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Pagpag


Pagpag is a Tagalog term for leftover food from restaurants (usually from fast-food restaurants) scavenged from garbage sites and dumps. Pagpag food can also be expired frozen meat, fish or vegetables discarded by supermarkets and scavenged in garbage trucks where those expired foods are collected. The word in the Tagalog language literally means to "shake off the dust or dirt," and refers to the act of shaking the dirt off of the edible portion of the leftovers. Pagpag can be either eaten immediately after it was found in the trash or cooked in variety of ways after collecting it.

The act of eating pagpag arose from the practical challenges of hunger that resulted from extreme poverty. Selling pagpag has been a profitable business in areas where poor people live. Pagpag is also called batchoy, which is derived from the Filipino dish with the same name. Technically, batchoy is soup-based though the term batchoy that is used to refer to leftover food from trash may be a meal cooked differently like fried pagpag batchoy. Persons who scavenge leftover food from garbage are called mambabatchoy.

After any dirt and inedible stuff are removed, pagpag can be eaten on site where it is found. It can also be processed further, most commonly by frying it in hot oil depending on the condition of the food. Filipino politician and former actor Isko Moreno used to scavenge leftover food and fry it calling it pagpag batsoy. Small cottage industries have arisen around pagpag with impoverished people making a living scavenging, collecting, processing, and selling the processed pagpag to other poor people. A cook in a restaurant in Tondo, Manila prepares pagpag in traditional Filipino cooking, such as pagpag à la kaldereta or adobo, with the mixture of the leftover chicken from Jollibee and KFC as the main ingredient.


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