third and last stage of frying white sticky corn at their warehouse in Barangay Bagay, scooping them from sacks of predried corn bits into the boiling cooking oil placed in a large saucepan over a native stone stove fired by wood.
The day at the warehouse starts at 3 a.m., with a team of workers—all of whom are Sy’s relatives—in charge of screening, applying flavors, cooling and packing of the product, with Sy, who raised three daughters, at the helm, sweating it out frying heaps of corn on the stove.
Hands-on in the kornik preparation, Sy said the family business started many years ago with a modest half salop of corn, from which she experimented on so she could come up with a good-tasting snack. It was a time when the commercial corn snack Corn Bits was in the market. She opened a pack, tasted it, and tried to come up with something of the same taste.
Their old house then was near an elementary school, and there she sold what was to be later known as chichacorn, which she repacked in small bags and sold at 25 centavos each. The venture clicked among the pupils and teachers who became their earliest patrons.
Sy’s chichacorn business was born.
The family started buying sacks of raw white corn, dried under the sun for three days, and undergo three stages of frying until the bits pop open and become crunchy.
All their cooking and repacking equipment were products of their invention and investment. From the boiling pan, the cooked corn bits will be transferred into a wide rectangular stainless drying dock for cooling, with the aid of electric fans. On this stage, a worker would screen out the bits, removing stray bad ones. Then they are transferred to a similar container where it is mixed with the powdered flavors. Sy said they also concocted their own flavors, mixing the ingredients in a blender into a powder to come up with adobo, cheese, barbecue, or sweet and spicy.
The last stage is repacking, done meticulously to keep its freshness.
During the early years of the venture, Sy said they needed additional start-up fund due to the increased demand for their product. Alfonso D. Singson, the vice mayor of Candon City at that time and one of their chichacorn’s earliest suki, loaned the family P20,000 to help defray the production expense as part of the city government’s livelihood assistance to its residents.
The assistance helped launched the LSJ Chichacorn into a thriving business and is now one of Candon City’s most successful and popular pasalubong items. Being the original chichacorn in the market, LSJ has maintained a solid following, patronized for its quality taste and seal of freshness.
Aside from supplying Candon City and nearby towns’ markets, transactions for LSJ products have stepped up and gone online, now being done through call-in orders by regular customers who buy in bulk to bring it to their places here and abroad. Other orders are also being coursed through the Candon City government, whom other customers who wanted the LSJ brand get in touch with to reach the manufacturer directly.
For the Sys, chichacorn production is a labor of love, with the constant sweating due to exposure to the heat of a boiling stove, screening and repacking to come up with a quality product. Sy said the industry has supported the family well, having three daughters, as well as her relatives, who help in the business.
Image credits: Mau Victa
1 comment
Agpayso! naimas ti calamay ni Nana Caring.