DOKTO

dokto she dangaja

In the distant past, the staple food of the Igorots was the dokto (sweet potato). Whenever there is a ritual feast, dokto is served as a pintang, followed by a grilled and chopped pork as the demshang.   The rituals usually take time to finish so lunch is, almost always, served late thus the need to serve pintang and demshang.

In households, when there was no available rice, they made do with dokto for a meal(dokto e mayshenon), probably, together with its otdo (tops).  When dokto was not available, aba (taro), ube (purple yam),or katimoro (cassava) may also be used.

Those who were born earlier than the 1970s would claim that they grew up with dokto on their table.  They must have had pitied themselves then for having grown up poor and having eaten less, but now that only a few plant dokto, the Ibaloys crave for it.  So, those who came before us must be luckier because dokto is now rarely served in Ibaloy ritual feasts, weddings, reunions, and other gatherings. Nowadays, some Ibaloy kids eat French fries in fast food restaurants and dokto might be unknown to some of them. 

Dokto is called the ‘sound fruit’ or 'musical fruit' because it makes one fart often.  But isn’t farting one sign of a healthy body?  Whenever somebody is hospitalized, the doctors and nurses would ask, “Have you farted yet?” several times to the annoyance of the patient. 

I remember in classrooms then, whenever a student wasn't paying attention, the teacher would say "Go home and plant camote!"  I say, well, let's plant and eat more dokto indeed! 

Pintang – meal composed only of staple food (inepoy/rice, aba, dokto with no vegetables nor meat (merienda for some)

Demshang – meat eaten alone without rice nor dokto (pulutan)