Romell Ian B.

De La Cruz R31

Final Paper 7 October 2013

THE NEXT BIG THING

For years now, Asian cuisine is making its stand against the traditional giants of European and American cuisine. But in this battle, Filipino cuisine is nowhere to be seen. We, as a nation, are a proud culinary nation. People from the different regions and provinces have dishes to be proud of. Each family has their own specialties. Besides that, food is a way of life for us Filipinos. Food, its preparation and consumption, is deeply imbedded in our society and our lives. Filipinos love to eat! Certainly, no statement could be truer (Barretto, et al., 2008). But I believe that what we have to do, in order for us to make our proud culinary culture known, is to highlight the exotic dishes that we have. As argued by Sandy Daza (2011), many Filipino dishes have Chinese and Spanish influences, so exotic dishes are the way to go. Exotic dishes, in this context, are those dishes whose flavor profile/ingredients are not similar to other Asian cooking or familiar to the Western palate. To provide a clearer understanding, most Asian fares have a spiciness to it and chili peppers are often used in them. While spicy defines Asian cooking, Western cooking is defined by the classics of the strong culinary nations, such as the United States, France, Italy and Spain, one of Filipino cuisines greater influences. So strong is the influence of other nations cuisine to our own that one Filipino-American chef, by the name of Miguel Trinidad, said that Filipino cuisine is the original fusion cuisine. For those that are not into food, fusion cuisine is the type of cooking wherein the flavors of two distinct nations/cuisine are merged. This is clearly shown by the proliferation of Filipino fare that have foreign sounding names, like pancit, pochero, leche flan, etc. But, despite the clear influences of the Chinese,
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Malay, Spanish and other nations cooking into our own gastronomic tradition, we still have flavors and dishes that we can call our own. These distinct Filipino taste is characterized by sourness and a penchant for tangy flavors. Filipino cooking techniques have sourness as a flavor base; paksiw, kinilaw or kilawin, and sinigang. Although vinegar is also used in adobo, sourness does not dominate the dishs flavor (Barretto, et al., 2008). The complexity of Filipino fare is further described by TV chef Anthony Bourdain. He described our food as a little sour, a little sweet, a little salty, and a little bitter. It seems so simple, yet so complex in taste, he reflected, describing the sinigang sa bayabas. Its nothing like Ive tasted before, he said (Barretto, et al., 2008). One dishs evaluation is definitely not enough to describe the archipelagos distinct, diverse and culturally significant flavors, ingredients and methods of cooking. This is because each region in the Philippines has their own distinct twists that add to the characteristics aforementioned. These twists make Filipino cuisine diverse, yet, have a unifying element in them that makes them uniquely Filipino. To make this clear, I would like to showcase a few of these culinary-rich regions. This would make things clearer since this would further our understanding of the Filipino palate and the flavors and ingredients that fulfill their qualms. Let us start from the north going down. Those from the Ilocos region, locally called the Ilokanos, have food that are simple, healthy and nourishingWhat characterizes Ilocano cooking is the absolute insistence on fresh ingredients and despite its simplicity, is rich in umami goodness (Alvina, et al., 2009). Included

