Food Review: Jessie's Torta

By Christine Barrete

Argao's Best: Jessie's Torta boasts of rich and tasteful flavor that leaves customers crave for more

Filipinos are fond of eating merienda (snacks). In fact, it has been a part of our culture to eat merienda during midmornings and afternoons. There are a lot of selections to choose from, ranging from our very own puto, sikwati, and budbud. But, my recent travel to the Soutwestern part in Cebu made me discover another food venture that truly satisfied my cravings.

In the town of Argao, Jessie’s Torta has established a name among its constituents. Looks can truly be deceiving because the torta looks like any other torta, but the mixture of flavours gives it a unique taste.

At first glance you’d think that it’s easy to come up with the torta, but the process itself takes a lot of time. Unlike other torta made available in the market, Jessie’s torta uses the traditional pugon (wood-fired brick oven), which is the manual process in cooking the torta. Using the pugon helps attain best results. Jessie said that she never compromises the quality of the torta even though it requires more effort.

Aside from preserving the traditional process, its main ingredient that contributes to its delectable taste which is the coconut wine, which is famously known as tuba serves as catalyst for fermentation and adds flavour to the torta.

Tuba, melted margarine, milk, flour and egg are mixed perfectly until they become sticky. The dough is placed in cups of different sizes for fermentation. It takes four to five hours depending on the temperature to ferment the dough. When it reaches the perfect size, it is finally placed in the pugon.

The torta shop I went was tidy, but small. It is made up of bamboo located near the house of the owner, Jessie Magallones. There are only three workers, two people responsible for preparing and mixing the ingredients while one person assigned to cook the torta by hand in a hot pugon flamed by coconut shell and firewood.

Jessie’s Torta is truly bursting with flavours.  It has moderate sweetness and a soft texture. It has the perfect combination of ingredients that makes consumers crave for more.