My sincerest and deepest apologies to the victims of this atrocity. I am praying for solace and i’m sending my compassion to the families of the bereft.

One of the many things that makes me concerned with this incident, as every Filipino blogger in the world wide web who is passionately promoting Filipino – either food or the people, is the inevitable landslide of destruction this will cause (or has already) on the pillars of what we tirelessly build. This one incident will definitely bash every building block of sentence, letter and word we have assembled with care on what able limb (or brain cell) we have just so to see some sort of ambrosial figure about the Filipino or Filipino food in my case.

I am now telling myself that; Filipinos usually look to the bright side of every unfortunate event. But the bright side on this one is a small hole at the end of what seems to be an endless trek to the light. Ironically, even though every friendly race would say this is an isolated case, every Filipino has been isolated since the hostage taker took his first step in the doomed bus.

And to be distinctly redundant, this has definitely ruined whatever good is there in the word Filipino. Take for example the effort of the Philippines’ Department of Tourism – Kulinarya Food Tours. Good luck to that. Click here why. Hopefully, not one country will second the motion.

What I’m more concerned with is the world’s current not so curious interest in the Filipino, or the Philippines in this case. It seems that whenever there is something “news worthy” about the Philippines or Filipinos, it would  be about Manny Pacquiao… other than that it would be about any terrible deed that a Filipino has done from his corner of the world.

I will not iterate further on the story of the Philippine’s Bus Hostage Crisis. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, the main news spread of the Philippines are still on it for a few weeks now, full-on cover with all the blame-game hand-balling. And while the Philippine government is unable to chew  this event since it was first served cold on their laps, the unceasing, recurring diarrhea that this issue has splattered on the internet has made the whole world vomit. See some clips about it in YouTube here, here and here.

I have been staring blankly into space for more than 10 minutes before I wrote this sentence. I felt all the rocks landing on my back. I will just have to leave you with this clip.

Before we get serious and start speaking poems in Spanish, let’s play a game. I want you to copy the dishes below, paste it in the comments, give them a description… in your own words and that means no googling, no wikipedia, no cheating and submit it. Do it. Give yourself a little bit of fun. You deserve it. You can describe them any way you like, if you don’t know, just make a wild guess. Don’t read on, do this first!

Bistek

Callos

Arroz Caldo

Empanada

Barquillos

Embutido

Paella

Chicharron

Camaron Rebosado

Torta

Picadillo

Pochero

Escabeche

Polvoron

Estofado

Macaparoyo

DONOTREADANYFURTHERANSWERFIRSTDONOTREADANYFURTHERANSWERFIRSTDONOTREADANYF

Did you have fun? Was it easy for you? How many wild guesses did you make?

Now let’s get serious. Recite the following stanza’s below in your own Spanish accent. Do it loud and do it with flair.

Adios, Patria adorada, region del sol querida,
Perla del Mar de Oriente, nuestro perdido Eden!
A darte voy alegre la triste mustia vida,
Y fuera más brillante más fresca, más florida,
Tambien por tí la diera, la diera por tu bien.

Adios, Patria adorada, region del sol querida,
Perla del Mar de Oriente, nuestro perdido Eden!
A darte voy alegre la triste mustia vida,
Y fuera más brillante más fresca, más florida,
Tambien por tí la diera, la diera por tu bien.

Here it is in English:

Farewell, my adored Land, region of the sun caressed,
Pearl of the Orient Sea, our Eden lost,
With gladness I give you my Life, sad and repressed;
And were it more brilliant, more fresh and at its best,
I would still give it to you for your welfare at most.

My idolized Country, for whom I most gravely pine,
Dear Philippines, to my last goodbye, oh, harken
There I leave all: my parents, loves of mine,
I’ll go where there are no slaves, tyrants or hangmen
Where faith does not kill and where God alone does reign.

Those are the first and second-to-the-last stanza of the the poem, The Last Farewell, by the Philippines’ National Hero, Jose Rizal, written on the eve of his execution by firing squad for crimes of sedition, rebellion and conspiracy against the Kingdom of Spain. When your women are bowing in the church not because they are praying but because they are serving the bishop’s sexual appetite, when your men have been snatched away without any explanation and hope for return, and when your children are treated worse than animals, you will have to  raise your voice like what Jose Rizal did, and be fearless of death itself. Out of all the tortures, the deaths, the rapes, the pillage and horrendous experience that our ancestors had, I cannot reconcile myself with this time of our history… unless I sink my teeth in one of the good things (if not the only one) that the Philippines acquired from the Spanish… Mediterranean cooking. And that what sets the Philippines apart from its South East Asia counterparts.

