So what else did I do before myfilipinokitchen jumped to its premature death around the middle of 2011?

I talked about sex.

Press play father.

It all started with the question, “Do Aphrodisiacs in the Philippines really work?” And then thoughts about procreation erected from there. Apart from everyone’s knowing, I even wrote to Doctor Holmes (A Filipino sexpert) to answer this for us but to no avail she’s busy helping couples who have problems while on a washing machine.

After that, it built up the discussion to Filipino Street Foods (as many consider innards to be aphrodisiacs) which included intestines, liver, heart and most organs that end up in a stick. If you are not a believer, I suggest you go through with them and see how it boosts your elements. Elements? What in the world do elements even mean? Is this an infomercial of some sort?

And then the discussion halted to an abrupt end when the genius in me jumped to the topic of Filipino Celebrations where I suggested dishes for big occasions to which the article culminated to people bashing the daylights out of me because I left out Lumpia to where I promised on the grave of my dead husband-and-wife Hamsters, Schlamoo and Baxter that I will make a series about Lumpia. So I got excited. This is Lumpia. This is the quintessential Filipino party food. It took me 3 months to research how Lumpia came about – its beginnings, variation, international reputation and kung-fu origins. So from June to October, I stopped writing to prepare for a masterpiece… that didn’t came about.

Facepalm. 

Double Facepalm.

Can somebody stop that offensive music and all that talk about sex please?

Because of the obsession to make the perfect Lumpia series that I stopped writing. I don’t want to go into details but because there were no regular articles from the helm, writers stopped writing. It didn’t only affect this site, it affected all my writing gigs. Seriously, I can’t figure out why it shattered everything that I was doing.

Weird man.

I need to know what happened that’s why I’m writing back. To see where all those lost articles went to, catch them one by one and post them here.

I’m back to zero this 2012. Back to zero in a year when the world is supposed to end.

What have I learned while I was away?

I learned how to make fresh Lumpia wrappers.

I learned that wrapping a fried Lumpia thinly will make it explode when you fry it.

I learned how to cook 2 dishes out of making chicken broth.

I learned that the South Eeast Asian version of fried chicken doesn’t involve any crumbing. Case in point, Max’s Fried Chicken.

I learned that using real saffron in Arroz con Caldo boosts the flavor exponentially.

I learned how authentic it is to eat green mangoes unpeeled.

I learned how to liquify bagoong. And to sip it with delight.

I learned that during radio interviews, you can actually lead the announcer into what you want them to talk about.

I learned that there is no better language to speak but Filipino when you are with Filipinos.

I learned cooking British dishes.

I learned that the usual process of Filipino cooking weighs more on guts.

I learned how Italians appreciate their tomatoes. And thought that we Filipinos should do too.

I learned how to connect more with Filipinos in my community.

I learned not to bother myself writing in this blog.

I learned what it feels like to not write in this blog.

I learned what this blog is.

I have come to a point of “Write or Die”.

I learned to live.

That’s the passion. But you could have used the word Filipino more gently. We are all virgins ya know!

Alrighty then, let me just get in the phone booth, take off my pants and underwear, wear my pants first and the underwear on top of it. Give me a cape.

To prepare for this post, I broswed all the recipes that we’ve made in this website and I think we have covered more than half of essential Filipino dishes that should be on the table whenever you have a Filipino party. Come to think of it, 4 more months and we will be celebrating myfilipinokitchen’s 2nd year
anniversary. I am now excited what delights we will give the readers on that day. But that can wait. The title of this article shouts impatience and panic, so we need to address that first.

Here we go, fasten your seatbelts.

Preparing for a Filipino party will involve more than 2 days from prep to the actual-day-when-you-cook-and-die-of-exhaustion. Mind you there are dishes that you can make in advance because some of our Filipino dishes get more tasty after a day or two. Let me state the obvious now; the dishes you prepare will depend not only on the number of people attending your party but also who will be attending your Filipino party. You might want to read this post first on how to prepare food for your guests. Well usually, in Filipino parties, there’s a competition going on – the magnitude of dishes versus the number of people so if this is going on, you have to stuf those mouths with as much food as you can.

