Puerto Princesa Food Diary, Puerto Princesa, Philippines (B)

Food and travel invariably go together. To taste local signature cuisine is to have a bite of a region’s culture, heritage and way of life. When we recently visited Puerto Princesa City, we discovered that it had a lot to offer in terms of food, both exotic and familiar.

We found out also that one of its biggest agricultural crops is cashew, thus expect to find cashew nut products in most pasalubong (souvenir) shops around the city.

Perhaps Puerto Princesa’s, or the whole of Palawan’s, most iconic dish is the Tamilok (Toredo Navalis) or wood worm. While most people might feel squeamish with the idea of eating worms, tamilok is actually a type of mollusk. Hence, the similarity in taste to oysters. This wood-burrowing mollusk lives in and feeds on dead mangrove tree trunks. As such, tamilok gatherers are always on the lookout for dead, fallen mangrove tree trunks along rivers and sea sides. Once the tamilok is taken out of its burrow and exposed to air, it quickly changes color from white to bluish. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).