The influence of the Spanish turned the Philippine wok accelerating to a revolutionary spin with only 3 ingredients – Garlic, Onion and Tomatoes. Garlic is a basic ingredient in Spanish cooking. They love it, they cook a lot with it. The red onions that every Filipino household always stocks in their pantry (or can be easily bought by a-piece at a nearest neighbor) are actually Spanish onions. Need I elaborate further? Tomato on the other hand is a Mexican native. Read from this post to know more about it. But the Spanish in all it’s conquering glory, made the tomato their colonizer’s crown and placed it as a trophy in every corner of their cuisine – and Filipinos as loyal subjects took that unwritten mandate seriously. The influence of Spanish cuisine in Filipino cooking is staggering that almost half of our dishes begin with sauteing garlic, onions and tomatoes… this infamous triad is one Filipino cuisine characteristic that is unique from any other cuisine in the world.  Ask any Filipino about it and you’ll have your eggs with garlic, onions and tomatoes.

I’ll give you at least 4 dishes that were native to the Philippines but took on a different twist because of the Spanish influence on Filipino food mainly, sauteing garlic, onions and tomato to commence the recipe.

Pinkabet – This is a stir fry of native Filipino vegetables but is complemented very well into a savory delight by what else, garlic onions and tomato

Sinigang – Your traditional Siningang doesn’t start with the trio but a lot of people I know would like to keep the “saute first” secret to theirselves. I’m so sorry for kissing and telling.

Bagoong – Remember shrimp paste from this post? Filipinos decided that it is best to saute shrimp paste first with those 3 fine ingredients because it doesn’t stink that much and it cleanses the shrimp paste from athlete’s foot. Beats me.

Ginisang Monggo – Or better known as Mung Bean Soup outside the Philippines. And you have to choose the sweetest tomato for sauteing or else your Monggo will be sad and sour (although there are Mung bean soup variations that are made to be sour, others put coco milk in it too).

The Spanish influence in Filipinos could have been more celebrated and revered if not for the injustice that our ancestors bore during the colonization. I myself still feel a sting when I think of them. What pains me more is that at the end of it all, the Philippines was just sold to the Americans for $20,000,000. Quite cheap for a group of island paradise and a priceless people.

Americans… let’s talk about them next in this series.

As a Filipino, why do you need to know about how Spain colonized Philippines? Simply because you do not know a lot about it. Same as when people ask you what Filipino food is, your usual answer would be, it is a mixture of Chinese and Spanish cuisine. You are definitely right about that but not entirely correct at all. That’s why you are still reading this up to this point. This is going to be a quick trip so fasten your seatbelt, start opening the reels of your mind and let’s get your mind’s eye rolling.

Ferdinand Magellan. Spain’s first attempt in colonizing the Philippines. Everybody knew that the guy died when he tried to showcase his force in front of Lapu-Lapu and his tribe. Here’s a quick account from the Spanish’s side of the story:

Pigafetta and Ginés de Mafra provided written documents of the events culminating in Magellan’s death:

“When morning came, forty-nine of us leaped into the water up to our thighs, and walked through water for more than two cross-bow flights before we could reach the shore. The boats could not approach nearer because of certain rocks in the water. The other eleven men remained behind to guard the boats. When we reached land, [the natives] had formed in three divisions to the number of more than one thousand five hundred people. When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries… The musketeers and crossbow-men shot from a distance for about a half-hour, but uselessly… Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice… A native hurled a bamboo spear into the captain’s face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the native’s body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because he had been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide. When they wounded him, he turned back many times to see whether we were all in the boats. Thereupon, beholding him dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best we could, to the boats, which were already pulling off.”

And here is our side of the story:

At dawn on 27 April 1521, Magellan invaded Mactan Island with 48 armed men (less than half his crew) and 1,000 Cebuano warriors, but had great difficulty landing his men on the rocky shore. Lapu-Lapu had an army of 1,500 on land. Magellan waded ashore with his soldiers and attacked the Mactan defenders, ordering Humabon and his warriors to remain aboard the ships and watch. Magellan seriously underestimated the Lapu-Lapu and his men, and grossly outnumbered, Magellan and 14 of his soldiers were killed. The rest managed to reboard the ships.

Now in this story, Magellan has a slave-assistant whom we only know as Enrique and in Magellan’s will he was supposed to be freed after his death. Well, the remaining crew of the ship thought otherwise leaving Enrique fleeing from the ranks with the help of the natives. So there you go, white-man sperm cells wandering on the islands of the Philippines. If ever he loved cooking, he would have definitely improvised on what ingredients they had before the next part of this Spanish rule unfolds.

