DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 31 March) — A culinary workshop on plant-based heritage food brought together farmers, indigenous groups, religious communities, and food advocates in Davao City on Monday, framing food not only as sustenance, but a shared ground across cultures, faiths, and lived realities.
“Utanon: V40 Culinary Workshop on Plant-based Heritage Food of Davao,” held at the Green House Cinema on March 30, combined talks with a community cooking session and a public food pop-up, moving from grasping environmental issues, to sharing food traditions, and towards collective well-being.
Grounding food in faith, history, and shared struggle
The workshop opened by situating food within spiritual, cultural, and systemic contexts.
Sr. Beverly Romualdo, of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Concepcion, linked plant-based eating to the observance of Holy Week, framing it as a practice rooted in care and responsibility.
“We are called to care for the earth and prepare it for the next generation,” she said, emphasizing that food choices can reflect both faith and stewardship of the environment. “Ito po ay napakalakas na hamon na palaging naririnig ko sa ating mga katutubo (This is a very strong challenge I always hear from our native brothers and sisters).”
This relationship between food and belief systems was echoed in the opening cultural performance by Monuvu women, whose dance depicted cycles of farming — from testing soil fertility to giving thanks for the harvest — reflecting indigenous understandings of our relationship with land as a living, sustaining presence.
Chef Laorence Castillo of Gulay Na! emphasized that addressing the issues that harm that relationship requires collective effort, describing the workshop itself as an act of community-building.
“Ang pagkain… hindi lang para bigyan tayo ng kalusugan, kundi para buhayin ang isa’t isa bilang isang pamayanan,” he said. Food is not just for health; it keeps us alive as a community.
Speakers then turned to the broader systems shaping how food is produced and consumed.
Leona Yap of OneVeg pointed to the interconnected crises of food insecurity, environmental degradation, and public health, stressing that these are not isolated issues.
“Our current food system is making us sick,” she said, noting how distance from food sources and reliance on ultra-processed products have weakened connections between people, farmers, and land.
She also emphasized that access to healthy food is shaped by larger systems, not just individual discipline.
“Health is not just about a person’s self-discipline, but the result of all of our choices as actors in this big system designed to keep us sick,” she said.
Dr. Macario Tiu, a Mindanao scholar and historian, situated these conversations within a longer timeline, pointing towards precolonial food practices and indigenous knowledge systems that continue to shape local cuisine.
Building on this, Anita Pandian grounded the discussion in the lived realities of farmers and indigenous communities, pointing to the gradual disappearance of underutilized and indigenous plant species — once commonly found near rivers and rice fields — due to the widespread use of chemical herbicides. She noted that many of these plants, now rarely seen if at all, were once part of everyday diets in farming communities.
Pandian further highlighted traditional cooking practices using natural materials such as bamboo, situating them within broader systems of sustainable living now being eroded. She linked the shift towards chemically dependent farming to declining food quality and rising health concerns. At the same time, she emphasized the importance of reviving organic and traditional farming practices, and resisting corporate-driven agricultural systems that push farmers towards dependency rather than self-sustaining production.
Dr. Moon Maglana, of Alternatibong Katilingbanong Kalambo-ang Panglawas, likewise framed access to vegetables as a matter of public health, stressing that communities cannot be well if nutritious, accessible food remains out of reach. She pointed to the need for community-based approaches that reconnect people to local food sources, especially in the face of rising health concerns linked to diet.
From discussion to practice: cooking as shared knowledge
The afternoon shifted from discussion to practice through a community cooking session, where participants prepared plant-based heritage dishes using locally known but often underutilized ingredients.
Multiple cooking stations ran simultaneously, led by farmers, indigenous cooks, and community members. Among the dishes prepared were sinabaw na dirif, ginataang aposaw, ubod sa patikan, ensaladang dahongay, ginisang likondol, vegan pastil made from langka, and suman kasa.
Despite the unfamiliarity of some ingredients, the methods used — boiling, sautéing, blanching, and cooking in coconut milk — were widely recognizable.
In ginataang aposaw, led by Diangan Manuvu Julieta Linogan, for instance, leaves were prepared using the same technique typically applied to more common vegetables like pumpkin, string beans, or taro leaves: softened, then sautéed and cooked in coconut cream until thick. In ubod sa patikan led by Anita Pandian, the palm core was sliced and cooked in a style similar to law-uy, while Aireen Snachez of Permakultura Dabaw’s ensaladang dahongay adapted the method of blanched leafy salads, then finished with fresh toppings such as pomelo and edible flowers.
These dishes revealed a key insight: Filipino cuisine is often defined less by fixed ingredients, than by adaptable methods. Dishes remain familiar even when ingredients change: ginataan, ginisa, or suman retain their identity regardless of what is used, allowing local and indigenous crops to take center stage.
At the same time, the session highlighted the value of indigenous knowledge in identifying and sustaining these ingredients. Vegetables like aposaw, dahongay, and patikan, though less visible in urban markets, remain part of everyday life in the communities that cultivate them, underscoring their potential in nutrition, sustainability, and even future food research.
Innovations also emerged alongside tradition. Team Gulay Na!’s Vegan pastil, for example, demonstrated how langka’s naturally fibrous texture can be developed through boiling and frying, offering a plant-based alternative that responds to changing food needs while remaining rooted in familiar forms.
Sinabaw na dirif, led by Obu-Manuvu Jenelyn Mansalinao, involved simmering banana blossom with tomatoes, ginger, and other aromatics until tender. Ginisang likondol, prepared by Anita Morales of Metsa Foundation & PGS Davao, followed a simple sautéing method using kundol and aromatics. Suman kasa, demonstrated by Azrel Deborah Comiling of MASIPAG Mindanao, combined sweet potato and saba bananas with sticky rice flour and coconut water before being wrapped in banana leaves.
Food as a shared table
The workshop culminated in an evening food pop-up, where members of the public were invited to sample the dishes prepared earlier in the day.
For organizers and participants, the act of eating together marked the completion of the process: from discussion to preparation to shared experience.
The pop-up also extended beyond prepared dishes, with partner groups Art Relief Mobile Kitchen Davao and the Matina Community Pantry also showcasing small-scale, sustainability-oriented products. Handmade goods such as natural soaps were displayed alongside fruits and coffee offerings. Kugi Slow Bar, for its part, introduced creative plant-based drinks, including a buko pandan matcha that blended familiar Filipino flavors with contemporary global techniques.
Across the day’s activities, a recurring idea emerged: that food, while shaped by different cultures and faiths, also reveals shared concerns. Issues such as food insecurity, environmental degradation, and access to healthy food affect communities differently, but remain interconnected.
By bringing together diverse groups — from Catholic religious workers to indigenous communities and food advocates — the event underscored how these differences can converge in practice, where food becomes both a site of memory and a space for collective response. (Bea Gatmaytan / MindaNews)
