An Overseas Lechon Story

Here's a great story written by Vikki Ortiz for the Chicago Tribune that we found through Pinoycentric.

Roast Pig Provides Filipinos in Chicago with a Taste of Home

The temperatures were the coldest in a year and the windchill factor was 20 degrees below zero, but Amante Enad stood in the back yard of his Wheeling home roasting pigs -- seven of them -- over a charcoal fire.

"It doesn't matter how cold it is," Enad said last week as he held his hands over a sizzling 50-pounder to avoid frostbite. "I will do it."

Enad, 55, may live thousands of miles from the Philippines, where he first learned to prepare lechon -- roast pork -- but he and other Filipinos who have settled in the Chicago area continue the beloved tradition. Lechoneras hustle to serve the Midwest's largest Filipino population, and it's become more than a lucrative side business for factory workers, engineers, retirees and others who picked up the skill and now get as many as 100 calls a month for orders.

It's also a way for many to remember where they came from.

"Some people, they get homesick," said MarieBelle Concepcion of Carol Stream. "But if they see [lechon] there, they don't need to think about home."

Filipinos now comprise the third-largest group of Asians living in Cook County behind Indians and Chinese. According to a 2006 Census Bureau report, an estimated 59,186 Filipinos live in the county.

In the Philippines, a large gathering isn't complete without a full-size roast pig gracing the dining table. Filipinos mark every major occasion with lechon -- from christenings, weddings and funerals to holidays. Like turkey at Thanksgiving dinners, lechon is associated with celebration and family, said Berth Salvador, cultural officer for the Philippine Consulate General in Chicago.

The pig is speared lengthwise and roasted over an open fire until the skin is brown and crunchy. Seasoning varies depending on the region of the Philippines where the chef hails from -- simple salt and pepper with liver sauce in some areas; onion, garlic and lemon grass for others.

The entire animal is cooked -- head, tail, ears, eyes and legs. Special side dishes are made from the heart, intestines, kidneys and even blood.

"The tradition of the Philippines will live, even if we are not in the Philippines," Salvador said.

Luna Cudiamat, 48, of Bloomingdale rubs vegetable oil on the pigs to enhance natural flavors when he prepares anywhere from 6 to 10 lechones each weekend at a trailer in a vacant lot in Addison. Cudiamat supplies the delicacy to a handful of Filipino restaurants in the Chicago area. Many chefs rely on lechoneras to prepare the dish, which would be difficult to make in commercial kitchens.

Aling Tining, 70, of Forest Park learned to make lechon as a young girl, listening to her grandmother give cooking instructions at her childhood home on the island of Cebu. A few years after moving to the United States in 1984, Tining asked her husband, an engineer, to design a motorized half-barrel roasting oven so she could cook lechon in their back yard.

Today, Tining and her husband prepare lechon -- which sells for at least $150 each -- for word-of-mouth customers. She prides herself on sticking to the Cebu-style recipe, stuffing the pig with onions, lemon grass and garlic before cooking it outside for four hours at a stretch, even during the winter.

"That's why you have to bundle," she said. "Long johns, three pants, sweater and then sweat shirt, and then hats -- three."

Back-yard pig-roasting can raise the eyebrows of neighbors, prompting some to do the cooking by stealth. But sometimes, the smell of pig on a cold January morning also helps the cooks and their neighbors bond.

Enad has been known to drop plates of lechon off at his next-door neighbor's house and a nearby bank.

"They eat it," he said. "They like it."

Pork dishes are especially popular in the Philippines, where cuisine is influenced by Chinese and Spanish cooking, because the meat is easily accessible to everyday citizens, said Amy Besa, co-author of "Memories of Philippine Kitchens: Stories and Recipes From Far and Near."

Besa said an interesting paradox is created as Filipino-Americans work hard to replicate treasured dishes. While the Philippines becomes more Americanized with international fast-food chains, packaged mixes and products, Filipino-Americans maintain the home country's true flavor.

"The moment you become an expatriate, the more your foods from home become very dominant in your desires. You really long for them. You become nostalgic for them," Besa said. "People who move here ... they're the ones who preserve those foods from a different generation."

Enad, who has roasted as many as 30 pigs in one day in his back yard, recently donated his services for a Filipino fiesta held at St. Catherine Laboure Catholic Church in Glenview.

The payoff came when attendees such as Nina Torres, 56, of Carol Stream dug into a plate. Torres said just seeing lechon on the table brought back memories of her childhood. She remembered standing in the back yard with family, enjoying the spectacle and smelling the sweet aroma.

"It's like we're all together watching," Torres said. "It's like we're all back home."

Photo: “And save us from cholesterol..” by A. B. Frasco ©2007 All rights reserved. Through Ambibo.