Let’s start with loading those gluttonous mouths with carbo (by the way, if this is your first time to use the internet, click the lines in blue because it will lead you to the article that i’m talking about).

Rice, rice and more rice and how to cook it perfectly. Now I want you to imagine a Filipino party without rice. Imagine…

Pansit or Filipino Noodles. That link will give you a variety of Filipino noodles to choose from, thank you to the ladies of Kulinarya Cooking Club.

Filipino Sweet Syle Spaghetti Recipe. The emblem of Filipino parties. I can’t remember a time when I attended a Filipino party without the alarming colors on the table that is Filipino Spaghetti. Why do we always have that anyway? Because it keeps those people who eat a lot of food eat less thus giving your
other guests a chance to have a scoop of other dishes. I’m just telling the truth man. Don’t shoot the messenger.

Let’s go on to meat. You have to have meat. Not only that it would be a shame if you don’t have meat, it would also be also be really funny and the one
unforgettable party that people will talk about even after you die. No meat? What were you thinking? No Meat????

Let’s do dishes that go really well with rice.

Caldereta – The penultimate Filipino stew. There are people who go to parties for the sole reason that the host will be cooking Caldereta. This is one dish that will make your guests go back to your loving arms.

Caldereta with Gata (Coco Milk) – A fantastic deviation from the usual by our resident Chef, Chef Mike. I challenge you to do this. It is surprisingly simple.

Menudo – This dish was made for the community. If you have gazillions of guests, this will do the job for you.

Mechado – If on the other hand, you have Muslims as guests, you might want to choose this rather than Menudo. I classify this as classy too. But you have to master this dish.

Afritada – The most simple dish of all. This is a no-fail dish. If you screw this up, you might as well have bought Jollibee for your party along with party hats and balloons.

Bicol Express - If your guests prefer heat (those really old Filipino guys who go to parties only to drink beer) this is the recipe to make. Thank you to our Bicolana cook MissMantekilya for an authentic Bicol express recipe.

Salpicao – This is one of those really easy dishes yet proven and tested. Put this on the table but make sure you save some for yourself because I assure you, this is the first one to go. Kudos to Chef Mike for the recipe.

Whole Fried Fish with Vegetables – Or you can make a Sweet and sour version of it which the more expected Filipino fish dish in a party.

I think that would be enough. To desserts then.

Unfortunately, yours truly is not hyped with desserts that much thus we only have a few desserts (only one actually) and that would be:

The infamous Chicken Macaroni Salad. They come in white, pink, green and even purple. (Who’s the genius that included Ube Ice Cream in a Chicken Macaroni Salad? He should be drowned in a goo of mayonnaise.) This is the best (meaning, most convenient) dessert that you can serve in a Filipino party.

Potato Salad. Thanks to Jen for this one. But who gave Filipinos the idea that this is a dessert? This is an appetizer or at least a side dish for crying out loud. But no my friend, this is eaten by most Filipinos like dessert.

I promise myself I have to fill this website with desserts really.

I think I gave you a lot of ideas already. Don’t ask for a lechon recipe. You don’t make it, you buy it. There is something festive about buying a lechon and seeing it land on the table out of thin air.

And hey if you have any ideas, feel free to fill the comments or request a recipe.

PS
Sylvia, I have made a Kare Kare recipe which will be posted really soon. When’s your birthday?

I think that’s it. Article’s done!

Alright I’ll indulge you.

There are only 2 that I can think of aside from salt and pepper. Bay leaves, which we usually use in our Adobo, and is most commonly called Laurel leaves. And the ever perpetually used red or green chili peppers. Period. Once a month. A sign and sigh of relief.

But the nagging question is, why does the Flipino cuisine lacking of herbs and spices? Our neighboring southeast asian countries use a lot of herbs and spices. Our european colonizer, Spain, employ a number of herbs and spices too and the reason they even reached the Philippines was because of spices. Why did we end up with nothing? I don’t know to tell you the truth. There’s just nothing.

I am rewinding and fast-forwarding images in my head of all the recipes that I learned since I was that little boy of six who is standing on my grandmother’s cooking area, watching her cook stuff but for the love of me all I can think of when it comes to hebrs and spices used in Filipino cooking is, salt, pepper, chili peppers and the occasional bay leaves.

