Ampao 

The best ampao can be found in Carcar, located at the southeastern part of Cebu. Our own version of rice crispies, it is a white, sweet and crunchy treat sprinkled with peanuts. It is rectangular in shape and has a thick width that would require one to open up his mouth wider than usual, else he would not be able to get a good taste of it at all. Cooked rice is layed out in the sun to dry up, making it crunchy in the process. So you could say that every bite has a little bit of sunshine in them. A piece of peanut or two can be found somewhere around its thick body. I have to admit the taste of the peanuts goes very well with the sweetness of dried rice. I just wish they put more peanuts in it; most of the time I can only find two. 

Aside from the ones found in Carcar, there are also ampaos for sale in sari-sari stores. These ones are round and smaller and comes in different colors from pink to green to yellow. It has its own distinctive taste that sets it apart from the originalone. Little kids love these type perhaps because of the colors, or perhaps because of the stain it leaves to their lips and tongue. But old or young, everybody knows ampaos are for everyone. 

Danggit

It is a salted dried fish that is best paired with hot rice and dipped in vinegar. Others prefer a mixture of vinegar and crushed chili peppers with a dash of salt. Others might want to add a little bit more of spices to enhance the flavor. Onions, garlics, ginger are some of the favorites. However it is done, the tastiness of danggit is magnified ten times when there's vinegar around. But with or without it, people still find them a very tasty treat for any meal at any time of day and at any physical condition - that is to say, whether one is hungry or not. 

Dubbed as a poor man's food like any other types of dried fish, rich and poor alike love to eat this typical Cebuano delicacy. For the ultimate danggit experience, eat with your bare hands. Eating in bare hands is a Filipino way of showing humility. Butsetting humility aside, spoon and fork provides little assistance when eating danggit. If at all, it only makes the eating experience difficult. Setting aside man-made utensils is setting aside everything else just to enjoy a good meal of a bunch of good ol' danggit.

Dried Mangoes

Fancy eating something sweet and healthy? You might as well try Cebu's dried mangoes. The best tasting dried mangoes in the country, if not the world. This ripe, sun dried mangoes is good for snacks and desserts. It has a chewy consistency that makes its taste linger in your mouth. With its bite size, you can eat it wherever you are. At work, at the beach or in your house enjoying a bite with your love ones.

So if your yearn to eat something sweet and at the same time healthy, go to the nearest grocery and it would definitely satisfy your cravings. 
  

Otap

Otap is an oval biscuit made of flour, sugar, shortening and the ever reliable coconut. Sprinkled with sugar, a careless bite of this fragile biscuit would send fragments of it flying to the floor. But it is not as scary as it sounds; though one have to admit that eating otap is an art by itself. Little children are often told to be careful when eating it, they are supposed to put one hand under their chin to catch the sugar and fragments that might break off from its thin mass. Even adults have to master the art themselves; careful to inhale a little at every bite to ensure no bits of sugar goes astray. The use of the other hand still proves useful at times, if only to avoid the ants from feasting upon the fragments on the floor; which would be a waste of treat. That, my friends, makes eating otap one adventurous eating experience. 


Titay's, one of Cebu's oldest stores specializing in delicacies, is where one of the tastiest Otap can be bought. It can be reached by bus or by jeepney on the way to the Northern parts of Cebu.

Puso

Nobody knows where the word puso comes from. In the Tagalog language, puso means "heart." But this puso we're talking about is food. It is pronounced as pusô. It is rice wrapped in coconut leaves shaped like a diamond. At least that's what it looks like to me. 

The making of pusô is not merely clumping cooked rice in your hands and wrapping them in coconut leaves like what some people probably used to think. Truth is, the coconut leaves are first weaved into diamond shells. The master weaver then leaves a hole open. This hole is where they pour uncooked rice before sealing up the shell and putting them on a large pot filled with water and putting them over the fire. The usual way of cooking rice happens when all that is done - which is merely to wait until the water is gone and until the rice have grown and gone soft. 

There is no existing gadget used to measure the amount of uncooked rice to put in the shell. That is all up to the skillfull maker to decide. Put too much rice in the shell and the rice would not be able to grow much, the shell would restrict its expansion. So this would result in a pusô that's hard and clumpy. The making of pusô requires a degree of thinking that is only earned through practice and learning from people specializing in the craft. 

Much talk have been said about the pusô. People have tried to translate it into English. Through time they seem to have met an understanding to call it "hanging rice." In stores, that is how they are displayed hence, the name. In every store that sells pusô, one can immediately guess that there's also barbecue for sale. Yet it's not just barbecue that goes well with it. In meals held by the beach for example, it is only but normal to bring pusô around along with any viand one likes to bring. And just as a Filipino meal is incomplete without plain rice, some meals are incomplete without pusô. Pusô can truly be the "puso" of any occasion.