in these food are those that cooked because of their cultural significance. Examples of these are the caao, atang and guling-guling. These are ritually cooked. Now, travelling east, we will reach the Cordilleras. Here, the dishes are highly rituallistic in nature. What is interesting in their ritual is the way they slaughter the animal as a form of sacrifice. This point must be emphasized, especially for those that are highly critical of animal treatment. The very violent process leading up to the butchering of the animals are because of the rituals.After the slaughtering, the animals are cooked. One of the more familiar ones is the pinikpikan. Moving on downward to Pampanga, the Kapampangans have a wider range of reason for their cuisine. The range of offereings is wide and surprisingfrom haute cuisine featuring delicate desserts bearing lovely French names to a lunch fare of insects cooked adobo-style (Alvina, et al., 2009) is what defines Kapampangan fare. Their dishes adjusts to the current situation and is highly adaptive, making do with what they have in time of want and going on bacchnalian binges in times of plenty (Alvina, et al., 2009). Kapampangans are known, in the Philippines, as good cooks. And the depth of these dishes are exemplified by the variety. These variety stems from the fact that their foods are created from those that are growing in their gardens or farms and he could easily create dishes that might perhaps be strange-looking, but great tasting, nevertheless (Alvina, et al., 2009). Besides this concoctions, there are the traditional dishes, such as buru, or buro, tidtad, among others. Let us now go a bit south with the Caviteos. What makes the food different is that the true essence of Caviteo cuisine is as very personal matter(and they) posses a clear dichotomy between pagkaing pambahay and pagkaing pambisita (Alvina, et al., 2009).
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A local historian, Puning Ballesteros, says that what makes Cavite cuisine unique is the local pairing of dishes or ulam that is terno-terno and tono-tono (Alvina, et al., 2009). To further drive his point, he goes on to say that what makes a meal more interesting is no matter how simple the ulam, it is personalized with sawsawan, salsa, ensalada and buro (Alvina, et al., 2009). I will discuss this point in greater detail later. From Cavite, let us now move to the Southern Tagalog region. They may differ in their cultural identities but they are bound by food. One of these dishes is bulalo. This dish exemplifies the ability of one dish to evolve in such a small geographical area. Travelling further down, we reach the Bicol region. This region is known for its spicy Bicol Express. One of its main ingredients is coconut milk. The region is rich in coconut trees. In the book Memories of Philippine Kitchens, they have even called it The Heart of Coconut Country (Besa & Dorotan, 2006). Across the sea, we move on to the islands of the Visayas region, starting with the islands of Iloilo and Negros. Ilonggo cuisine contains many dishes that are also found in other regions. What differs, though, are the ingredients used in making the dishes. Examples of these are the way they cook dinuguan and sinigang. Besa (2009) says that their dinuguan is lighter and slightly more sour than the Tagalog version. And she continues by describing their sinigang as soured with a hard fruit indigenous to the region called batuan Being an island, seafood is definitely abundant in the Ilonggo region. Seafood such as alimusan, sili, among others, are typical catches. But what Besa (2009) finds as the most famous dish is the Silay lumpia ubod. She calls it the superstar of Negros foodcrisp, sweet coconut

pith sauted with pork and shrimps and seasond well with garlic, and wrapped in the thinnest imaginable wrappers with a spring onion tucked in. Not to be forgotten is the regions sugar industry and their sweet delicacies. Sweets like dulce gatas, mazapan de leche, piaya, among others, are known in the region. Just like Kapampangan cuisine, Ilonggo cuisine stems from the resources available to them. Besa (2009) even quotes Doreen Gamboa Fernandez by saying that (t)he food grows from the Ilonggo landscape Next, we go to Cebu. Bisayan food is about its fusion with other cuisine. Caete (2009) goes on to say that Cebuano cuisine can thus be described as a hybrid mixture of East and West, a legacy of peoples, cultures and traditions that have come together A lot of dishes are heavily influenced by other nations cuisine, specifically those that are highly evident in Philippine history, ie., the Spanish, Chinese and American. What the Cebuanos did was to mix these things together, and make it their own. Example of this fusion that happened is that with adobong humba, pata tim, sugba, or grilling, among others. Let us not forget the southern-most area of the Philippines, Mindanao. For this, I would focus on the pagana. Pagana, or food that is served to guests, specifically special guests, is taken on by the different Muslim groups, which have their own names for dishes, though they are cooked in the way same across the Muslim groups. As we can see from the examples, Filipino fare is not merely cooking and eating the dishes. There are certain traditions, a rhyme and reason if you will, that come with them. Food, to the Filipino, is not merely for consumption. As written by Carmen Santiango (1976), Food, quite obviously, is a counter in the exchange of goodwill. She provides further
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proof of this statement when she mentioned that she did a study of the food-sharing situations in the middle class town of Bulacan(i)f one is invited to eat when there is no particular ocassion, it implies a wish for some form of alliance or an extension of goodwill. Another case of the way food is percieved differently is in Cavite. To show what I mean, let us look at the Caviteos traditions regarding food. As aforementioned, Caviteos differentiate the food they serve. They have food for the outsiders and food for the family only. Aside from pairing food with people, Caviteos, and Filipinos in general, love to use dipping sauces, or sawsawan. (W)hat makes a meal more interesting is no matter how simple the ulam, it is personalized with sawsawan, salsa, ensalada and buro (Alvina, et al., 2009). In the book The Culinary Culture of the Philippines, Gilda Cordero-Fernando (1976) mentions that while a French or Chinese cook dictate the flavor of their dishes with the way they make their sauces and serve them, Filipino food is different. She goes on to say that (a)ll this (referring to the use of sawsawan) is understood by the Filipino cook who, watching in the sidelines, happily watches the diners adjusting his masterpiece to their tastebuds. This individuality of the Filipino is best expressed in the sawsawan Indeed, other nations have dipping sauces, particularly Asian cuisine, but the Filipinos is different. Let us take the Japanese for example. One would not see them use sauces in adding to the flavors of dishes, other than that of sashimi and maki. This is also the case with the Chinese and dimsum. For the Filipino, we make our own concoctions with which to enhance our dishes. There is no uniform way of pairing sawsawan with dishes, though there are traditional pairings.

