La Castellana Muscovado Area
Description
Sugarcane and muscovado-producing zone suited to traditional-product mapping rather than restaurant-only mapping. In La Castellana, a foothill town where the cane belt runs up into fruit and vegetable country. Muscovado is whole-cane sugar boiled down and dried with the molasses left in — brown, damp, faintly smoky, nothing like refined white. Producers here work in open pans at small scale. Buy it in blocks or loose by the kilo where it’s made; it costs more than white sugar and is worth the difference.
Tips
Where cane gives way to fruit and vegetables as the land rises — the market reflects that mix better than either a lowland or a highland market alone. Mag-aso Falls is the usual pairing.
Stops
Northern Sugar & Seafood Corridor
How to get there
Inland foothill road, about 1.5 hours from Bacolod.
Best Times
Early morning — markets, landings and roadside stalls all run hardest before 8am.