MANILA, Philippines – Roger Ocampo’s quest to make bottled kinilaw sauce started in 2004 with a craving for kinilaw the way it is prepared in his hometown of Dipolog City – with tabon-tabon fruit.
“I tried bringing a basket of tabon-tabon fruit to Manila, and I was able to use only one or two fruits from the whole basket” because the fruits, whose flesh is firm to start with, harden within 10 days from being harvested,” he said.
Ocampo, 50, has been based in Metro Manila for the past 34 years, since he went to college at the Mapua Institute of Technology.
Yearning for tabon-tabon
He said kinilaw made here is just not the same without tabon-tabon (hydrophytune orbiculatum), a fruit that he said looks like an elongated chico and is a third larger than the biggest chico variety found in local markets.
Tabon-tabon flesh, scraped from the rind and squeezed into water or vinegar, gives a unique “mapakla” flavor – a kind of tartness or astringency associated with unripe fruit – to the kinilaw and removes the slimy feel of the raw seafood or fish.
“One fruit is enough for one kilo of kinilaw, be it tanigue, tuna, bangus, squid or shrimp,” Ocampo said.
He added that if you use tabon-tabon in your kinilaw, you can safely eat as much of the raw-seafood dish as you want without getting indigestion or suffering food poisoning.
His claims are bolstered by a study done by two grade school students from Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro City, Windyl Joseph Khu and Nessa Rostia Malagar. The study is published on the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) website.
The students found that tabon-tabon fruit extract “exhibited an effective antibacterial action on (raw) yellowfin tuna” and attributed the decreased amount of bacteria to “the slightly acidic pH and the presence of phytochemicals” in the extract.
The students formally identified the tabon-tabon tree as an evergreen, bearing flowers and fruit year-round, and observed to live over 100 years.
They also considered the tabon-tabon a nut because of its one-seeded fruit, which has a tough and thick woody cover that does not split open to release its “seed.”
Ocampo said tabon-tabon flesh is also good for finishing woven baskets.
“Rub the meat against the weave, and when it dries, it will harden like cement and make the basket waterproof,” he said.
Ocampo also believes that the fruit is a good dewormer, since he and his sibling were worm-free during their childhood as a result of periodically being made to drink one tablespoon of the fruit extract.
Saucy science
Ocampo, a management and industrial engineer who owns a real estate firm, did not know how to go about producing a ready-to-use kinilaw sauce with tabon-tabon extract to satisfy his craving for the dish.
He turned to a cousin who works with the Bureau of Food and Drugs, who told him to contact the DOST’s Industrial Technology Development Institute. There he met Elsa Falco, a food science expert who became interested in his “quest” and developed the sauce by 2006.
According to Falco, the sauce can be used as a marinade for meat or fish that is to be roasted, grilled or fried and as a condiment for other dishes such as paksiw, kaldereta and adobo.
To make sure he has a steady supply of the fruits that grow wild in northern Mindanao, Ocampo planted two hectares to tabon-tabon.
He had samples of his special sauce taste-tested by different people. He even sent some samples to the United States.
Ocampo has formed Marapong Corp. to manufacture and sell the kinilaw sauce in his hometown. He said he started selling his kinilaw sauce only last March at a local supermarket in Dipolog City.
After joining a trade fair at the World Trade Center in Pasay City, he met an exporter who now ships his sauce to New Zealand and Hawaii.
“The people in New Zealand like eating raw fish, and there are many Filipinos in these two areas,” Ocampo said.
He said his kinilaw sauce is not yet available in Metro Manila markets, though he has some bottles at his real estate office in Makati City. Right now, he said he is happy enough having kinilaw the way he likes it anytime he wants.