Included in this list of sauces is vinegar. With its sourness, it fits the Filipino palates craving for that tang. It is paired with almost anything and is customized with spices to complement the flavors of dishes with which it is being used. Cordero-Fernando (1976) mentions a lot of dipping sauces in her essay on sawsawan in The Culinary Culture of the Philippines and majority of them have vinegar as a base. Aside from vinegar, other sour sauces include burong isda (fermented fish and rice), calamansi, tomatoes, etc. The Filipino standards are vinegar, patis, soy sauce, sometimes vinegar wiith red hot cilis in it, and bagoong (Cordero-Fernando, et al., 1976). The similarities between Filipino cuisine and our Southeast Asian neighbors, of course, go beyond the use of sauces. There are also those flavors, ingredients, spices and techniques that our neighbors have brought, even before the Spaniards came. Trading with these neighbors brought about this assimilation of cookery. Yet, our culture defined the way our dishes developed. This development, argues Besa (2006), stems from our unique history. To show the similarities between Southeast Asian Cuisine, Besa introduces the fact that two cultures were the ones responsible for the greater part of the cuisine, during the ancient times. These are the Chinese and Indians. What sets the Philippines apart, though, is the fact that we had no royalties, or a supreme kingdom which governed over the whole. (There are talks of a kingdom set in Pampanga but, for the sake of limiting this paper, let us just talk about what is the traditionally accpeted story of not having a kingdom.) In other nations, these royalties and their courts were the ones responsible for the development of their cuisine and its preservation. In contrast, the development of Filipino cooking is localized. It happened in the household and community.

This is why, to this day, the best Filipinio food is usually found in homes with a tradition of excellent home cooking, rather than in restaurants (Besa & Dorotan, 2006). This is why we need to showcase these kinds of dishes. Each one is special for every household. Every single restaurant which cooks in the traditional manner will have a significantly different taste to the others. Also, if we take Besas idea to heart, then Filipino restaurateurs would create venues that have a laidback ambiance. This is something the Westerners love to comment on: the ambiance of the places where they eat or the traditional ways with which food is served to them. Imagine the way Filipinos eat at home, with all dishes served at once and a bunch of sawsawan on the side, and contrast it to the way most Westerners eat, with each dish coming out one at a time. Filipino restaurants would be able to create a particularly new feel that would be distinctive and fresh. The ambiance created should, of course, be based on traditions upheld in the Philippines. It will become a major selling point. But why would we need to market our cuisine to the world? We need to because we might just lose the traditions imbedded in these dishes. In our incredibly globalized world, time is of the essence and the time alloted for work is too important to compromise with, in favor of food preparation. This causes the proliferation of food mixes that we see advertised on TV nowadays. Their selling points are the fact that you do not have to labor in the kitchen to get that flavor you have wanted and you can do it quickly. But, in my opinion, it kills the essence of the Filipino meal: to come together and live with each other.

