Lechon is an almost inextricable part of a Filipino’s life and we will try to get our hands on one no matter where the diaspora takes us, and in any weather. The holidays and celebrations just past wouldn’t have been cholesterol extravaganzas were it not for our beloved purveyors of the porcine delicacy. These handful of Pinoy culinary artisans were featured in a Chicago Tribune article written by Vikki Ortiz and published last week.

Photo: Tony and Tining Jumao-as with Cris Enopeña, their lechonero

Among them were Tining and Tony Jumao-as:

Aling Tining, 70, of Forest Park learned to make lechon as a young girl, listening to her grandmother give cooking instructions at her childhood home on the island of Cebu. A few years after moving to the United States in 1984, Tining asked her husband, an engineer, to design a motorized half-barrel roasting oven so she could cook lechon in their back yard.

Today, Tining and her husband prepare lechon — which sells for at least $150 each — for word-of-mouth customers. She prides herself on sticking to the Cebu-style recipe, stuffing the pig with onions, lemon grass and garlic before cooking it outside for four hours at a stretch, even during the winter.

“That’s why you have to bundle,” she said. “Long johns, three pants, sweater and then sweat shirt, and then hats — three.”

Back-yard pig-roasting can raise the eyebrows of neighbors, prompting some to do the cooking by stealth. But sometimes, the smell of pig on a cold January morning also helps the cooks and their neighbors bond. [LINK]

Tony Jumao-as is a retired INS employee (now ICE) and helps his wife run the business. We recently spotted him at the Santo Niño fiesta. They also supplied the goodies at Ambibo.com’s 7th anniversary party. They acknowledge and thank their “sukis” from the Dipolog, Dapitan and ZaNorte community in Chicago who comprise a large portion of their clientèle. [Contributed by Cyd Adriatico-Fernandez]

Update 2.10.08

Barbeque Police Cites Pinoy Lechonero