Wherever you go around the world though, once you have tasted Filipino cooking, the first thing you will say is it is so savory. It is becuase most of the time we start cooking with a saute of garlic, onions and tomatoes. Click this for an article entirely dedicated to that technique.

Dishes that do not employ this technique would somehow end up on the scheme of using a souring element. And baby boy we have a lot of that. We have the native citrus Calamansi, the southeast Asian fruit for cooking - Tamarind, a lot of variations of vinegar, The rare batuan and a lot more.

Filipino dishes would also end up on the sweeter side of the palate because some of us think it is wise to add sugar in our dishes. Sweet and sour fish or pork is not the only dish we use sugar (actually a lot of recipes use sweet ketchup instead of sugar) with. If that stew is sweet, definitely there is sugar in it. And sugar definitely goes well if you have a souring element in the dish you are making.

I am really juicing this article to a raisin.

Picture break!

That’s saffron. Real saffron. I bought that for almost $7 and I assure you, I have more nose hair than that small pile of gold. And that’s not even 1 gram. I’ll use it to make Paella tomorrow. A paella without herbs or spices save for a chili pepper of course and that saffron. See you!

I’m sorry, I think i’m blackouting. I don’t know what to say. It’s like University exams all over again.

Why? Because if you want to learn how Filipinos celebrate special occassions, google has answered that even before my firstborn learned how to say “Help!” So I don’t really want to but since this series needs to have an introduction. So yeah, let’s just wing this steaming, smoking heap of dung. Are you ready to catch?

Filipino family celebrations can run up to a week long and Filipino fiestas starts 3 months before the day of the event. For a family that will celebrate a birthday, a reunion or a wedding, specially a wedding. Preparations, and I am only talking about food preparations, are geared and oiled up for at least 2 days well in advance. Why at least 2 days? Well first off you need to let your suki (the “usual” vendor where you buy your produce, meat or fish from) know that you have an impending celebration in the next few days. Not only that she’ll set aside whatever you need, she will also join in on the celebration by giving you discounts. You also have to scout where to get live animals for slaughter. Delegation may not be a problem because folks from different parts of the Philippines start arriving at your doorstep a week from the celebration. And the cooking part? Goodness, need I say more? Or do you get the drift?

Fernando Amorsolo’s Antipolo, National Artist of the Philippines

Filipino family celebrations can most of the time, go overboard. Even if you have a small family. As long as the budget allows, everyone will get invited including the crazy, homeless man on the street who eats his pet hair-insects that no one even knows who in the world is. This means that anybody you have laid your eyes on for the past few days will have the chance to be on the guest list. Again, if the budget permits. This maybe becuase we just love to share our happiness to everyone around. Filipinos are a happy bunch. And also because we don’t want anyone to anybody feel left out that we would rather invite them and say yes if he or she or it brings along a couple of friends. Correct me if i’m wrong here but I think I’m right.

As for town fiesta celebrations, believe it or not, you don’t have a guest list. Because anyone can come to your house and eat. It is a tradition that is not written anywhere in the annals of our society but it is an agreement that is carved in stone. I’ve even heard of stories that some people die because of overeating and too much house-hopping. That’s why hospitals are always on full-staff whenever it’s their area’s fiesta or whenever it’s Christmas or New Year. During those times, high blood pressure, a genetic condition becomes a highly infectious disease.

Carlos Botong Francisco’s Fiesta, another National Artist of the Philippines

If you haven’t experienced a Filipino celebration, you should. It’s loud, rowdy, too much singing and dancing, too much alcohol and drunk people and at times, violent. Just make sure you stay inside a well secured shelter with a second floor because stray bullets may land on your skull. I’ll shut up now because I am heading on a different direction.

How’s my “winging it” going? Help me out here. Any interesting Filipino celebration stories to tell?

That is a very good question that needs an answer. I have discussed again and again of my frustration with our ancestors - why did they not document this? Why did no one took the liberty of writing accounts of early Filipino food during their time? Why was no one moved to sit down and record stuff for the next generation? Why??? Now I understand why our teacher in high school would hammer history inside our cranial husks. It is essental to know where things came from. Although I don’t know what’s the psychological benefit (or liability) for knowing your history, but it sure feels good to know some.

