Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Being an Ilonggo offers advantages. Aside from being able to watch Dinagyang
live or in 4 different channels, it also enables one to regularly savor delicious Ilonggo
dishes like Kadyos-Baboy-Langka/KBL, the Sinabawan and the Linaga. And one can’t
help but ask, what makes these dishes special? Well, the key to good food is good use of
If a shroud of mystery covers this fruit, just imagine a greater mystery that
surrounds this batuan plant. As a kid, I used to think that the batuan is a citrus-like shrub.
Now I know that Batuan or Garcinia binucao is a tree reaching a height of about the
same as a two storey building. In Manila Bulletin Online, one article entitled Gourmet’s
Notepad by Boysie Villavicencio said that its closest relative is the Mangosteen
(Garcinia mangostana). My most recent encounter with this tree was when I visited my
mother’s colleague, Dr. Nadala, in Lapaz. Dr. “Bing” Nadala has batuan trees in her
backyard. Its leaves are smooth and leathery. It has small pea-sized red flowers that are
somehow inconspicuous from afar. Its famous fruits are yellowish green to light green in
color and somewhat round in shape. The fruits are usually harvested at a time when they
are yellow green since batuan at its ripe most age have an acrid taste, very susceptible to
rotting thus not desirable as a souring agent anymore. One interesting thing that I learned
from Dr. Nadala was that the batuan tree has a “gender.” That is, they are dioecious. This
simply means that one tree produces only male flowers while the other produces only
female flowers. Sadly, the difference between a male and female batuan tree is only
obvious during the time flowers turn to fruits. In male batuan trees, flowers just fall off;
while female batuan flowers slowly turn to buds then to fruits. In fact, I find it fascinating
to see Dr. Nadala’s towering batuan trees standing side-by-side with leaves gently
touching each other as human couples hold each other’s hands wherein one cannot
Ilonggo’s call it “batuan” but it has other names in other places. According to a
Research on Lesser Known Edible Tree Species compiled by Helen B. Florido and Fe F.
in Palawan. Indeed, Batuan is not endemic to the region six. And in fact, it is cultivated in
same way those in Luzon use Sampaloc and Kamias as souring agent in their dishes.
Batuan is very common in Iloilo that I was even able to buy it at SM for about 20 pesos
per kilo and that’s about five pesos for four pieces last November. And by the way, I’ve
I may not have the power to predict the future of Garcinia binucao but what I do
know is that batuan’s fame is spreading rapidly and more and more Filipino’s are
realizing its capabilities. Let’s just hope that future will bring new and delicious batuan-
containing dishes.
So if someone wants to cook KBL but couldn’t find any batuan for sale, just look
for that Garcinia binucao tree, it might even be in your neighborhood and you may not
know it.
student in University of the Philippines; but personally, he is a nature lover and deeply