By Rex Catubig

 

THE  fiesta frolic is lackluster minus a visit to the certified blockbuster feature — the holiday bazaar on Galvan Street. This street bonanza showcases a surreal array of motley clothing, walls of shoes and slippers, prismatic sunglasses adorning wire trees, cornucopia of food, fruits, vegetables, and every conceivable retail temptation—in a claustrophobic setting illumined by a combo of harsh led and garish blacklight, creating a discombobulated vibe.

The baratillo is a throbbing microcosm, a lively world in a capsule: a mish mash convention of man and mammon.

Cramped along the narrow street on the side of the CSI Square, one wriggles through the throng of sweaty bargain hunters, like rapacious rats on the prowl, scenting out savory sales.

Midway, blaring in the dense air is the voice of a disembodied barker rapping over and over a hypnotic mantra seducing your being into buying the merchandise: ” Lima-lima, sampu-sampo, lahat ng walang presyo, sampu-sampo, lima-lima!” One easily succumbs to the sales pitch and is sucked into the cacophony of the moment.

   As one ventures on, and slithers towards the open end of the retail culvert, one is greeted by the refreshing lush green, winsome yellow and vibrant orange of fruits and vegetables–attractively arranged and piled in pyramid rows, while the mixed vegetables are instagramable in wicker trays.

  One is smitten by the artistic Pakbet groupings—where all the veggies for the recipe are presented in a painterly canvas of colors, forms and textures. An eye-catcher is the stylish set of long-stemmed squash buds and flowers, paired with some leafy vegetables, that looks like a stunning floral arrangement. This innate artistry of the vegetable vendors in their organic creations is truly amazing. You get to appreciate these once plain, ordinary, un-appealing veggies in a new light, as they appear beauteously appetizing.

   Winding up my baratillo tour, I stumble on this huge white mound wrapped in plastic that rests on a buksot–a bamboo basket without handles. It is Buron Gele-Gele: salted fish of that variant,  stuffed and encrusted with fermented rice—to be sauteed in oil with onions. It’s the epitome of Pangasinan gourmet cuisine, an indigenous delicacy that Anthony Bourdin would have been fascinated with.

Tired and overwhelmed, one elbows his way out of this dizzying mise-en-scene nonetheless feeling jubilant–having braved the steamy heat, mayhem and the madding crowd. Delighted in having ventured through the innards of this archetypal matrix, and discovering pleasures and treasures not found in the sanitized airconditioned cavernous mall.

Yes, at the baratillo, one becomes a merry morsel of this steamy, zesty pot of human stew–harking back to the primordial soup that was the precursor of man. At some point, one evolves into a chameleon and merges inexorably with the habitat. It’s a return back in time and clime.

Then it hits you—it’s like how it all started—from the navel of chaos. Yes, the baratillo leads the way back to the primordial tumult and into the psychedelic dream.

Baratillo, take me home.

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