Eating Exploration

Bea Misa-Crisostomo Wants You To Question Your Own Food Before Taking The Next Bite.

- Lex Celera

Bea Misa-Crisostomo is pulling weeds in the food industry where there seemingly are none. What most people don’t notice or take for granted, she problematizes. “We should really start asking the difficult questions like, ‘Where does our food come from every day?’” She says all of this in the tone that’s in between nonchalant and soft-spoken, comfortable without being too chummy.

She is currently busy fixing the back end of Ritual, her general merchandise store of seven years. From a wide variety of selections like food-grade stainless steel straws and calamansi polvoron to natural cacao powder and herbal laundry bars, her humble shop caters to a certain niche: the eco-friendly, preferably organic, and the locally made.

“A lot of them are looking for [something] ecofriendly,” Misa-Crisostomo says of Ritual’s current clients. “They look for things like sea salt or coffee. Sometimes when the restaurants are chef-driven, they want to look for things that are unique like flavorings and stuff. Sometimes we have to develop a little bit for them.”

But not all of its items have the same demand. “We make a little bit of many things so now we’re choosing the things that we want to expand on and have more of,” she shares. The hurdles Ritual faces at the moment mirror the problem Misa-Crisostomo points out in our current food system.

MARKET VALUE

Consider the palengke: stalls upon stalls serving a wide variety of greens, meats, and other commodities. Sometimes tumultuous, sometimes hushed, but always frequented. More than a wet market, a trip to the palengke usually spells a trip for the senses, a visual feast of sights and sounds.