Many of you know that my family and I live on the east shore of Sarangani Bay, in the far south of the big island of Mindanao, Philippines. Our place is 28 miles (45 km) from the nearest city (it seems farther than that). So we like to avail ourselves of the local food products. We grow a lot of our own vegetables and fruits, but we are not fishermen. Our neighbors are, out of necessity…there being no jobs (other than those we generate here on our property). Fishing is, in fact, a way of life for many Filipinos that live in the rural areas (outside the big cities of Manila, Cebu, Davao). Fortunately, or more likely because of, the Philippines has more than 7,000 islands, so there is a lot of coast line. I don’t know the numbers on this, but a vast number of Filipinos live within a stone’s throw of the sea shore.

Most of them are what you might call subsistence fishermen, who fish for food for their families. They use small 1-2 man bancas (small outrigger canoes) that are cheap to build. I wrote a blog about the Filipino banca some years ago. If they get lucky, and catch more than they need for the day (they have no refrigeration, not even ice) they bring the excess to us, and we almost always buy it from them.

We are big fish eaters, as you may have guessed. All local catch, with an occasional product from a fish market in a nearby city. It is a healthy diet, and cheap for us.

This morning, a man pulled his banca up on our beach and brought his catch to us. We bought 2.5 kilos (5.5 lbs) of tulay for 250 pesos ($5.21, 95 cents a pound). He also had a fish that we really like. We haven’t learned its name. It definitely is not a sword fish, more like a scabbard for a machete…so we call it the scabbard fish. This one weighed 400 grams (14 oz) that we bought for 30 pesos ($0.63, 55 cents a pound). As is, but about as fresh as you can get.



In this photo, the small fish are the tulay (a kind of mackerel), and the other is the mystery fish. (If anyone reading this knows what this fish is, I’d appreciate hearing from you.)

For my breakfast this morning I had steamed rice, fried fish, a fried egg, fried green tomatoes, and a hot chili pepper, followed up with fresh ripe pineapple. Heaven!