River Shrimp Paleo Diet: Live from Pristine Waters of Kabigan Falls in Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte

We are staying in a resort in the beaches of Pagudpud. Yesterday late afternoon the family went to Kabigan falls. Kabigan falls is a pristine impressive waterfall. Our tour guide for the afternoon was Rey.

Kabigan falls is a nice nature trip. The people live at the opening part where the highway is. Then inside the people have planted rice fields and vegetables and grow their own roaming native chicken. You will notice a stream flowing down the middle of everything, a clear clean stream.

Follow that stream and you get to the beginning… Kabigan Falls. Very nice, very cool. The people have tapped the top most source for their drinking water for all their households. Rey says there are some 2000 people who live in these parts.

I asked Rey about what common food they have in these parts, if they had shrimp or fish in their mini-river. He said they usually caught river shrimp for their meals. Aha! Good idea. I made a deal with Rey for him and his buddy to catch me some 2 kilos of live river shrimp for our family breakfast the next day. Rey agreed for a price both of us were happy.

The following day I was prompt at 6:30am and I did get what I ordered. 2 kilos of live river shrimp. They kept the shrimp alive by putting them in a porous basket and dunked in the stream. So when I got to their village, the shrimp were jumping alive. They called this kind of shrimp UDANG.

I came back to the beach and went to my chosen cooking hut and showed the lady my catch and that I wanted them to cook it GISADO. She was wide eyed impressed by my catch, she knew what it was but was puzzled where I could get such a prize.

I fetched my kids and they played around with the river shrimp for a few minutes before we proceeded to cook them. I was there to watch every step they took so we could have a clean breakfast. They had sea salt, onions, coconut oil, onions… and the extra special 7-Up softdrink that when it evaporates in the pot gives good flavor… it’s an old chef’s trick with shrimp.

They suggested margarine 2 times but I turned them down both times. Let’s keep this paleo diet guys.

Finally, the 2 kilos of river shrimp were done and served to excited children. Normally, my 2nd son and my daughter are allergic to shrimp, but I figured these were absolutely clean shrimp from the most pristine natural waters, so let’s take the risk. They initially had only 2 shrimp each at breakfast, but lunch time they just chowed down on the shrimp.

This nutritious paleo diet was brought to you by parent ingenuity. This dish is not available in any menu of any resort or cooking outfit in the Pagudpud beaches. With deliberate paleo diet “hunting”, we get food that’s best.

I had to drive some 15 minutes from Pagudpud beach to Kabigan falls and back and had them cooked just the way I liked and watching over the shrimp so they did it right. Parental labor of love.

If you are in Pagudpud and would like to catch some live river shrimp, call on Rey at 0930-5591605