METRO MANILA, Philippines - On the eve of another Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ), I am reminded of all the plans we had prior to the first ECQ in March 2020 when the Coronavirus known as COVID-19 was in the early part of its rampage to wreak havoc on the world. The world was placed on a standstill as one after the other, governments worldwide declared lockdowns, immobilizing its citizens to prevent contamination.
As it was, out went our travel plans for 2020. Last year would have been the year that I would find out what the real Callos a la Madrileña would taste like. My wife and I had planned to visit Madrid in October. Obviously, that didn't happen.
Apart from the usual reasons we have to satisfy our wanderlust, there were two reasons why I wanted to head out to Madrid. First, my late father, Larry Tronco, had once lived there. In the early part of the 1950s, he stayed there as a student being sent on a scholarship by the Spanish government to study art with his contemporaries, Cesar Legaspi and Arturo Luz.
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Larry Tronco and Cesar Legaspi in Madrid 1953
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I wanted to breathe the same air they did when they studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1953. Yes, this same academy of art where Juan Luna studied and honed his craft.
The second reason was to savor the unadulterated and un-Filipinized Callos a la Madrileña. Callos nowadays has become so widespread that while each and every dish could be declared as "namit" (Hiligaynon for 'delicious'), one could never tell which recipe is closest to what they cook in Madrid. Yes, it could be callos alright. The question though would be, is it Madrileña?
Early encounters with callos
I wasn't much of a foodie as a young child. I didn't actually pause to taste and savor. I just ate - period. However, my early encounters with the dish would be in the following places : Casa Armas, Madrid, and Alba's. I was too young to discern any nuances in taste, but yes I had it there.
When we moved to Bacolod, in the mid-1970s, I would chance upon some servings of callos at parties. But none of the servings of callos really made me exclaim how good the dish was. For me, callos was just another secondary option to put on the plate as children would immediately go for what's easy to eat like fried chicken, morcon, or croquetas if ever it was presented on the buffet table.
Discovering the real callos
I began to be more discerning with the taste of my food when I left Bacolod at the age of 13 to study in Manila. In 1981, I would encounter callos over and over again at the school canteen. I lived in the Boy's Dormitory at the Philippine Science High School and food over there wasn't really awesome. Not that I'm complaining, I just understood the economics of it. The kitchen just had to churn out food at the most economical level for the dorm residents. So once in awhile we would have some callos. I suppose tripe wasn't really that expensive to buy from the market back then. Add some tomato sauce and voila! - we'd have Callos a la Cantina! That blend of callos, now forms my baseline for the way I would rank any callos dish I taste. It's like Callos a la Carinderia but oilier.
Still thankful that there was food to eat, this spurred me to make my tongue discern what's good and what's exceptional. In 1982, Alba's opened a restaurant around the corner to our place in Poblacion, Makati. There, I tried Callos a la Madrileña. It was good. Yes, it was good. Even today, it is good. Definitely far from the baseline of Callos a la Cantina.
So, if Alba's callos is good, what then is exceptional? Well, it's too late now to have what would be considered as exceptional callos because La Tienda on Polaris St., on the Bel-Air/Poblacion border has long shut its doors. My dad used to go there whenever he would visit Manila because it was just a short walk from the house. I guess he just wanted to practice his Spanish too with the owners. Apparently, speaking Spanish while eating Callos a la Madrileña makes the whole dining experience richer.
My Gold Standard in callos
In the latter part of 1982, my dad came from Bacolod to visit me as was his custom every two months. We met at the house on a Friday, after my week of school was done and I would spend the weekend with him. He showed me a brown carton filled with small to medium sized tin foil trays of frozen callos. "This is for you to heat here in the house when you're hungry", he said. We opened one tray and heated it. After placing it on a serving plate, we helped ourselves to it.
My eyes popped out with this callos! To say that this callos was delicious is an understatement. "That is the real Callos a la Madrileña", he said. And so I took his word for it. After all, he was the one who lived in Madrid. He was the the one who had done the rounds of Casa Armas, Alba's, Madrid on EDSA (then Highway 54), and La Tienda. Perhaps he had also done his own search for the real Callos a la Madrileña in Manila.
By now, you're wondering, who cooked the callos in the tin foil. Yes, I'll tell you. It was the late Mr. Jose Magalona, the producer of Delmar Foods in Bacolod. He cooked the callos which for me is the gold standard in Callos a la Madrileña.
Crazy for callos since 1982, I tried callos in Andalusia and in Catalunia years ago. I have yet to try the real Callos a la Madrileña and I was raring to do it last year. Then of course, with COVID19 still immobilizing us, my wife and I are left to produce our own. She's the chef and I'm conveniently the food critic. We're almost close to the gold standard in callos having recently discovered the source of the remaining missing ingredient to approximate what my late dad referred to as real callos. Until then when I taste callos in Madrid, this callos in my pot shall be named, Callos a la Corona.
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Lloyd Tronco is an Artist and Writer who has been addicted to callos since 1982.
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