FILIPINO CUISINE IN WORLD SCENE

FILIPINO CUISINE IN WORLD SCENE by: Rex Alba

Filipinos are celebrated for our hard work ethic, resilience, and most recently, our food. our cuisine, a mouth-watering culmination of Chinese, Spanish, and other cultural influences, has expanded its worldwide influence, especially over the past decade.

In the Philippines alone, traditionally-leaning chefs like Panlasang Pinoy, creators like Erwan Heusaff, celebrity moms and home cooks, and now, trending icons like Ninong Ry are creating new generations of love and appreciation for Filipino food. Abroad, diaspora Filipino chefs seamlessly fuse our food with other countries, slowly but surely establishing our place in the global culinary landscape.

For people who are used to assimilation, erasure, and silencing, this is our way of renegotiating and reinserting our place in the world. So, kain tayo? Let’s eat! Here are only some of the most popular dishes among Filipinos around the world.

Let’s start off with probably our most popular dish: ADOBO! Typically some sort of meat soaked in a marinade of soy sauce, vinegar, bay leaves, black peppercorns, and garlic, adobo can be enjoyed anywhere, from large gatherings to intimate family dinners. What makes adobo so versatile is its deep flavor profile that can both invite in and comfort anyone. Dare I say that adobo feels like the physical embodiment of some core Filipino values: strength, hospitality, and compassion. Adobo is the type of dish that can invite in and comfort anyone that comes across it.

You can start off any day with adobo, but sometimes a classic breakfast food is just what one needs. This is where our silogs come in. SILOGs are Filipino breakfast meals consisting of garlic fried rice, fried eggs, and some sort of meat. For example, tapa (dried marinated beef) and longganisa (pork sausage) are common meats that pair well with silog. Western countries especially crave silog because it does not differ too far from their typical breakfast. For instance, American breakfasts can include bacon, eggs, and hash browns. Silog is exactly like that: except you switch out the bacon for tapa and hashbrowns for the garlic rice.

While it is a safe introduction to Filipino cuisine, it sure is a scrumptious one! Once the day has started, a lively event is a perfect place to attend if you want a massive sea of Filipino foods on the table. At the center of the feast stands – or rather lays – LECHON, a whole roast pig. Besides the standout lechon, a Filipino party typically has all the fixings: rice, of course, PANCIT (Philippine noodles), the whatnot. The most familiar food, though, to non-Filipinos, would probably be LUMPIA, our own version of egg rolls.

Halo-Halo Dessert

Of course, no meal is complete without dessert. Luckily, we got you covered too. HALO-HALO is clearly the favorite among nonlocals. This summer favorite is a showstopper. Shaved ice topped with syrups, beans, cheese, and even ice cream is sure to be your go-to this summer.

Other Pinoy favorites include SINIGANG–a sour tamarind-based soup filled with vegetables and your choice of seafood or pork. This is perfect for feeling under the weather or during monsoon season. TINOLA is a ginger-based chicken soup with garlic and battle gourd– super yummy for a cold winter’s night outside of the Philippines! Try NILAGA or BULALO if you’re craving a beefier, heartier soup.

On social media, you’ll see chefs and families creating the most beautiful budol fight spreads. Banana leaves decked out in rice, grilled pork belly, squid, fish, shrimp, crabs, and the most luscious mangoes, pickled julienned vegetable–also known as ATSARA, barbeque skewers, and more. These meals are perfect to enjoy by the sea at El Nido, Palawan on your next summer adventure, or even right at the dinner table at your tita’s house in Houston, Texas. Wherever you may be, we guarantee there is a Filipino willing to cook and share our culture with you.

Boodle Fight

ISAW. At Filipino night markets, there is always an old woman vigorously waving a woven fan over tiny skewers of meat–intestines, pork, chicken, liver. This inuman food has a rich and sad history of poverty. In the Philippines, the poor eat every part of the meat because nothing can be afforded to waste.

Today, at places like Dollar Hits in Los Angeles, California, this way of eating is celebrated by Filipinos looking for a wave of nostalgia and Filipinos brave enough to share these foods with their non-Filipino friends, hoping that they may understand or even appreciate at least the taste. Sometimes, these vulnerabilities are success stories, but in others, they are not. To be welcomed to the dinner table is an honor that should not be taken lightly.

Especially in the United States, the reclamation of food is an important assertion of dominance and existence for all immigrants and indigenous peoples. Whiteness seeks to erase identities that do not realign with the “status quo”. Historically, too, Americans colonized Filipinos first and foremost through the kitchens–hence, the development of “dirty” kitchens in most Philippine homes.

To deny the comfort of familiar taste is colonial. It disrespects history and identity and urges people to forget, which is a perfect step to cultural genocide.

Among others, one of the best ways to support immigrant communities is to uplift our cuisines. For most around the world, meals are a place where knowledge is passed down, trust is built, and love is shared. Food is never just food.

So, we hope the next time you pass by your local Filipino kitchen, you’ll stop by, say kamusta, and eat with us. And as you eat, be intentional about the steps it took to get here–the oceans we’ve crossed, and the vulnerability we are choosing to share when we say kain tayo? Let’s eat.

Rex Alba