*Insert dream sequence music here, multiple attempts by Spain in conquering the islands, they even claimed and named it Philippines (which is why you are called a Filipino) but nothing genuinely significant until…*

Miguel Lopez de Legazpi. This guy is the key to it all. He is the oracle to what Philippines is right now and how Filipino food came into what we know of it. First 28 years of his life is spent in Spain and the next 37 years was spent mainly in Mexico. Now here’ s something to ponder on before we continue; when you migrated from the Philippines to another country, how long did it take you to get immersed in their cuisine? Yes you do cook Filipino food but the percentage of you eating another culture’s food if you are in their turf is highly likely. With the 37 years Miguelito spent in Mexico he would have definitely at least attempted to try the burrito. I also heard rumors that this Miguel Lopez guy is the one that killed Zorro. By age 63 (Legazpi died at the age of 70), he went to the Philippines with 2,100 soldiers Spaniards and Mexican soldiers from New Spain which is now called Mexico. His expedition was the only successful voyage among the multiple number of attempts the kingdom of Spain stubbornly tried. This first Governor General of the Philippines is yes, an Español-Mehicano. That is why when you look up Menudo in Wikipedia, you would land on this page, or the Filipino Menudo or the 5 piece meat-combo that your Mom would have definitely tried if she was given that chance during the 1980′s. Menudo is a Mayan product, a  Mexican recipe and not of European (or Spanish) descent. I will discuss more of this when we go on further in our series of History of Filipino food, Spanish influence.

The Manila-Acapulco Galleons. After the successful campaign to make the Philippines as a colony of Spain, here is what the Mensajero delivered:

“As a tribute to your motherland Spain, you native Filipinos should do forced labor of 40 days, give your tithes of any produce, to honor mother Spain with your bounties.”

Of course everything is sent back to Spain to please the King but via Acapulco, Mexico. The Philippines did not ship directly to Spain but dealt with sombreros in Acapulco. There were 110 Galleon trips in the 250 years that the Manila-Acapulco Galleon was in operation. Let’s go back to Wikipedia:

The Manila-Acapulco galleons shipped products gathered from both Asia-Pacific and the Americas, such as silk, spice, silver, gold and other Asian-Pacific islander products to Mexico. Products brought from Asia-Pacific were sent to Veracruz and shipped to Spain and, via trading, to the rest of Europe. While Spanish-Mexican colonist brought with them Hispanic and indigenous Mexican customs, religion, languages, foods and cultural traditions to the Philippines, Guam and the Mariana Islands.

Although the Philippines was directly under Spanish rule and might, the frequent visitors of the Philippines would be the Mariachis with their secret guns inside their guitar cases. This may, take note, may answer the question why Filipinos look like Mexicans. I will cease from saying more in the meantime because we will reserve that for the next discussion on our discovery of the History of Filipino food, Spanish Influence. So, in this quick overview, if someone will ask you what Filipino food is, you know a little bit further than speaking some yeah-yeah answers. Try telling this story to your date, after you’ve cooked her dinner. You might find that the night will be longer than you expected. If anyone is hinting any doubts, say this:

“Te digo la neta, nunca te he mentido, yo soy el Zorro.”

I don’t understand it but it sounds really really serious so I assure you, you will be believable. Close your eyes half-way while saying it for a more serious appeal.

by Jojo Santo Tomas from guampdn.com

As usual, click on that article first before diving in here.

***

That’s what I don’t understand with some Filipinos. Why are they ashamed of being a Filipino? Click this and read examples of ridiculous Filipinos that will make you do back-flips. What is it with the Philippines that you suddenly get allergic to your own skin? If you are one of them, this are what you need to know: first, people don’t care where you are from, second, where in CNN or BBC have you read a headline that says, “Embarassing Filipinos found running from anyone”, and third, there are a lot of stories to be proud of about being a Filipino that it tips the scale over if you weigh it against the dark side of the force. Those who are embarrassed of their being a Filipino should be visited by Manny Pacquiao so they can lick his 350km/h punch.

I admire Boy’s (a so-Filipino nickname) story of looking for his Filipino being (obviously there are a lot of people who haven’t found it yet) and when he found it, it was majestic. He devoured 14 variations of Kare-kare, are you kidding? Now that is what I call crazy passion. If you haven’t read his article, click that link above and you go read it. You will feel splendid about this brother.

There are a lot of websites that promote the Filipino Culture and stories of rediscovering being a Filipino. This Filipino food site is just one of them. But if you really want to start appreciating your own skin, I suggest, do what Boy did (I will really get it if he calls himself Jojo) – start from your roots… ask your grandmother about her life-story, your father’s, your mum’s. Ask about the story of your family. And I would even encourage you to send me a message if you want to write a 1000 word essay about your Filipino history and publish it here in myfilipinokitchen. In the meantime, I want you to answer these questions:

In your family’s history, what are you proud of the most? And why do Filipinos need to be proud of themselves?

Maybe I’ll start with asking questions:

1. If you are married, would you think you would be better off single or with another man/woman?

2. If not, have you ever thought that if you took that different major that you’ve been pondering on transferring to while you were in university,  you would have been in a better place?

Let’s talk about your history and how fate makes us the way we are now.

It’s funny to think that the things that formed us in a big way into what we are right now were out of our control… like being a Filipino, like going to a grade school that you did not choose for yourself, your skin color, your curly hair, your huge bones (you always tell people that you are not fat), your grandmother with energiser batteries built-in on her back…. love or hate these things, these could have been the reasons why you are where you are and why you behave the way you do. And you were not given a chance to have a say at all.