Besa (2009) shares this idea. In her small essay on sinigang in the book Memories of the Philippine Kitchens, she shares her surprise at how restaurants are proud to say that flavor packets are the reason for their delicious sinigang. Her sentiments are that the original souring agents of sinigangtamarind, kamias, siniguelas, guava and batuan, the souring agent in Visayaswill lose their commercial value and become scarceeven in the home of sinigang! (Besa & Dorotan, 2006). By pushing our cuisine to the global market, we will be able to preserve the traditions since we become very proud of our cuisine. We will have, once again, high regard for our food. We think of it, not as lowly, but of equal value to foreign cuisine. Since we are on the topic of something foreign, I would like to focus on a point I have touched upon earlier: Filipino food being the original fusion cuisine. This point was raised by Filipino-American chef Miguel Trinidad. Fusion cuisine was put into the limelight by chef Wolfgang Puck, though it has been around for centuries, as Natasha Geiling (2013) argues in her blog post on the Smithsonian Magazine website. She quotes food historian and author Rachel Laudan, Almost all foods are fusion dishes. To add to this, Geiling cites another author, Corrine Trang, (w)hen cultures mix, fusion is inevitable. In her blog post, Geiling listed dishes that are believed to be wholly of the country from which it originated in. What she does, then, is to show how these dishes were a product of the mingling of cultures. She even gives noodles as a perfect example of this idea of fusion. Linking to the National Geographic website, she cites an article that blurs the history of noodles further. In the article, John Roach reports that scientists have unearthed a 4,000-year-old
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bowl of noodles in China. It also suggests an Asiannot Italianorigin for the staple dish. We see that even things as simple as noodles are not free from the idea of fusion. whether the modern version of the stringy pasta was first invented by the Chinese, Italians, or Arabs is debatable. (Roach, 2005) So, how does this affect our idea of OUR cuisine? What this idea shows is that all dishes in the world are the result of the mixing of different cultures throughout history. Thus, all of the worlds food is fusion. This makes Filipino cuisine no different from Chinese, Japanese, or any other Asian cuisine out there, in these talks of fusion cuisine. What would differ, though, is the way we have made it our own, just like the way Italians use noodles, or pasta, differently from the Chinese. Being unique and exotic is not in the origins of the ingredients or methods, rather, it is in the way the dishes were prepared, the flavors it gives and the cultural significance it carries. All of these traits are exhibited by Filipino food, as a whole. But, there are dishes that greatly exemplify these. These dishes, the dishes that I call exotic, are the best ones for the international market on the merits of distinct flavors, diversity and cultural significance. Since everyone in the world is always looking for something new and fresh, the NEXT BIG THING, something the world has not seen before, the exoticness of Filipino cuisine fits the bill. Therefore, I believe that exotic Filipino cuisine is the next big thing.

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References
Alvina, C. S., Bautista, D. G., Besa, D. G., Caete, R. R., Castro, A., Eusebio, J. S., . . . Trinidad, C. S. (2009). Pinoy Umami: The Heart of Philippine Cuisine. Makati City: Ajinomoto Philippines Corporation. Asia Tatler Dining - Philippines' Best Restaurant | What is authentic FIlipino cuisine? (2009, August 20). [ONLINE] Retrieved September 2013, 21, from Asia Tatler Dining: http://www.asiatatlerdining.com/philippines/what-is-authentic-filipino-cuisine Barretto, G. R., Fors, M., Calalang, C., Segismundo, M., Sincioco, J., & Tayag, C. (2008). KULINARYA: A Guidebook to Philippine Cuisine. Pasig City: Anvil Publishing Inc. Besa, A., & Dorotan, R. (2006). Memories of Philippine Kitchens: Stories and Recipies from Far and Near. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang. Cordero-Fernando, G. (1992). Philippine Food & Life. Pasig City: Anvil Publishing Inc. Cordero-Fernando, G., Chanco, M. P., Fernandez, D. G., Ira, L. B., Leynes, S. H., Mercado, M. A., . . . Winternitz, S. V. (1976). The Culinary Culture of the Philippines. Bancom Audiovision Corporation. Daza, S. (2011, September 21). For Philippine cuisine to make international mark, exotic is the way to go. Philippine Daily Inquirer. Fernandez, D. G. (1994). Tikim: Essays on Philippine Food and Culture. Pasig City: Anvil Publishing Inc. Geiling, N. (2013, July 24). Sorry, Wolfgang, Fusion Foods Have Been With Us for Centuries | Food & Think. [Web Log Post]. Retrieved October 5, 2013, from Smithsonian Magazine: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/food/2013/07/sorry-wolfgang-fusion-foods-have-beenwith-us-for-centuries/ Roach, J. (2005, October 12). 4,000-Year-Old Noodles Found in China. [ONLINE] Retrieved October 5, 2013, from National Geographic News: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1012_051012_chinese_noodles.html
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Torre, N. (2013, September 16). Novel twists on Filipino cuisine feature on "Top Chef". Philippine Daily Inquirer.

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Brought about by our understanding of the complexities of the Filipino palate and its regionality, we see its differences with the Western understanding of Asian cuisine, which is that Asian cuisine is spicy.

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