Patis and bagoong

I mentioned in the previous post that I have a backlog of posts about chocolate. Another backlog it seems are about recent travels I made that included side trips to places not usually frequented by tourists. Our recent trip to Pangasinan also took us to the bagoong (fermented fish) or and patis (fish sauce) factories in Dagupan. My colleagues wanted to go there to purchase not several bottles but several boxes of bagoong and patis. It turned out that other office mates asked for them to buy bagoong and patis for them. One had requested 2 bottles, another 5, and so on. Nothing beats buying from the source itself as it is usually cheaper and you get to see how they make it.

Fish sauce or patis as it is called in the Philippines is a very popular condiment. You can use it for cooking or for dipping. I usually use it for dipping especially for nilaga or sinigang. For me, it seems to go well with beef, pork, chicken or fish. But I don't use too much of it as it can also overpower the taste of food. As they say, do everything in moderation.

Inside the bagoong and patis factory, it doesn't actually smell of fish sauce. The factory is very clean and everything is orderly despite the staff looking like they aren't handling food. I guess that's the only thing not right about this image. The staff should be dressed in a more suitable attire for such an operation. The blue plastic containers (drums?) contain the concoction that turns into fish sauce. There is fermentation involved here and yet it wasn't at all stinky in the factory.

Staff were also sorting bottle caps. These factories don't manufacture bottles and they get the used bottles of ketchup, clean (and I hope sterilize) them before they're filled with either bagoong or patis. As bottles don't have caps when they are delivered to the factory, these have to be sourced and sorted by the factories.

Boxes containing bottles of patis and bagoong are stacked inside the factory, ready to be loaded unto trucks for delivery or distribution.

A closer look at the boxes of patis and bagoong.

More about or Pangasinan trip soon!
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