Heirloom Food Preservation Techniques and Languages of the Indigenous Peoples of Cervantes, Ilocos Sur, Philippines

Abstract

In every society, culture remains to be the primary identity that distinguishes its members from other societies. Two of the ways in which culture is accentuated and manifested are the society’s language and food or cuisine. As such, investigating them revitalizes, promotes, and preserves one society’s culture. In such context, this study was conceptualized and implemented to document the indigenous food preservation techniques and language of the people of Cervantes, Ilocos Sur, Philippines. Through community immersion, interviews, observation, the study revealed that salting, smoking, drying, and fermenting are the common food preservation techniques. In salting, panag-etag and panag-asin are the two identified indigenous food preservation techniques, while panagtapa and panagkiing are the techniques employed in drying. Meanwhile, panagsuob is being practiced under smoking, and panagbubod is done in fermentation. The identified languages are those that are being used in each of the identified indigenous food preservation techniques. The study also revealed that the developed Cervantesian Indigenous Food Preservation Handbook is valid, useful, functional, and informative. Hence, the study concludes that the people of Cervantes still practice and preserve their indigenous food preservation techniques that may be extended to other people through seminars and training for cultural promotion and preservation.