There are two possible influences as to where the Filipino barbecue originate – from our ancestors in the Indonesian peninsulas and from our neighbor above us who eventually colonized and recklessly destroyed our early 19th century architectures – the Japanese if ever they had any influence with the way we skewer. Now let’s try to put informations together in a bamboo stick.

Indonesia’s national dish is Satay – which is as everybody in the world knows as skewered meat. And if you click back to the History of Filipino food, Malay influence, they were one of the first people who injected their genes in the Philippine islands. So definitely they may have brought along with them the knowledge of skewering meat in a bamboo stick. But here’s the thing; Indonesian Satay has 2 major identifiers. One is they use turmeric which is an orangy ginger that is used in making curry and is not usually used in today’s Philippine kitchens. And two is, the major meats used for Satay is beef and mutton and of course the mellow and usual chicken meat. The only evidence that this influence has taken root in the Philippines is in the southern part of our islands where the skewered meat is called Satti, among our Muslim brothers.

Meanwhile, in the central and northern part of the Philippines, Filipino street food or as everyone calls it barbecue takes on a different face. Let me give you a quick look on how we make our Filipino barbecue through the daily routine of Manang Alice:

The night before Manang Alice rolls out her food cart on the streets, she prepares her barbecues. She slices pork and chicken meats into 1 inch squares and drops them into a white plastic pail which has now turned pink because of the marinade. She starts to prepare her marinade which is a mixture of Calamansi (Philippine citrus), Banana Ketchup, salt, pepper and brown sugar. She doesn’t put soy sauce in it, that’s what makes her barbecues different from other food carts along her boundary. She says to herself that the secret ingredient is actually to take off one usual ingredient which is the soy sauce. She then mixes the marinade with the pork meat, chicken skin, pieces, cuts and chicken intestines. Other chicken innards are going to be dropped by tomorrow as she only needs to put salt and pepper on them, no reason to have it the night before.

In the morning when she wakes up she prepares all her bamboo skewers and start skewering every piece of meat and innards in sight. She places them in containers which are then placed inside the compartments of her food cart. By the time she finishes at around 3pm, it’s time to let the “tambays” (bums is the nearest word) push the cart, which commences another trading day.

That is how barbecues, specially street foods are prepared in the Philippines.

On the other hand, the Japanese style of skewering chicken is called Yakitori. “Yaki” means grilled and “Tori” means chicken, if that helps you become a better person. The original chicken Yakitori however came as parts of the chicken that were never really eaten by people who can afford the meat. That’s why the first skewered parts of the chicken were innards (supposed to be thrown away during those times) – this was all during the later parts of the 1800′s in Japan when chicken was expensive. Now I think you have an idea why I cnosider the Japanese Yakitori has something to do with or own Philippine barbecue because both cuisines skewer innards for grilling. And because Yakitori is finished with a sweet sauce which is very similar to the majority of the skewered food in virtually every street in the Philippines. You dig?

But what about the ketchup that we use for sauce and the marinade for almost all of our street foods on a skewer? Take a look at this

Well if it came from Japan, it should make sense that they called it Kit-Jap. But on the other hand take a look at this:

from bbc.co.uk food

So yeah, on this one, it’s from the guys who made Satay.

Here’s what we’ll do, let’s just wait for some sort of time machine to get invented.  I’ll stop. I’m getting hungry. Let’s talk about how to make skewered Filipino street foods or construct a Filipino barbecue recipe next time.

Time’s up ketchup!

There are some pure unadulterated food in this short life that you should eat before you die. One of them is fresh meat with only, i’ll let you read that again, only – salt and pepper on burning coal.

My aunt has a hog business. When they announce that they are slaughtering, it is a family affair. And no, they don’t surrender it to some butcher, they slaughter the hog with their bare hands. I mean, they do it themselves. And if you are thinking that a hog business always ends up in the slaughterhouse, the answer is no. Her hog business is raising hogs and selling them to people who raise hogs as well. So slaughtering a fattened pig for pork in our family, is a call for celebration. My goodness, such a long story to get into my point. Well my point is, the first cut of bacon meets salt and pepper and on to the waiting hot, smoking and open grill. And I tell you, there is nothing more porky than the taste of the freshly slaughtered meat of pork off a barbecue grill.