Hernando de Magallanes or as everyone knows as Ferdinand Magellan, the reason why the Philippines was colonized by Spain. From Wikimedia Commons

And no, I did not forget that this is a food website.

Let me rephrase my questions:

1. What would have happened to Filipino Cuisine if the Spanish did not  colonize Philippines? Would we be better off?

2. If it were up to you, would you have the Philippine Cuisine not influenced by the Malay, the Chinese and the Spanish at all?

Would Filipino Cuisine be better off? Would the difference make it as famous as Chinese take-away?

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I am really going to crack now. If you read the whole article, I know you will too. Let me enumerate the ways a list of big-shot Filipino chefs really blew it like a home-made scandal. I want you to picture me, having a tantrum, and if you see any phrases in bold, imagine me saying it in a very nyee nyee nyee nyee nyee manner.

1. Filipino Chef #1 says “but it’s difficult to assimilate Filipino food into the mainstream culture.”

2. Filipino Chef #2 says “Filipino food doesn’t look visually appealing.”

3. Filipino Chef #3 says “Filipino food is not ready for prime time.”

Hence, I will write a letter to all the big-shot Filipino chefs who left Filipino food at home for it to develop agoraphobia.

Dear Mr Big Shot Filipino Chef,

How are you today? I hope you are doing fine and are happy with your demis, stocks, crepes, steaks, risolles, veloutes and the rest of your repertoire de la cuisine.

Chef, I have a question… what’s with all this difficult to assimilate, visually unappealing and not ready for prime time pile of cow dung?

I have another question Chef. Do you know Lady Gaga? When she first came out, the world was flabbergasted. But she’s famous now. I’m sure you don’t know her. She can’t be eaten chef (though i doubt that) but that colorful she-man didn’t really have an inch of difficulty assimilating in the mainstream culture and the guy was actually swallowed, in the least, devoured by the mainstream gateway that she is now The Mainstream herself.

Chef, maybe you are really shy that you treat the food that you grew up with just the same as you treat your kids: someone to put away in a dark, cold, lonely corner of your Privet drive. Or maybe you grew up with steaks and potatoes because Filipino food doesn’t fiddle your tingle. Or maybe you don’t have enough pride in yourself that you are thinking you can’t serve Filipino food because it will suck because you suck yourself. And by that Mr Big Shot Filipino Chef, you betrayed yourself and the rest of us, your Filipino blood-brothers.

I can’t understand my ever-dearest Filipino chef. Why is it difficult to assimilate? Is Filipino food described as sand stew? Does it sound like underpants soup? Is it visually unappealing like stir-fried dirt? Or deep-fried carpet? Are you happy that you are in your comfort zone while the cuisine of your being is in the gutter, scraping for whatever recognition he can get out of his putrid, paralyzed, ignored, Pilosopong Tasyo, state?

Sorry chef, I got carried away there.

So I was talking to this Vietnamese guy about Filipino food, and he asked me why there are no Filipino restaurants in his joint even though there are a lot of Filipinos, and I told him, “you know Thinh, look at my hands… I am doing a quotation sign, – it is difficult to assimilate Filipino food into the mainstream culture, it’s visually unappealing and it is not ready for prime time“. He looked at me blankly and said, “You want Banh-mi? With Taro milkshake?”

I was also talking to this Indian lady, Superletchumi (I can’t spell her last name), she was on our table being fed with Afritada and she said “this Filipino food is really good, I am surprised there are not a lot of Filipino restaurants out there.” I asked her, is it visually appealing as I was doubting now because one Filipino Chef says it is. She says, “look at Indian food, it looks like something that goes out of a person instead of something to take in.” In my mind bubble I pondered, Is that something, something that goes out of the mouth or something that swooshes out of… but I popped the mind bubble right away. She said, “how we present it is just put the mish-mash in a bowl and serve it… but even white people want to have their own Indian restaurant now.” I believed her right away chef because I’ve had Indian food and I don’t want it to be erased from my memory. It is indeed lovely, tasty and luscious even though it looks ugly. I think your mistress will agree Chef.

Chef, Filipino food would not be prime time if you continue to give it down time. I want to apologize again for being outrageously passionate in this letter. Can you answer us please. What happened to your Filipino stock? Why didn’t you give Filipino food a shot? And if you ever did venture, what happened?

Lastly, even though you did not pursue uplifting Filipino food because it can’t buy a can of S-26, the daughters and sons of Datu Puti love you very much. We are actually proud of you for making it big… you big-shot you. We’re just a bit disappointed that Lumpia did not make it to Webster this year, again.

lots of love,

Ziggy

P.S.

Nora Daza is still alive and she will let your phone ring but won’t answer if you pick up.

P.S.S.

MANILA

May

All

Nights

Inspire

Love

Always

Back on the news, here’s another Filipino Chef that puts a list of Filipino Chefs into deep, mind-throbbing, vein-popping thinking.

