Boholano “bringhouse in a box:

Feature cara-based pasalubong

TAGBILARAN CITY, May 18 (PIA)—If you think calamay is Bohol’s regular day pasalubong and fiestas have the traditional bringhouse, then the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) might just have what you want, packed in a thermal box. 

And because fiestas in Bohol are incomplete without carabao meat, the PCC has put in a dried beef cosajos, along with the fiesta sweets: cheese cake, pastillas and other popular Bohol pastries, candies, cheese, yoghurt, carabao ice cream and the popular chocolate-carabo milk known here as chocobao. 

“Bringhouse,” a traditional Boholano custom of giving some food or something to a fiestagoer, be he a relative or a friend, or sometimes to strangers, so that when he gets home, he can share the food to those in the house.

In the more recent times, guests who think the food tastes good and should also be tasted by the folks at home, sometimes pay for them.

The tradition becomes even more weird when the hosts would feel slighted when a guest refuses the packed food, which is sometimes placed in lousy packaging.

Seeing this as a potential market for the carabao meat (carabeef) and the desserts which are characteristic of Boholano ingenuity and sweet tooth, the product development section of the PCC at the Ubay Stock Farm puts the 7 in 1 pasalubong box, shares PCC Information Officer Leniefe Libres. 

Mandated to seek ways towards better nutrition, higher levels of income and improved general well-being of the rural farming families, the PCC does this through the conservation, propagation and promotion of water buffalo as important source of milk and meat, in addition to draft power and hide.

Then popularly owned as draft animal, the carabaos in Bohol are used as farm hands, until they age and are slaughtered for meat, traditionally shared in communities during fiestas. 

The introduction of farm mechanization has also affected the popularity of the carabao as draft animal, that the PCC has to find other means of carabao use, noted PCC Center Chief Dr. Caro Salces.

Now introducing carabao dairy production to farmers as an alternative income provider, the PCC in coordination with the Bureau of Animal Industry and the local governments here have succeeded in generating 500 liters of carabao milk every day. 

The dairy produced gets to be processed and helps prop up the Provincial Nutrition Program through milk supplementation feeding in schools, or are processed for cheese, yoghurt and other carabao dairy based products. 

Carabao dairy is thicker and creamier milk due to its higher content of fat and protein compared to cow or goat’s milk. But it is more nutritious because it has 58 %more calcium, 40 % more protein, and 43 % less cholesterol than cow’s milk, PCC asserts.

When about 99% of the country’s dairy needs is imported, the PCC thinks they can work on the local dairy, which is still on its infant stage, according to Dr. Salces. 

Local native carabaos, when fed right can produce about 2-3 liters of milk a day, aside from the calf which is already an added family income, the center director of the PCC in Ubay added. 

Recently, the PCC also introduced dairy carabao varieties like the murrah, can get a family between 6-8 liters a day, which when sold to the milk gatherers of PCC gets the family a daily income of P50 per liter, PCC explained. 

Now producing 500 carabao milk a day, the PCC has ventured into processed food, to make sure that they can continue supporting the farmers. 

The PCC is now selling in its Bohol Dairy outlets its now becoming popular carabao milk ice cream in premium and regular, the crowd favourite chocobao: carabao milk in tableya, or in mango flavors, yoghurts, cheese, famous Boholano milk based cakes and pastries. 

These are then packed according to orders: placed inside the thermal box of Styrofoam: and convenient bringhouse and a new pasalubong from Bohol. 

And of course, the 7 in 1 pack is never complete without the cara-calamay, Libres said. 

The 7 in 1 pasalubong box, can be had from the PCC and their DairyBox outlets in Lomangog Ubay, Tambo-an Carmen and the ICM in Tagbilaran. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

PCC Leniefe Libres explains the contents of the 7 in 1 PCC pasalubong box during the recent Kapihan sa PIA. All the contents are typical bringhouse pack including cosajos kabaw, sweets and icecream. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

Stale-free pasalubong from the PCC, the 7 in 1 box includes carabao based products and milk based products ideal as Boholano bringhouse. (rahcPIA-7/Bohol)