I have never appreciated Filipino meat until I tasted mass produced meat. If you have seen Jamie Oliver’s documentaries on caged chickens and intensive pig farming, you know what I mean.

Stop reading and click this to see what I mean.

These huge poultry and meat farms produce meat that stinks. That is my opinion. That opinion is coming from a person that has been immersed in a culture where people see the chicken or the pig roaming around the neighborhood before it melts in their mouth. The smell of free range and organic meat is so much different from the stinking “pig pen” smell of intensively farmed pig or caged chickens. I am right now sitting on our couch and remembering the smell of Philippine meat and it makes me want to start burning coals. The fresh, free range, organic meat that we enjoy in the Philippines is one of the things that I would never ever ever exchange with the comfort, always available, inexpensive frankinstein-meat. I remember the pigs in my aunt’s pen – every night they always enjoy leftover soup from Batchoy (noodle) shops with stacks and stacks of Kangkong (water spinach). Everytime I visit the pigs my aunt would say, “Look at how happy they are”. And I go “yeah!”

Now here I am, too far away from the Philippines and i’m missing virgin food.

So I bought myself expensive, free range and organic chicken thighs and cooked them on the grill with only salt and pepper. You should do this too:

Take the bone off meat. Use a small knife and make incisions near the bone and pull the meat off the bone. And slice to a little bit bigger than bite size pieces. We are slicing it to 2-inch squares because  don’t want you to overcook or undercook it. In this way, if the heat is too high, it won’t be undercooked and we will use the burnt part on the skin as indication if it’s cooked or not. Because with that size of chicken pieces, once you see a little bit of black parts on the skin or on either side, it’s cooked. Be sure to have medium to high heat and not very high. The good thing about this is when you bite through the chicken, it is still moist and juicy. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them below in the comments. I have a not so very good picture of it. Here:

Do this. This will change your life. Maybe a little bit. But it will.

If you clicked from this article, I would like to clarify that there is an item on Filipino Food News that appeared here in myfilipinokitchen a year ago about Filipinos voting for Sinigang as National Dish. So I stand corrected – Sinigang is the unofficial National Dish and not Adobo. Sinigang for the win indeed.

Now, let’s discuss the ingredients.

What lurks beneath the greens?

MEAT OR SHOULD I SAY FISH

When you talk about Sinigang it is a clear soup with an acid kick. So when it comes to meat, you can put any meat in a clear, sour, broth and you can still call it Sinigang. But the word Sinigang has an exclusivity clause for only fish and pork. As for Sinigang sa Miso, I have never encountered anyone putting any other meat in it aside from fish. And as for fish, there is an unspoken rule to only use big fishes . I don’t know why, but I have never seen fishes as small as sardines being used as an ingredient for a Sinigang sa Miso recipe. If you ask me what’s a good fish for Sinigang, I choose fishes that have soft meats and retain their integrity even when dunked in boiling broth. Fishes like Snapper, Barramundi, or even Butter Fish or if you are in the Philippines, Maya-maya, huge Bisugo’s, Lapu-lapu and of course Milkfish. Unless doing Fish Head Sinigang I avoid both Tuna and Salmon because their flesh tightens up when cooked in broth specially broth with acid. But that’s just me, the main reason why people use specific fishes in their Sinigang is the taste that the fish will contribute to the broth. Some even say that the best fishes for Sinigang are “isda sa bato” – or coral fishes. Hey, if you have somethng to share please do in the comments below.

VEGETABLES

Aside from the usual Filipino veggie combo (garlic, onions and tomatoes) as a prelude to recipes (read the History of Filipino food, Spanish Influence here), the always present vegetables in a Sinigang sa Miso recipe are Talong (eggplants), Labanos (japanese turnips) and mustasa (mustard greens or mustard spinach). But for myself, I use water spinach becuase that’s what my family is used to. And also, Sinigang sa Miso is not that famous in the Visayas (the middle island of the Philippines) of which I am a native. If I missed out on any, please fill me in.