Filipino chef makes it big in Paris

By Ria de Borja, Philippine Daily Inquirer

DateFirst Posted 22:05:00 06/24/2010

Enough said.

IT was one of those days that a day shouldn’t be… dark, gloomy and wet. The city’s filth flowed through the gutter as if a chopper squad sprayed metal to everything in sight.

I didn’t even know where I was. All I know was that the stench of butchered flesh was choked by the thick dense of the rain, you can easily identify that something got their belly ripped open and left their guts to spill. Everyone has knives with them here, even the babes. Huge knives that can close your head in an accident. If it ain’t big, it sure is long enough to chisel a faucet at your backside and pump the living daylights out of you. I think I’m in a meat market. When you are scared to your wits end, it’s wise to tell yourself where you are, what to do and when to say something. I look around and everyone seemed to be giving me an up-and-down stare. No one was moving except a bald chinese guy fit for an executioner with a  red dragon tatoo that flies from his left arm, down to his chest and up to his right arm. He was carefully sharpening his cleaver while giving me the stare with the left corner of his lip snaking up as if telling me “you’re in the wrong place pal”. Maybe I was in the wrong place. I was the only one walking in the rain. I sought for shelter and took a left turn. I found myself in a narrow alley. I didn’t see anything except for a cloud of thick smoke. Since I was off the track, I braved the gashouse and walked through the uncertainty.

“Batchoy?”. An old woman greeted me with her gnarled hands, grabbing my paw and sitting me on a log in the exact angle of a  long L-shaped table. I looked to the left and to the right. I was in the ranks of butchers, coppers, patsies and whores. The loud thud straightened me. She dropped a bowl that looked like a veteran of a thousand meals in front of me. The old woman walked to me while gloving up a cellophane mitten. She reached under the table and came back with paraphernalia only to be used by surgeons. She kept saying the word “batchoy… batchoy… batchoy”. Her old, shivering hands shot dry noodles in my bowl. She then grabbed a pair of scissors and a long trail of what seems to be innards, intestines to be exact. I could hear the scissors snip pieces of intestines, they bounced and ricocheted on the noodles, they were in my bowl. The next thing I knew, she was holding what seems to be someone’s liver and the scissors did their job again as if she and the scissors were one hatchetmen. Snip, snip, snip. Batchoy, batchoy, batchoy, she spits in whispers. She threw in a few more ammunition for this dish and finally poured in a broth from a cauldron of dried bones. She bobbed an inch to my face and gave me a looker’s smile and said Batchoy again.

I couldn’t say no. I sipped the noodles, I chewed the intestines, I gnawed the liver, I drank the broth, I masticated the entire bowl.

I heard my thoughts drill my head.

Batchoy… batchoy… batchoy.

To be continued…

Click here for Ingredients for a La Paz Batchoy Recipe

From Wikimedia Commons, this is a picture of Félix Resurrección Hidalgo y Padilla, one of the best Filipino Painters of all time. He is of Chinese descent.

Let’s have fun learning some Chinese words that are mostly used in the Filipino language:

mami – a cougar, and by that I mean Demi Moore

toyo – a crazy person

petsay – a politican who spends a lot of money on his campaign but will never win

toge – a graduation gown

miki – a famous mouse

bakya – hmmm… a jejemon?

And here are a few chinese sentences for you to practice:

John goto China – John went to China (the English can’t say it any other way)

Petsay mami – My pet says Mommy (whatever pet that is)

Pansit lomi – The pan sits under me (for very strange reasons)

Siomai lumpia toyo – I will show my private parts to you (you shouldn’t say this if you’re a woman, or else)

Sitaw – sit down (to be said with Arnold Scwarzhenegger’s accent)

Now I know the word translations that I gave before those sentences do not agree with the sentences themselves but if you are doing some Chinese, you shouldn’t ask any questions… or some Mao guy knocks on your door and shortlists you, your blood and your bones to be part of the new Great Wall of China. Alright, now on to Chinese Influence on Filipino Food.

As there are no records as to when the Chinese have landed on the Philippines, most historians believe that the Chinese have been here ever since the discovery of raft, we can safely say (as if somebody will shoot if we don’t) that the Chinese and Malays arrived in the Philippines about the same time. Come to think of it, if the Malays did not arrive with their structure of government and if Ferdinand Magellan was not slain by Lapu lapu, Philippines would not be named Philippines and everyone would be eating using chopsticks. Ni hao!

A rampaging list of new dishes stampeded on the Filipino table. I will list the 3 most famous ingredients where Filipino food was influenced greatly by Chinese cuisine. Make way:

Noodles! Everyone calls it Pansit. It is our Medusa. Imagine an Asian suddenly getting petrified and consumed by overwhelming, maddening hunger. Here are a few varieties of this monster:

• Pansit Canton – The most famous pansit of all, canton is basically stir-fried noodles. If you ask me, this is the tastiest of them all. What makes this different to other noodles is that it has coconut oil which I don’t find in the list of ingredients in other Asian noodles. And the Filipino twist to your basic stir-fry noodle is, innards are a key ingredient. Most recipes use chicken innards like liver, gizzard, heart.. everything that an inexperienced, non-adventurous, i-will-die-eating-chicken-breast unicorn wouldn’t eat is a staple of this dish.

