Why Sinigang?

By Doreen G. Fernandez

Rather than the overworked adobo ( so identified as the Philippine stew in foreign
cookbooks), sinigang seems to me the dish most representative of Filipino taste. We like the
lightly boiled, the slightly soured, the dish that includes fish (or shrimp or meat) vegetables and
broth. It is adaptable to all tastes ( if you don’t like shrimp, then bangus, or pork), to all classes
and budgets, (even ayungin, in humble little piles, find their way into the pot), and to seasons
and availability (walang talong, mahal ang gabi, kangkong
But why? Why does sinigang find its way to bare dulang, to formica-topped restaurant booth, to
gleaming ilustrado table? Why does one like anything at all? How is a people’s taste shaped?
But still, why soured? Aside from the fact that sour broths are cooling in hot weather, could
it be perhaps because the dish is meant to be eaten against the mild background of rice? Easy to
plant and harvest, and allowing more than one crop a year, rice is ubiquitous on the landscape.
One can picture our ancestors settling down beside their rivers and finally tuning to the cultivation
of fields, with rice as one of the first steady crops.

RICE
Rice to us is more than basic cereal, for as constant background, steady accompaniment;
it is also the shaper of other foods, and of tastes. We not only sour, but also salt (daing, tuyo,
bagoong) because the blandness of rice suggests the desirability of sharp contrast. Rice ca be
ground into flour and thus the proliferation of puto; the mildly sweet Putong Polo, the banana leaf-
encased Manapla variety; puto filled with meat or flavored with ube; puto in cakes or wedges,
white or brown eaten with dinuguan or salabat.

THE GREENERY
The landscape also offers the vines, shrubs, fields, forests and trees from which comes
the galaxy of gulay with which we are blest all year round. “Back home,” an American friend
commented.” All we use from day to day are peas, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, and very few
others.”
The dietarily uninhibited Filipino, on the other hand, recognizes the succulence of roots
(gabi, ube, kamote); the delicacy and flavor of leaves (pechay, dahong bawang, kintsay, pako,
malunggay) and tendrils (talbos ng ampalaya, kalabasa, sayote); the bounty of fruits (not only upo
ad kalabasa, talong and ampalaya, but also desserts like langka and banana, which double as
vegetables. ; and the excitement of flowers like katuray and kalabasa.

An informative article gives the reader unbiased facts about a

topic. An informative article provides the readers with details on a given topic. The informative
article is not an argumentative article that tries to persuade the reader to one side or the other. It
covers all the pertinent details: who, what, when, where and why. Newspaper reporting uses
informative articles; how-to articles represent another category.
 To help you in writing your informative article, read the example and tips that follow.

Tips for Writing an Informative Article by Lakshmi Menon

How to write an informative article? Writing an article is not that difficult as you think.
The following tips can help you in writing an informative article:

1. Write about what you really know. Before writing, do a search and find out some more
details to polish your knowledge on the selected topic. You can find details about
anything on the internet, using a search engine.
2. Please remember the vital point that many of your readers may already know more
details than you about the topic you are writing. Therefore, write about the topic you
have sufficient knowledge about.
3. People will be more interested to know how you sorted out a particular problem when
you had faced one. A well written article about solving your own problem will be more
useful to the readers. Many of them would have faced a similar problem and your
information will be of immense help to them.
4. Remember to leave enough white space in between your paragraphs. You may wonder
why it should be. Reading the matter on the monitor is different from reading on the
printed page. It causes eye strain and for some people neck pain also. The other main
reason is that many of our readers will be senior citizens, who will be looking for various
information. Hence, it is better to see that your article is senior citizen-friendly, which means
easy for them to read.
5. Try to write small paragraphs, which is easy to read. Most of the people will be just
scanning the matter within a short time. Therefore, the smaller the paragraph the easier to
read. Just place yourself in that position. How many times have you read long articles on the
net? I do agree that we take time to read long articles when they are highly important to our
need. Otherwise, on a routine basis, more people read only smaller articles.
6. After writing your article, read it at least 3-5 times, and if necessary read once aloud. It
helps you to find the mistakes in your articles. Then you can revise your article
appropriately.

Lakshmi Menon writes articles on various topics, including South India tourism. Please visit
http://www.enchanting-south-india-vacations.com to know more about South India.
Try writing a one paragraph essay below about any topic of your choice. Be guided by the
following guidelines:
a. Identify the purpose for writing.
b. Consider your audience.
c. Have an interesting beginning sentence to hook your audience’s interest.
d. Cite only relevant and accurate details.
e. Have a clear conclusion.