MISO

I think the only place where you can buy Miso in the Philippines are in wet markets. I haven’t seen one in major supermarkets. If you are abroad, you can go to your Asian supermarket and buy white miso paste. It is the nearest one that you can get to what we have in the Philippines. As I was saying on that funny post days ago, I was researching fruitlessly about it. And the only really good information that I found out about it is a blog that has not been active for a while now. I always feel a bit sad when I see a Filipino food blog that is not updated anymore. It seems like Filipino food has lost another soldier. Click here to check D’Cooking Mudra’s take on Sinigang sa Miso. She made a really good take on Miso there.

Again if there is anything that you want to fill in, please feel free to enlighten everyone. I’ll see you next time when I give you my own recipe for Sinigang sa Miso.

Click here to learn how to cook your own Sinigang sa Miso.

If you don’t know what Sinigang is, it is the most consumed soup in the 7,107 faces of the Philippines. It’s a soup with a clear broth though some variations are divinely white depending on the fish and how much onions you put in, but it always has a sourness to it and this also depends on what kind of acid you utilize save for vinegar. We don’t use vinegar to make our sinigang sour. If you have more questions about Sinigang, jump to the comments below and feel free to ask me a question.

Since that is out of the way…

I think Sinigang is underrated. It’s always after the shadow of Adobo. I don’t know why a lot of people wouldn’t vie for Sinigang if compared with other Filipino food. Sinigang is my favorite and if I die tomorrow, it would be my last meal. But what makes a good Sinigang? Aha! The big question. As a professional Sinigang eater, I’ll share to you some of my intimate moments with the Philippines’ national soup (I really would have wanted it to be our emblemic dish, if not for Adobo).

SINIGANG ON THE SIDE WALK

It was one of the mornings after those graveyard shifts that left me hungry like a vampire that haven’t sucked for the entire night (hmmm… that didn’t sound right). There is this carinderia in the corner of the street where the make-do tables and chairs are brushing elbows with passing Jeepneys. Out of the silver crevice comes out this steam that forms into an eagle that rushes directly to my chest and consumes me to go to its altar and bow down in reverence. So I sat there and brush elbows with Jeepneys too. When the Sinigang was served in an oversized plastic bowl that looks like it survived World War 2, I knew that this is going to be awesome. The smell of fresh Bisugo (a bream that looks like a snapper) took me to where it was swimming hours before it caught up with this bowl. The soup didn’t even have any vegetables except for a few stalks of Kangkong (Water Spinach). It was as white as the clouds and it tastes like heaven. The acid kick was delivered by a few drops of Calamansi (Philippine citrus) before serving. Sipping it woke me up and made me say how good life is even if most of my waking time is spent when almost everyone in the city is sleeping.

FISH HEAD SINIGANG

Crack, finger-scoop and suck. That’s the ritual. This is the kind of Sinigang that can let you finish twin humps of rice. Contrary to popular belief in the western world, eating fish heads is not a challenge… it is a delight. The moment you and your fish head see eye to eye, love is in the air. After scooping a bit of flesh and brain, a spoonful of rice follows which is then finished off with the sinigang broth. And the cycle begins again. Until each crevice, corner, hollow and contours of the fish head are explored and looted. Yarrr!

Fish head sinigang are commonly found in your friendly supermarket food courts. Don’t get me wrong, I am very much a crusader for home cooking but Fish Head Sinigang from these stalls in food courts have somehow turned the soup into a masterpiece. Hey, if you are doing it everyday it’s inevitable. Just remember the golden rule – don’t order from stalls that no one goes to.

MILKFISH SINIGANG SA MISO

If you think that the quintessential fish for Siningang sa Miso is Maya-Maya (some sort of Snapper) think again. What would the national soup be like without the national fish? Of course it should be Milkfish. I will not describe the experience on this one because I want you to experience it yourself. I want you to go to Guadalupe MRT station in Makati, go out of the Guadalupe Commercial Center through the exit facing Citadel inn and then head south and ask for a carinderia where the owner is an Ilongga Lady. Her carinderia is the one facing the back of Sogo motel. You should come between the hours of 11-12 noontime. Come earlier, you will need to wait because it’s not cooked yet. Come later than 12 noontime, you won’t get any Sinigang lovin’ because everyone has already ordered ahead of you.