• Pansit Lomi – Think about a very thick chicken nooodle soup. I couldn’t describe it any other way. The Pansit used in this dish is your usual egg noodles.

• Pansit Palabok – Think about your usual vermicelli but bigger, fatter and with an orange-colored sauce. I have offered this to my non-filipino friends and they thought it’s something fruity and sweet. Big nay-nay. I think the one who made this up was a crazy man who hasn’t eaten for days, blindfolded and thrown into the kitchen. It’s weird. The vermicelli is blanched to softness and topped with a sort of saffron sauce (we only and strictly use food coloring), on top of it is steamed chicken breast, shrimps – mostly dried and shelled, smoked fish, tofu, srping onions in wrong spelling but finely cut, pork cracklings and boiled eggs. It’s a beautiful mishmash of whatever you can get your hands on first.

I would love to talk about each Pansit in the Philippine vocabulary but i don’t want to tire you and myself. There is Pansit Luglog, Misua, Bihon, Sotanghon, Batchoy and everything else between and beyond.

Soy Sauce. I really don’t want to talk about this because there is nothing to talk about soy sauce and I can’t describe it any other way nor expound more on this ingredient even Martians know that when there is a Kung-fu master, there is soy sauce… well, aside from soy sauce is made of fermented human hair. Szechuan grandmothers to be specific.

Soy Bean Curd. Or Tofu as everybody knows it, although Tofu is a Japanese word by the way. In the Philippines we call it Tokwa. The most common dish for this ingredient is Tokwa’t Baboy (Pork and Tofu). I only know two ways of executing this dish. One is steaming pork ears (of course you have to shave and pluck it first, neanderthal), deep-frying squares of the magnificent Tokwa, mix them in a small bowl with onions and tomatoes and drizzle with a ginger, chilli, onions and soy sauce concoction. The other one is stir-frying all of those ingredients in a happy wok. Jeepney drivers are crazy with this stuff because it has a Szechuan nana in it. Another famous food that uses Tofu is actually a dessert/snack. It is called Taho and it uses silken tofu, caramel and pearls. I’ll zip it for the moment because I’ll feature it here when the crows and cranes exchange colors.

Aside from those 3 ingredients, the Chinese has changed the martial arts in a Filipino’s  kitchen. Among them is how to toss the wok dragon style, how to make soup that does neck twists in one sip and how to train a dumpling.

Fast forward to today, the Chinese consist a huge majority of the Filipino population… like every other nation in the world. As a people, they have been through a lot of doomsday episodes which include categorizing them as humanoids during the Spanish occupation, subjects of practice shooting during the Japanese occupation, denial of citizenship after World War 2 and from that time to now – kidnap for ransom magnets. I personally feel sorry for our Filipino-Chinese brothers who have gone through these experiences. In spite of that, Filipino-Chinese or Tsinoys, as they are commonly called, are on top of the food chain in the Philippines. Top businesses in the Philippines are either led by or from a Filipino-Chinese background… name it:  Airlines, TV Stations, Radio Stations, Real Estate, Restaurants… the incoming president of the Philippines Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino is a Filipino-Chinese. They are indeed an essential mix to the Filipino stock.

Although I still could not reconcile why most of us look like Mexicans. But that’s another story.

That’s it Pan-sit!

But before that, I’d like to ask this question. If aliens stepped on earth and upon landing they declare something in their own language which, in our limited technology, is indecipherable, how would we react? How would the world welcome them without a common language? How would you as an individual react to what is supposed to be sci-fi but is real in green flesh and blood? What if what they are saying is, we will destroy your world in a week, just wait with joy as you will see your suffering cease forever…. and we have no idea about it.  What if they indeed come in peace?

Now here’s the story:

At around, 11th – 12th century, Genghis Khan nearly conquered half of the world, Monarchies have crowned their nth kings, the Angkor Wat in Cambodia was built, the Knights Templar were founded, Japan had its Shogunates instituted, Mass Production had its machines running, Fire and Plague Insurance had their first policies written in Iceland… while our black ancients, the natives of the Philippines, sat back, relaxed, got fat, and watched the waves run for the shore (mind you, there isn’t a huge difference from that time to now that’s why going home in the Philippines is a siesta from the get-go). But one day, as  the tribe chief Marikudo and the brothers were lounging at the beach, listening to bamboos play chill-out music, Balangays (Malay Seacrafts) made shape on the horizon.  The feeling that overwhelmed the tribe according to accounts would that be of Troy against a thousand ships as that was the first time they have seen sea crafts this big, although it would not be more than twenty Balangays. Ten Malay tribes arrived from Borneo with their long swords and shield-bearing wives. The leader was the wise Datu Puti (that name is now a famous Filipino brand of vinegar and soy sauce) who in all his wisdom avoided war and uttered the famous words that is now a staple in Hollywood and on any ethnocentric settlements – “We come in peace”. Now I don’t know if  team Marikudo understood what he said but some accounts said they started fleeing until Datu Puti flashed them with a huge Golden Salakot, a very long gold necklace that kissed the ground, a golden basin (don’t ask me why) and other jewelry jackpots. With a complex series of hand gestures it was understood that they wanted to buy the coastal areas. The deal was sealed when the golden necklace landed on Marikudo’s wife’s neck.

