BACOLOD CITY: The order for repast hereabouts sounds too near to the military than the alimentary — “sutukil.”

Such an order spells out the staple culinary delights enjoyed by Negrenses: sugba (broiled seafood), tula (fish-based soured soup), and kilaw (raw seafood or fishmeat morsels wallowing in palm vinegar, julienned ginger, hot pepper shreds and shallot slivers livened up at times with coconut cream).

An assortment of fish species and shoal dwelling critters, say crabs, lobsters and bivalves like diwal and scallops caught off the waters or mudflats girding Negros island provide ample rounds of “ammunition” for sutukil recipes.

Unlike continental cuisine, Negrense yummies rely on scant condiments to conduct a symphony of flavors in their cookery. Sugba is a theme on simplicity — seafood fresh off the brine tossed onto the grill, dished out half-done to retain broad hints of saline sweetness, to be rounded out with a dipping sauce of sinamak (nipa palm vinegar, chopped chillies, garlic cloves, shallots, and ginger).

Tula echoes the terse poetry of sugba. It’s whipped up with scant ingredients, say, just a sprig of spring onions tossed in the pot with slices of freshly caught fish. The fish-based soup is allowed to boil for less than five minutes, dished out scalding hot in a bowl as prelude to a hearty meal. No cloying butter sweetness that can fritter away hints of the sea, no motley spices that can drown the all-its-own character of a freshly caught fish — just plain soup stock enlivened by a glossary of sea-imparted subtleties.

The Negrense tula takes pride in a secret souring agent that melds the earthy tartness of semi-ripe guavas and the lime-like tang of citronella (tanglad, commonly known as lemon grass). While the everyday Tagalog sinigang makes use of the usual tamarind shoots or fruits (for meat-based sigang) or sour cucumber tree fruits (kamias) to acidify fish sinigang, the local tula isn’t complete without the quaint sourer called batuan.

Batuan (Garcinia binucao) trees are distributed throughout the Philippines and Vietnam. Among Tagalogs, it is called binukaw while Ilocanos know the fruit as balakut. Batuan is a close relative of mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana), both growing in low-altitude forests, both of sub-globose fruits, each a multi-sectioned pod of sour seeds.