Fish - Lobster Prices in Calayan

FISH PRICES.  The PRICE MONITORING COUNCIL of Calayan, Cagayan DETERMINES and monitors the prices of marine products. This was my kumpadre, ex-SB Councilor friend Emilio S. Tan, Jr.’s long lost dream now revived in Calayan – to have a regulated marine products prices that would benefit the consumer and the fisherman. The blogger, SB Secretary of this Municipality has not yet received prices for agricultural products as of this writing, though. For lobsters and other fish varieties in the picture, as of today, July 30, 2018, here is the Price List for the following marine products: 

Clockwise:

No. 1] The ARAWA – the all blue Angel Fish look-alike is Seventy Pesos (P70.000) per kilo at the Community Fish Landing Center located at Banua, Poblacion, Calayan, Cagayan.

This fish is popular for ‘sweet and sour’ and ‘escabeche’. Let me exit from the kitchen as quickly as I can lest I’d be judged for my expertise in cooking purely and solely eggs.

Because I can’t even cook rice without burning it, one thing I may get a passing from my culinary arts teacher is make Arawa for kilawen. I’d have finely chopped ginger (better if powder form), finely chopped onions and a handful of crushed hot pepper. When will I put the lemon juice and Kikko ni Man? You see, I'm even confused in simple local 'sushi'.

If you are an environmentalist or naturalist, you may not touch this fish at all because it has a very significant role in the beach. They eat corrals and excrete fine white sand. That’s right sir/madam, this fish and its whole tribe are fine sand manufacturers. If you want to build a fine white sandy beach, make an aquarium full of this Calayan Angel Fish the size of Metro Manila.

No. 2.] The Dalagang Bukid sell for Ninety Pesos (P90.00) a kilo. Calayanos call the wide version (shown here) as Sirel ti Taaw – translated as ‘Sirel of the Deep’. The rounder and cheaper version is simply called “Sirel”; the smaller version "Tirong". Maybe the round ones are dumber - they cannot think and swim deep enough to claim the title. The Jopot Restaurant owner in Tuguegarao City (sometime in 1995) related how delicious this ‘Dalagang Bukid na Lapad’ is to my embarrassment because then I am totally ignorant of its name or taste yet I live in an island surrounded by fish of so many varieties that I can only name 5 out of the more than 30 varieties in the list of the Price Monitoring Council. So now, I am just trying to redeem myself but please don’t call me Ernie Baron Sir because I am not even worthy to untie his shoe.

It is just perplexing why the Tagalogs call this fish “Dalagang Bukid” for I cannot see any feature that warrants allusion to a lady of the field. Are all Sirels female therefore?

Oh! what a lonely feat

to live in the Isle of Crete;

when all you see from here and there

are but Dalagang Bukid!

No. 3] Lobsters sell for Three Hundred Twenty Pesos (P320.00) a kilo. Why do these sea creatures command such a high price when nobody likes them? Nobody likes to stop when they start eating them until the doctor comes to monitor their blood pressure.

No. 4] Bangbangan – at Seventy Pesos (P70.00) per kilo, this leathery fish has one thing to say “Taste me when I’m grilled or roasted.” With an exploded gall, I like the big liver though.

No 5] The Puffer Fish (aka Butete) is priceless. Now that’s ambiguous. The butete has no price in Calayan. NOBODY sells butete here because it is a dreaded fish. It is poisonous. Now, you understand why the only thing less is the price. In fact, it is zero.

You might think this puffer fish doesn’t look like a butete. It is a butete but only different by calling and shape. Local fishermen say there are different kinds of butete. Others call the one in the picture “Prasko”; others simply call it “butiti”. An invisible signage is written on one side of this fish which reads “Noli Me Tangere”. On the other side reads “Eat me if you can; if you err I’m not to blame.” It has claimed lives time and again but you are safe if you don’t eat it. Now you are asking yourself how I could read the signage when it is invisible. You’ll get what I mean in no time.

Despite its dreadful nature to be almost declared an outcast in Calayan, the Japanese made this a specialty in their country … and so that’s what they say. They make “sushi” butiti and only the monied and the adventurous will buy it. My friend Jo Ann in Japan says that only an expert in Japan can slaughter a butiti for sushi - one who graduated from a culinary arts school and use a special knife to butcher it. Other than that, no one would dare touch it.

You may buy this for free in Calayan. Asking someone to catch one for yourself would be a different story. So, Puffer fish the prasko variety, any one?

For the prices of other varieties of fish in Calayan like the Blue fins and Lapu-lapu, more on this on my next blog. Please feel free to share this. Thanks.