A holiday tradition of lechon goodness

‘Tis the season to be chubby. And to what do we Filipinos owe the extra pounds gained in this season of non-stop feasting? Yes, we can do away with roast beef and stuffed turkey but to go through Christmas without doing some serious face time with a crispy golden brown suckling pig with an apple stuck in its mouth is unthinkable. The lechon (suckling pig), in all its mouth-watering yet heart-attack inducing glory, is the piece de resistance around which Filipino families and friends gather in this season when we party like there’s no tomorrow. And when one thinks of lechon, one of the names that’s on top of everyone’s mind is the 45-year old Lydia’s Lechon. From its humble start as a small retail store outside the Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Pasay in 1965, it has grown to 21 outlets all over Metro Manila and Cavite. It was a busy December weekend when I got some serious face time with no less than Ricky de Roca, son of Lydia and Benigno de Roca, owners of Lydia’s Lechon. Ricky now holds the position of chief executive officer of their vast food enterprise and has been in the family business for the last 20 years.

Young and upbeat, Ricky is not what you’d envision as someone who owns a lechon business. He’s fit and quick on his feet and after being at the helm of their corporation, he is all set to transform Lydia’s to a company that measures up to world standards in food handling and production. In close to half of a century, Lydia’s has mastered the culinary art of roasting pigs to “crisperfection." Yes, we can grill chickens and roast ducks in our homes but how many of us will go through the trouble of slaughtering, cleaning and then marinating, stuffing and thereafter, roasting one whole pig for our personal consumption? We have to leave it to the experts and through the years, Lydia’s has developed a sophisticated way of doing the kind of lechon that Filipinos enjoy today. The lechon that graces most Filipino gatherings now go through an entire process. Lydia’s selects pigs based on their standard weight requirement. Then their suppliers deliver the pigs to their farm in Batangas where these are prepared for delivery to their primary commissary in Baclaran. In the commissary, the pigs are marinated and stuffed with herbs and then readied for delivery to the outlets or for roasting in their giant walk-in “lechonan" in the stores. During our meeting, Ricky shared it’s crunch time for them when Christmas hits its peak of company parties and family gatherings on the 15th of December. That’s when their huge walk-in rotisseries are in full swing, able to roast several pigs simultaneously at any given time or as many as 200 pigs per batch for the many orders that would be picked up during the day. To cope with the demand during the holidays and fiestas, Ricky has helped push Lydia’s capacity to churn out one crispy lechon after another. The store’s outlets in Timog and Roces Avenue in Quezon City have roasting pits where the pigs are roasted over live hot coals for hours and where they achieve the crispiest skin while making sure that the pig is cooked well through the inside. After roasting, the cooked lechon are kept under steady heat in a stainless warmer with temperature control. The huge sturdy warmers are custom-made for Lydia’s after Ricky researched how to maintain the lechon’s savory goodness up to the time that it reaches the avid and hungry lechon-lover. While giving us a tour of Lydia’s along Roces Avenue which serves as their headquarters, Ricky asked us to note that there’s not a single fly hovering over the countless lechons, whether they were cooked, waiting to be packaged for delivery, or being roasted in the gigantic oven. While he wouldn’t divulge how in the world they were able to do that in spite of the enticing smell of roasted pigs wafting in the air, he hinted that it was another innovation that is strictly done by Lydia’s. Apart from the whole suckling pigs and those that you can buy per kilo, Lydia’s has a wide range of menu items that showcase the lechon such as their version of the sisig, their paksiw and the Lechon Paella which is a boneless suckling pig stuffed with seafood paella. Ricky shared a little known fact about the Lechon Paella: it was then First Lady Imelda Marcos who actually conceived the recipe for this special version of the lechon. Wanting to offer something different to impress visiting celebrity, Sean Connery, Mrs. Marcos asked the chefs of the Manila Hotel to collaborate with Lydia’s Lechon to stuff a roasted pig with squids, prawns and other seafood. Hence, the Lechon Paella came to be and still is Lydia’s one-of-a-kind offering. Today, the store also offers Lechon Baka or roasted calf upon order as customers have begun clamoring for other lechon items. Lydia’s also serves all-time Filipino favorites like dinuguan, kare-kare, sinigang, crispy pata, bulalo, and all the other festive delights that adorn a Filipino table. With 21 outlets and active plans to expand further, Ricky said their plan is to standardize all their processes and procedures in their bid to become an ISO-certified food company. This would put Lydia’s Lechon a step ahead of everyone else not only in the lechon business but in the same league as other world-class food companies in the country. - GMANews.TV