Shell middens, dumping grounds for discarded shells, have a lot to say about our people in the past

Rain, Rain, go away! By Rain, I mean Jung Ji-hoon of K-pop fame! While it has been raining, I have been plagued by images of Rain eating his way through Korea on a motorbike with his “hairy” co-host entertainer sidekick Hoh Hong Chul in Netflix’s travel food show The Hungry and The Hairy.

I’m on a mission to try the dishes featured on the show. One dish has intrigued me since I have been seeing it in several K-dramas during the pandemic—the marinated crabs. When I recently Googled “marinated crabs in Manila,” KP2 Restaurant popped up. After a 40-minute drive one rainy weekday evening, I reached the hole in the wall along Roxas Boulevard.

From the outside it was notable only because of the group of young Koreans smoking by the entrance. The place is small but clean. A Filipina, who looked like the cook, server, and cleaner all in one, was manning the kitchen. A Korean lady manned the cashier and bar while a young man in a coat, quietly overseeing everything, seemed to be the CEO.

What are marinated crabs? They are very fresh crabs marinated in either soy sauce or a chili pepper powder-based sauce. I did not know this until I was at the restaurant. I was not aware there were two kinds of marinated crabs so I decided to order both. The crabs were so fresh I could taste the sea. The sauces, whether it was soy sauce or chili sauce, merely enhanced the fresh flavor. It is like eating cold ceviche but with the meat still encased in the shell. You suck out the meat and, based on Rain’s travel food show, you can also squeeze it out of the shell with your hands. The marinated crabs featured in the Hungry and the Hairy were soy sauce-based. As demonstrated, you can add the squeezed-out meat and fat to some noodles, then dribble sesame oil, cut Korean green chili pepper, and torn seaweed squares or Nava. Unlike the one in the show, the restaurant in Manila did not provide gloves so I just sucked the meat out of the crab. It was a novel experience. You must try it at least once!

In the same episode, Rain and Hong Chul spent some time on the tidal flats of Gochang in Jeju Island, harvesting Quahog clam or the hard clams (Mercenaria mercenaria). I found out later that, along the tidal flats, the Manila clam (Tapes philippinarum) is also farmed and harvested.

The physical area of his research and the number of shells under study bring tears to one’s eyes.

Although the Manila clam or Venus clam, belonging to the family Veneridae, was recorded first in Japan, it earned its name via the Galleon Trade.  Luzon’s shores were abundant with clams, which were taken from our islands to Mexico, where they were referred to as Manila clams. The name stuck. The clams became popular because of their higher meat ration and relatively thin shell.

Another popular clam in our country’s past is the freshwater bivalve Batissa childreni, otherwise known as the kabibi.  I remember meeting a Japanese archaeologist with the email “luha ng kabibe.” I only realized how fitting his email address was after visiting the location of his area of study in the La-Lo shell midden sites along the Cagayan River. The physical area of his research and the number of shells under study bring tears to one’s eyes!

Along the banks of the longest and biggest river in the country, the Cagayan River, 21 shell midden sites, some reaching six meters high, encompass two municipalities. A shell midden is a dumping ground for discarded shells. The site is significant because it shows just how much clams people in the past ate and perhaps produced for trade. Within the shells were animal bones like pig and deer (indicating that people in the past just didn’t eat clams), pottery, and other dateable yet discarded cultural materials that can give us clues to how people lived in the past. After all, there had been people harvesting, producing, eating, and discarding these shells for a very long time, given the breath and number of shells in this prehistoric dump site.

Based on the layers of shells and organic (animal and human remains) and cultural materials (stone tools, beads, and pottery) recovered, researchers were able to date each layer. It was determined the different layers of shells are anywhere between 7,000 and 1,000 years old. The dates show a period in our past when people on these islands we now call the Philippines were becoming more settled, compared to semi-nomadic lifestyle of the hunter-gatherer stage. They must have stayed put in one place for some period to have been able to accumulate that much shell “garbage.”

Speaking of garbage, our family matriarch, Imelda Marcos, was famously quoted as saying, “People say I am extravagant because I want to be surrounded by beauty. But tell me, who wants to be surrounded by garbage?” But my aunt is very pragmatic and practical. She always advised us to learn how to turn garbage into a thing of beauty. She loves anything recycled. When she was new to Manila, just fresh off the boat from Tacloban, she was invited to so many parties not only because she was a member of the Romualdez clan but because she was beautiful.

The problem was there were so many parties and only a few dresses to wear. Instead of feeling down and refusing to go, she started accessorizing. “One party I would have a flower on my waist and for the next party, I would use that flower as a brooch. I would just move it around and add ribbons to make it look different,” she explained.  

My aunt also loved shells. Growing up while visiting her homes, whether in Manila, Leyte, or Ilocos Norte, I would always see shells fashioned into bouquets of flowers or centerpieces.

Decades later, I discovered these recycled shell decors mostly broken and sooty in the bodega of the old home of the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos in San Juan. I was tasked to put in order the forgotten memorabilia and personal effects of my uncle and aunt and so I spent six months in their old home doing just that.

Recently, I have been made the beneficiary of these shells by my cousins. In keeping with the spirit of recycling and continued learning, I called on University of the Philippines Archaeological Studies Program lecturer Kate Lim and her graduate students to recover, sort, and classify the shells in my home, so they may be arranged in specimen boxes, labeled with their scientific and local Bisaya names, and distributed to schools in Leyte one day.