Of all beautiful sites, new memories, wonderful experiences, delicacies and favorite pasalubong items that we’ve come across during our Baguio 2013 do-it-yourself tour, I found myself wanting to write first about the yummy Sundot Kulangot.
Lol. 
If you don’t know what is ‘sundot kulangot’ and you know a bit of Tagalog you’d probably be cringing now hahaha.
Case in Point:
My sister just rummaged through the pasalubong items I brought from Baguio. She picked the big bao and asked “What is this?”
That’s sundot kulangot.
Her face transformed from curiosity to hindi maipinta, she exclaimed ‘Whaaaat the F!”
Hehehe.
She got the open bao from the ref, with her spoon she scooped some and tasted it. Smiled a bit, “this taste like melted balikutsa.”
🙂
Why the first reaction?
Sundot Kulangot literally translates in English as “picking boogers” or “picked snot”. Nyahaha.
Whoever named this famous pasalubong product from Baguio has an odd sense of humor. My salute to you creative one!
I just love picking the tiny kulangot. Lots of tourists too were scraping kulangot and eating these sticky mounds while we were in the City of Pines.
Ewwww that doesn’t sound nice to my ears lol hehhe. 😆
Buying Sundot Kulangot
Being one of the famous pasalubong items in Baguio, you can find this treat almost everywhere in the city. I bought mine from the vendors beside the gate of the Good Shepherd complex. It was selling for P40 per bundle or 3 for P100. One bundle has 5 bamboo casings; 8 mini balls nestled in each casing. So that’s about 40 sundot kulangot tiny bao for your picking pleasure.
This delicacy might be cheaper if you buy it in the public market.
Ingredients for Sundot Kulangot
Inside the ball of this Baguio delicacy is a version of kalamay. Kalamay is usually made from a mixture of glutinous rice flour, coconut milk and molasses. ‘Balikutsa’ was also the first thing that comes to mind when I first tasted this. The strong flavor of muscovado sugar lingers on my tongue, but unlike balikutsa, this Baguio mixture was more pliant. Balikutsa are tough as rock and hard to eat. I love it when I was a kid by the way.
We have lots of Philippine delicacies made from glutinous rice and most of them are also called ‘kalamay’; what makes the baguio kalamay – sundot kulangot – special is its presentation.
Sundot kulangot are placed inside halved mini balls. I’ve asked the vendor of this delicacy where the kulangot balls come from, and was told that the ball is dried up fruit shell of the tree ‘banaba’. But upon digging for more info, others claimed this is from pitogo shells, a fruit bearing palm tree. Not really sure which is which but it’s very clear that the small bao or ball for this delicacy comes from a tree fruit.
By the way, hats off to those who cook the recipe for sundot kulangot and those who place the sweet mixture in the small balls. Preparing one bundle of this delicacy must have taken lots of time and effort.
Aside from balikutsa, this treat reminds me so much of Bohol kalamay especially that the halved bao were glued together again and the center is encircled with red crepe paper, the way the kalamay from Bohol are packaged. But Baguio’s sundot kulangot is a thousand times smaller than Bohol’s and the kalamay mixture inside is likewise a thousand times smaller. Hehe.
Eating this popular Baguio favorite was really fun! It was my first time to try sundot kulangot. I was expecting more of it despite being warned ahead, so when I opened my first mini ball, it was still surprising to me. It really is tiny, can’t help but grinned. It won’t fill your stomach, it’s literally booger size. Haha.
How do you eat this treat? You can pick it or scrape it with your finger and eat it right off. Or you can strategize. 🙂
Snap part of the bamboo sticks and use this as your spoon. Be careful in breaking the bamboo to avoid any tiny fiber from getting inside your skin. If you are not careful, ouch! You will need needles to pry out any bamboo remnants.
I was happy nitpicking through the tiny tiny sundot kulangot while strolling in chilly Baguio. When we got to SM Baguio, I have to sit down so I can go through the remaining balls. I went through them so fast – open, scoop, eat – open, scoop, eat. The kulangots were gone in a flash. 🙂
I bought the giant version in big bao (coconut shell) as pasalubong for home. I was expecting the bao to be filled at least half full like Bohol’s kalamay but well, I was in for another surprise. There was almost nothing there, just a thin smear on the insides of the bao. Lol. Eating it was also not as fun as going through the mini balls.
The giant version uses polish coconut shells.
Inside the Big Bao – Giant Version of Sundot Kulangot
From now on, I will stick with the real deal – the tiny balls of sundot kulangot. 🙂
Try it the next time you are in Baguio City! \o/
Start of our wonderful cold Baguio vacation and blogging trip. 🙂
If you like this post, please click “FB Like”. You can also share this post easily to Twitter. Salamat! Hope you get to try this popular pasalubong from Baguio! 🙂
You completely lost the plot on the ingredients part.. You just talked about the sundot kulangot how nice and tasty and how to eat it. You actually didn’t say the anatomy of this dessert food. Not even a list of ingredient. You should rename the title of this article from Anatomy of Sundot Kulangot to My experience of sundot kulangot. You just dont know the ingredients stupid.
ahaha mate chill =) I like playing with titles and this post made you comment, so that’s a win for this blogger =)
It’s bitaog shell, not pitogo shell nor a fruit of banaba, as mistakenly identified by most writers.
https://philfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2010/12/pinoy-food-and-cooking-dictionary-c.html
Cille, nagsulat ka rin pala ng tungkol dito??
Hi Chris, yah hehhe *bigla ko namiss ang sundot kulangot at ang Baguio waaahhhhhh