The 5-day Terra Madre Asia & Pacific slow food festival held at the North Capitol Road beside the Provincial Capitol could be considered a success, based on the large crowds, queues, and the number of booths with ‘sold out’ signs that I saw when I curiously dropped by to check it out over the weekend.
Aside from being an international affair, one of the more noticeable aspects of the Terra Madre from the point of view of a local, was the diversity of the offerings, as there was only one inasal booth while the rest offered more or less something else. That is quite refreshing for a Bacolod-based festival because when we close down streets and set up food stalls, the choices are usually only inasal. This time, there was more to see, which made walking slowly and interacting with the vendors much more fun.
Another impressive upgrade was the quality of the tent, which this time spanned the entire stretch of the North Capitol Road, with very few noticeable connection points. The much better tent meant that the entire street or festival area was essentially weatherproofed, which made the experience much more relaxing. The upgraded tent made the street look like a covered shopping street in Japan, and I hope that it becomes a permanent fixture for future street festivals in that area. After all, with so many street festivals/events being held in that area, it looks like a worthy investment for the government unit.
I was actually looking forward to exploring the Terra Madre, coming back almost 3 times over the weekend. The first was Saturday lunch time, but many stalls were still closed and the few interesting ones that were open had long queues. I was still able to sample some unique dishes/delicacies though, and decided to come back later that night when more stalls should be open by then.
We came back around dinner time, and although it was raining quite hard, we still gave it a go. I dropped off my wife and daughter at the mouth of the festival and drove around to look for parking while it was still raining. As I was still looking for a convenient parking spot, my wife called up to say that most stalls were sold out, there was a lot of people, and the only viable dinner choices we had was some BBQ, which for us wasn’t worth it anymore. So I turned around and picked them up where I dropped them off and ended up eating at a nearby restaurant.
We gave it one more chance Sunday noon, as we had to pick something up at the nearby mall. And even more stalls were closed/sold out. Binignit/guinataan was a common sight, probably because those that had sold out their wares were just making something easy yet vaguely unique to sell. We made one circuit, made chika with the storekeepers, and bought a few items.
All in all, I was able to try a Caraga region mudcrab dish, get a few native delicacies, enjoy a sili (fresh eel) bbq stick from the Bago City booth, tofu and mushroom sisig, sample some Japanese sake, and get some coffee beans. There were many other stalls and products that I wanted to try, but they were either closed, sold out, or had queues that were just too long.
It would seem like the exhibitors of the Terra Madre were not prepared for the Negrense appetite and curiosity, as most were sold out early. Maybe they had enough for a couple of days, but not for 5 full days of a full house. If it comes back to Bacolod again, maybe they will be better prepared, but if not, hopefully we still get to have a similar kind of food festivals where we have more choices than just the usual, which is different kinds of inasal. After all, if the provincial government of Negros Occidental bought that beautiful giant ass tent, they’ve got to make good use of it to get a return on investment, right?
Whether it’s going to be a return of Terra Madre or not, the success of last weekend’s food festival spur our local slow food movement and other food/tourism organizations to keep on working on such festivals, where diversity and choice is the focus, instead of people just wanting to make a quick buck. The inasal is always welcome, but if the entire stretch of North Capitol Road is just offering 90 percent inasal, there isn’t really much reason to check it out.
One key takeaway from last week’s Terra Madre is that a more deliberate effort in how festival organizers curate the offerings of the food stalls at the primary areas of the event can make it more interesting. We can still have all the inasal stalls we can handle at the periphery, but the main drag should offer more variety and pique interests. That way, locals and tourists can have a more interesting time.*
