When I was young, we survived very strong Typhoons like in 1961 in Pandan, Catanduanes., na ikan kaibahan na ‘storm surge’ of about 4meters high! After the bagyo, its fiesta–daming foods.
The 1st victim, manok ta maloya sa uran at lipot; the last is Karbaw–matibay sa uran! After the ‘fiesta’, tag-gutom pero manageable naman. Tayon?
The sea and the suba are ever present sources of food or isda, and then supplemented by cultivated root crops like camote, garyang and cassava, etc.
The last resort are the survival foods–wild, edible tubers. Two (2) main wild tubers I remembered: gamat and namo.
Gamat is like camote but plenty of (not edible or hard to eat) fibers. Namo is masiram nice to eat but has to be processed well, to remove the poison–processing is by thinly slicing and e-loog sa sako and then ebabad sa sarog na makosog ang sorog (nin tubig) for about 3 days.
Those wild tubers should be studied and researched, possibly convert it to readily available foods, and also primarily to give EMPLOYMENT to us, the Catandunganons!
-Agerico Tapado Isorena