The Pilgrim's Pots and Pans

Hmmm… Close but not quite. My attempt at following a recipe to recreate a Filipino biscuit fell flat. I felt proud of my work after following Manny/Apicio’s directions to the letter. My gulgoria/gorgoria tasted very good, even if I say so myself, like dense cream puffs with a caramel coating. Nobody complained but apparently, they’re not the authentic biscuit they were meant to be. This I realised when I spied jars of gorgoria at the Likha ng Central Luzon Trade Fair last week.

Compared to my experimental batch, the store-bought gorgoria are drier, crispy-crumbly, just like what the recipe’s author said. They are more tightly-rolled, looking like univalves or snails rather than my bi-valves or oysters. Apparently, if I want my next batch of gorgoria to be as tight, I’ll have to significantly subtract from the amount of butter and milk then fry them till crisp.

The sugar coating is also not caramelised. The crystals are still intact and dusted on the biscuits. Eating the thumb-sized treats reminded me of palipit/pilipit, just like what Celia Kusinera said in her comment.

Palipit (literally meaning ‘twisted’) are braided fried biscuits with a crunchy texture, also dusted with sugar. Since these were also sold at the trade fair, I tried eating palipit and gorgoria alternately to compare the tastes and textures. I wonder how many raised eyebrows were caused by this type of experimentation, hehehe!

Comparison: Other than their shapes and palipit being denser, there is not much difference. The biscuits also come from two different manufacturers, which is probably more critical in the taste difference.

Had I found the authentic gorgoria at the trade fair? I thought I did until I was told that an old bakery in the town next to ours still sold old-style gorgorias. Oh how different they look! See the first picture above. The Bataan gorgoria are on the left while the Guagua gorgorias are the square golden biscuits on the right. These are also very thin, crunchy-crispy and dusted with sugar crystals.

Now I wonder, what does the word gorgoria mean? I’ve tried looking it up but have not found a sufficient answer at the moment. It is most probably not a native word, one of the indications is that it is singular in Tagalog and plural in Kapampangan. I have noticed that many loan words, most especially Spanish, retain their plural in the Capampangan language even when referring to the singular. Examples are yemas (egg yolks) and camachiles (Pithecellobium dulce).

I hope someone who chances upon this rambling post can shed light on this or at least have an idea on what the word ‘gorgoria’ means. If we find out then we can conclude if it is a concept (hmmm… crispy-crunchy?) or whatever.

By the way, for those who can’t wait for me to keep my promise to post about the shortest Filipino food bloggers meeting (Pilgrim meets Marketman), I’ll get to that soon. Patience is a virtue!

Gorgorias (flat)
Apung Diung Panplaza Bakery
(Bakers since 1880)
Plaza Burgos, Guagua, Pampanga
Tel. No. (+63 45) 900 0245

Gorgoria (coiled)
Joyce House of Food Delight
Petronilla Village, Orani, Bataan
Tel./Fax No. (+63 47) 333 7971

Pilipit (plus pastillas, tamarind candies and many more)
Felicci’s
B10-L34 Sta. Monica Subdivision
Subic, Zambales
E-mail: feliccis@yahoo.com