Canned liver spread has a special place in the Filipino pantry, making for a quick savory spread for your breakfast pan de sal or for adding a savory backbone to other dishes (most notably caldereta and Filipino-style spaghetti). While we’ve not been able to find its exact history in the Philippine setting, its origins can be noticably traced to French pâté or German liverwurst—both forms of forcemeat that may (or actually do, in the case of the latter) contain animal livers, along with its other parts and fillers, processed or pureed into a spreadable paste, thus breathing life and edible appeal into the (typically) less-preferred parts of the animal. You’ll find a couple of brands in the supermarket today, available at cheap price points that keeps these special spreads accessible to the common Filipino. But how do they compare?

Reno

Reno sports a nostalgic, if not kitschy, label that well looks like it could have been lifted straight from the 60’s. On the back of the package you’ll notice it says it’s [made] “with cereal” (indeed, you’ll find “cereal” listed on the ingredients), which we assume to act as a filler, and while it does not specify which cereals the spread is in fact made with, the said characteristic manifests itself in its resulting texture and taste. The spread takes on a murky, grayish-pink hue and a consistency that’s notably thick—still spreadable, but stiff in a way we’d compare to a thick porridge, with chunks of blistered meat in every few spoonfuls. You get a spicy, meaty taste from both pork and beef livers  which concludes with a peculiar sweetness. The porridge-like thickness gets in the way of the flavor intensity—on one hand, this keeps it from tasting too salty (the resulting spread tastes balanced enough that you can eat it straight up) and makes it great for thickening stews; on the other hand, it makes for a less-impactful flavor and redundant starchiness when actually spread on bread.