Candon City’s favorite food turns Holy Rosary

Instead of the usual round plastic beads, Candon City’s favorite delicacy calamay ( glutinous rice cake) was utilized as beads on

March 25 in honor of the annunciation of the Bless Mary and in line with the thanksgiving offer for the said product for the city’s fiesta festivities.

“It is in honor and celebration of the annunciation of the Bless Mother Mary and for the city’s calamay product,” Parish Priest Vicente Avila, the initiator of the project, said.

March 25 is historic to this city as it is its fiesta day celebration in honor to the 111^th foundation of Candon.

The  calamay makers/ vendors of Bagar, Candon City produced 59 calamay to match the number of the beads of a holy rosary with a wooden cross at the start.

The calamay vendors themselves with some additional church goers mostly clad in white shirt held  calamay placed inside coconut shell draped with dried banana trunks.

The Parish’s Integrated Youth Ministry and male choir led the recitation of the holy rosary.

Each time part of the rosary is recited, the calamay bead holders take their places in a circle marked with church staff tying each calamay which eventually formed a living rosary.

The 30- minute whole holy recitation took place in front of the St. John Sahagun Church.

They later carried the connected calamay to the grotto and had a mass with Avila officiating.

“We are very happy because our product was used and our way also of saying thank you to the lord,” Liza Abaya, President of the Candon City Calamay Vendors said.

Of course the city government appreciated the initiative of the church.

“We are elated with Fr. Avila’s concept. It combines our devotion and thanksgiving,” City Mayor Allen Singson said.

The calamay were later given to the church goers.

History and making of calamay ( glutinous rice cake)

History and making of calamay ( glutinous rice cake)

By: Leoncio Balbin, Jr.

After World War II, the Philippines was totally devastated and Candon was not exempted.

But in the village of Bagar, several coconut trees were left standing.

During that time, six elderly women in a casual conversation thought of coming out with new ways of using the food materials spared from the war including the said coconuts.

They were able to amass brown sugar, glutinous rice, vat and, of course, coconut.

Maximizing the coconut, they included its milk. They mixed all the ingredients and stirred it up until it became sticky.

They cooked it and when they tasted it, much to their surprise, it was pleasantly delicious.

Thus started the making of Calamay (glutinous rice cake ) in Candon.

More than six decades had passed and yet the same style of cooking as well as the same ingredients were being used in the now City of Candon.

Only the preparation of materials like the mechanized grounding of glutinous rice was improved due to the advent of technology and the increase of demand.

Lisa Abaya, President of the Calamay Vendors Association of Candon City, said that calamay was then consumed only locally in Bagar until other people tasted it and it became a hit.

Abaya, now in her 40’s, said that one of the six elder women, Rosa del Rosario, was her grandmother.

Abaya said it was she who transferred the knowledge of making calamay to her mother, Caridad Dario and, later, to them.

Abaya said that calamay was initially sold in containers made of coconut shells and wrapped in banana leaves during 1960’s.

They changed the banana leaves into plastic because the former easily spoils the calamay .

Abaya knew what she was talking about as she could still remember when she was a little girl helping and joining her mother in cooking and selling the product.

She however admitted that she could not recall how the product got its name.

Her guess is it could have been derived from the early manner of cooking.

Since it involved practically all manual or using of hands, its name may be coined after the Pilipino word kamay.

Calamay up to now is baked and cooked with the same formula.

They first cook the young coconut slivers in boiling water and then add the coconut milk.

They then mix the ground glutinous rice and sugar. They stir it until it become sticky and nearly dry.

Calamay in Candon has gone a long way even if it stayed the same.

It is the city’s choice as its One Town One Product entry to the Department of Trade and Industry project.

The product has circled the entire world as it is a favorite pasalubong (present) by Candonians and Ilocanos to their relatives in the country and abroad.

In 2006, it placed the city in the world map when arguably the world biggest rice cake was baked here.

The Bagar calamay makers churned out 2,547 kilos of calamay, besting the 2, 097-kilo rice cake baked in Niigata, Japan in 2002.

The Candon calamay used 200 gantas of glutinous rice, milk from 2, 000 coconuts and 1,200 kilos of brown and white sugar, using 132 vats.