The Aetas settled in the mountains (they are still there up to this day) and the Malayan tribes divided the whole island among the first three families and the rest of the Datus went further north and settled in what is known to be the captial of the Philippines – Manila. And they lived happily ever after… well around 300 years until the Spanish came with guns and cannons.

Now here’s another story:

The Malays brought along a wealth of culinary influence in the timeline of the history of Filipino food. If you have read the previous installment of this series, food would just either be salty or sour or cannibalistic if you think more adventurously… so a lot of changes to the palate as the brown people found their way to the black man’s plate and vice versa. Here are the three main influences that the Datus brought with them:

Bagoong or Shrimp Paste. Bagoong is made up either of small shrimps or fish that is dried and fermented with salt to a paste and is widely used as a flavor-booster or a condiment for meat dishes and an essential ingredient to Filipino vegetable dishes. It is salty, it is stinky but ultimately it is the blandness killer. Just add a teaspoon of bagoong to any of your fried, steamed or sautéed vege or meat and voila, and you will see them bouncing on your pot. Here are some of the dishes that have become a temple of Bagoong:

• Dinengdeng, Pinakbet and Kinilnat. These 3 vegetable dishes are blessed with bagoong as it boosts the nutty flavor of vegetables.
• Binagoongang Baboy. That is pork stewed in shrimp paste. The best thing about bagoong is if you add the exact amount of it to pork, it compliments the meat.
• Kare-kare. This one is more of a nutty-satay kind of dish which should be cooked bland because you need to it eat with bagoong. Any kare-kare without bagoong is, I don’t mean to be condescending, but a man without balls. Even a minute amount of bagoong on Kare-kare will make you a “Lance Armstrong.” But then of course you don’t want to be an owner of a lonely testes.
• Green Mangoes. This, I think is the reason why God let man made some edible stinky-salty stuff out of shrimp carcasses. Raw, hard, sour, punching green mangoes should be eaten only and with bagoong. If you haven’t tried it, you won’t go to heaven. Every being who is allergic to shrimp paste will go to remediation.

Gata or Coco Milk. I have no idea if Aetas utilized this before the Malays arrived but I am pretty sure that coco milk has been used by Malays for various dishes, maybe for dinosaur stew or something. Coco milk has a distinct savory taste of its own that is irreplaceable even with S-26. The coconut, second only to mangoes in the fruit ladder is so loved by Filipinos they decided to mint it in their 2 peso coin. Apparently, 2 pesos was removed from the monetary list when the recent government experienced diarrhea in the economy… they blamed coco milk for it. Aside from few weak-gutted humans who disco in the toilet after chugging a shot of coco milk, this ingredient Pops with a capital P. Coco milk should only be added a couple of minutes before taking the pot off the flame because if you let it sit in a bubbling pot for more than 10 minutes, you are making coco oil. Congratulations Dexter, you can now oil up your robo-monkey. Here are a few Filipino dishes that are breastfed by Cocos Nucifera.

• Ginataang somethings. That means this and that meat or vegetable with Coco milk. The most famous is Ginataang Tilapia (a  freshwater fish famous in South East Asia) stewed in coco milk. Another one is Ginataang Sitaw which is sautéed string beans, squash and ground pork finished with coco milk.
• Laing and Pinangat. Pinangat is gingered pork belly sliced into small cubes, wrapped in taro leaves and either steamed or stewed and finished with cream of coco milk. Laing on the other hand is when you sauté small slices of pork belly with taro leaves and finish it with cream of coco milk. This is one thing that is not in the annals of history – Filipinos have that partly Maori culture. And I do not mean that part of us that wants to go hunting and spearing (that is drowned by eating too many rice) all the time, what I mean is, we love eating Taro leaves. Not only that, Filipinos look like Maoris… that is if you haven’t seen a Mexican before. On the next article, we’ll talk about coco milk and cream of coco milk as this article is getting too long.
• Coco Milk Desserts. Latik which is coco milk shocked in hellish high heat until it becomes a coco milk crumble. Sansaw – a refreshing drink of caramel and coco milk (I promise, this website will reek of it in the future). And Ginataang Halo-halo which is a steaming hot mumbo-jumbo of root crops and fruits, starch balls,  tapioca and of course coco milk. Look! You’re drooling!