Guadalupe MRT Station by Mike Gonzalez from Wikimedia Commons

I would not go into the details of Sinigang sa Miso because we will discuss more about it next time. Meanwhile, if you know any Sinigang that you think is THE Sinigang, tell us where to get it.

See you next time rub calamine!

Click here to go on to the next post of this series – a list of usual ingredients for a Sinigang recipe

Click here to go back to History of Filipino food, Spanish influence

Konichiwa!

I have written this and this because as far as my research goes; we don’t have a Filipino dish where the Japanese stamp of influence is marked all over it.

I cannot find any information about dishes or recipes that were handed down to us by the Japanese during their occupation in the Philippines. Aside from being the shortest colonizer, they were distant when they were here. Maybe that’s why the exchange of culture was limited to us sharing our way of life to them rather than being influenced by their culture. Accounts even say that they hired Filipinas to cook, clean and look after their officials with of course, little or no compensation. If the Japanese just treated Filipinos with respect, they could have won our support because during that time there were still Filipinos who do not really fancy the Americans. But because they killed our men and children, raped our women and burned our villages, they were never near our hospitality during those 3 years of colonization.

But we will tackle a few Filipino dishes where their influence might have found its way in either the ingredients or the process of cooking. Cue ninja moves:

SINIGANG SA MISO

Miso is a Japanese seasoning made from fermented soybeans. And when you say Miso the next thing that pops in your head is of course the word ”soup”.

If you are not familiar with Sinigang, it is a Filipino clear, sour soup. Although usually limited to fish and pork, you can use any kind of meat for Sinigang. The acid used for sourness may vary from region to region as well.  The addition of Miso in our sinigang did not come along because of World War 2 but because of Jesus Christ. Yes, finally I get to say his name in this site. Japanese Christians during the Edo period who sought refuge from persecution in Japan (around the 1600′s, watch Samurai X, really, it’s awesome) sailed to the Philippines and brought Miso with them. When Miso was incorporated in a Filipino soup  it was so much different than the usual Miso soup because the soup that they incorporated it with is Sinigang and of course, what can it do compared to the punching and kicking souring element.

VETSIN OR MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE

Or as we commonly call it, Ajinomoto. (Has the crown gone to Magic Sarap now?) Here’s a trivia for you, “aji no moto” is a Japanese phrase which means “the essence of taste”. The flavor comes from glutamic acids which has a high concetrations in seaweeds. I have tasted it in its raw form, represented by white stains on a dried kombu seaweed. It doesn’t taste like MSG from the bottle but you know its MSG. The natural way of getting the flavor is to simmer kombu in water for the whole night to get a concentrated flavor of MSG or umami which is now classified as the 5th of the basic tastes – sour, sweet, salty, bitter and savory or delicious for umami. It’s really silly but it’s true. You can say this is sweet, or that is salty, or that is sour, but when you say that’s delicious, it is different from salty or sweet or sour, it is actually…delicious! I’ll stop talking about it pronto because I may not stop. Just click this and read about artificial flavoring.

YAKITORI

Now where did we get our Filipino way of skewering meat? I have no clue actually but the way that we piece them together through the skewer makes me wonder, it could be from the Japanese. Don’t get me wrong, during the Japanese occupation there were no lessons or cooking demos that handed down Japanese cooking styles. I cannot imagine our barbecues attributed to the Americans because they grill without the stick. So it could be the Malaysians or a separate group of Japanese who came to the Philippines and not from a Tora-Tora doing Harakiri.

Like a Japanese soldier from World War 2 during his last days after McArthur came back with a vengeance, I am out of bullets. I don’t have anything to give you anymore. So if you have any information that we can use for the revolution, please, feel free to add to the armory.

Banzai!

To see what the Fipinos were eating during the Japanese Period, click this

If you want to know about the deadly Japanese Fugu and the Filipino Butete, click this

If however, you are interested with Sinigang sa Miso, a Filipino soup that uses Japanese miso, click here