Pagpag

Pagpag is the Tagalog term for leftover food from restaurants (usually from fast food restaurants) that is salvaged from garbage sites and dumps. Preparing and eating pagpag is practiced in the slums of Metro Manila, such as Caloocan, Tondo, and Pasig. It arose from the challenges of hunger that resulted from extreme poverty among the urban poor. Pagpag food can also be expired frozen meat, fish, or vegetables discarded by supermarkets and scavenged in garbage trucks where this expired food is collected. The word in the Tagalog language literally means "to shake off the dust or dirt". Pagpag are cooked again in a variety of ways before consumption. Pagpag is also called batchoy, a euphemistic term derived from the Filipino dish with the same name. Technically, batchoy is soup-based, though the term batchoy referring to leftover food from the trash may be a meal cooked differently, like fried pagpag batchoy.