Rice as a staple, and along with that, more organized farming. Need I elaborate further?

And with that the records (that were not accounted for) in the history of Filipino food took on a different color (I think I need to say that).

Now going back to the question that I asked before I told the story:

How in the world do people with various languages communicate to each other without a common language? How did the native Filipinos understand the Malays’ “We come in peace” spiel? I cannot virtually and visually imagine how two different people settle a negotiation without a lingua franca. Let me try my best though. Imagine us face to face. Me, as the brown god Datu Puti and you, the black brother Marikudo. I open both of my arms from the center outward slowly while moving my head from left to right looking all over the coastal areas. I point to you and point to the mountains and then I show you the treasures that I bring. What would you do?

***

Continue on to History of Filipino Food, Chinese Influence

courtesy of Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons

Let me tell you a story:

One day in heaven, the creator of all things, Kabunian, woke up all giddy because he decided that he would cook humans. And by cooking he means to create them. So he molded from clay the face, limbs and the whole glorious figure of the human form… then he prepared fire and cooked it. After cooking he blew the breath of life on the culinary wonder. The concoction giggled and jumped from his palms and wandered on the face of the earth. Unbeknown to the creation, Kabunian thought to himself, “I overcooked the poor thing. He is black.”. So the following morning, he was back in the kitchen for another episode of Human Making 101 but this time he said, “I think I screwed up again, I undercooked the poor thing. It’s white and pale”. Restless and unsatisfied, the following morning he woke up early and headed straight to the kitchen for what will appear to become his masterpiece. Convicted that he is now sure how to make the perfect human, he molded, cooked and breathed his spirit to the obra maestra and this time he said, “It is good. Not overcooked, not undercooked, just the perfect color, the perfect tan, so he hand-put them on a group of island paradise which is the Philippines and called them Filipinos”.

Before I go on though, I really do not understand why a lot of Filipinos want to bleach the color of their skin, really. But that’s another story.

Now I just want to make clear that the story above is not from my one-track-mind imagination. It is actually one of the many creation stories of our Filipino ancient Thundercats. Although the story sounds racist if not xenophobic, this is one story that you want to tell people from other races (make sure they are sober) and be proud wearing that tan.

Again, how many brands of whitening soaps do we have in the Philippines?

Now I will attempt to account the History of Filipino food.

According to history the first ever settlers in the Philippines are the black people via ice bridges; locally, we call them Aetas. As history tells they are most likely be Aborigines from Australia or from where else, Africa. They are hunter-gatherers, so you can imagine the food would most likely be a lot of barbecue meat with either fruit or garden salad. Barbecued wild boar, fish, deer would be the centerpiece of the table with a side dish of seaweed or herb salad. We can also imagine that they have brought with them the technology of fire, pottery, fermentation and preservation. There is another theory that along with these Aetas, Austronesians also filled up the northern part of the Philippines and may have been responsible of the Banaue Rice Terraces

I assume that some of the popular earliest dishes would be:

Adobo, but only with salt and vinegar.

Daing or Tuyo – dried, preserved fish.

Kinilaw which is raw fish marinated in vinegar (though I doubt it because it may have been brought in centuries later because, come to think of it, it is actually Ceviche).

Sinigang, which is a fish or meat soup with a fantastic acid kick.

Pinakbet, Dinengdeng and Kinilnat which are all a royal rumble of vegetables in fish sauce (and later, during the trading centuries, would be redefined with shrimp paste).

Paksiw, which is meat, most likely fish meat, cooked in vinegar.

Linagpang, which is, barbecued meat finished with boiling water for a soup base.

Dinuguan, a stew of pig’s intestines, meat and blood.

If you are eating any of these from this moment forward you know that you are eating ancient dishes which as we all see on TV, anything ancient is magical and will give thou superpowers. If you reach the minimum number of times eating these foods, Kabunian will grant you powers so you can see through walls. Trust me. Ever wondered why that old Filipina missus has an arsenal of gossip about everyone around the neighborhood? X-ray eyes baby. Strong stuff these recipes I tell you.

Unfortunately, those who burned the Royal Library of Alexandria made a detour to the mythical Ancient Library of Manila and fed on the edible Pasig papyrus books until they have finished all the Alibata they can devour with popcorn-salt. So, for those who know anyone who has excellent knowledge of the history of Filipino food, please do invite them to comment here as obviously and I admit, I am assuming. And if you are a Filipino historian, please please please, look at us… we are statues in the middle of this barren memory, steadily holding a thumbs-up sign, so in case you are driving by with your plutonium-fueled, Delorian DMC-12 time machine,  you may have pity on us and let us hitchhike to the time where most Filipinos forget to remember.

Please Kabunian, send us your messengers (with the Doc and Marty Mcfly too) and punish Filipinos who use bleaching soaps.

Continue on to History of Filipino Food, Malay Influence