Foodizen: "What are you?”
May. 29, 2019
The outrage began, as it so often does, with the sort of lame, toss-off tweet—the failed attempt to be cheeky and knowing—that we've all grown wearyingly accustomed to. A white guy named Tom Pepinsky, a Cornell University political science professor, a specialist in Asian politics, tweeted a ranking of "Southeast Asian national cuisines." The height three were Vietnamese, Lao, and "Singaporean/Malaysian." Indonesian and Cambodian fell in the heart. At number nine, expressionless concluding, was "Philippine."
The list itself (what with the white guy judging the Asian cuisines) was not very well received, with the full general response summed up by food writer Esther Tseng: " who the f* exercise y'all think you are? "
A writer and activist based in Jakarta named Kate Walton tweeted: "Filipino nutrient is def the worst in the region." Filipino Twitter lost its collective mind, with hundreds of tweets accusing Walton of insensitivity, breathtaking audacity, and outright stupidity.
But before long enough—as so often happens—another white person came along and poured gasoline on what had been until and then a small fire. Doubling downwardly on the rankings, a writer and activist based in Djakarta named Kate Walton tweeted: " Filipino food is def the worst in the region ." Filipino Twitter lost its collective listen, with hundreds of tweets accusing Walton of insensitivity, breathtaking audacity , and outright stupidity. For many, information technology was simply another episode of white Western diners exoticizing Southeast Asian food equally something to exist "discovered," unlinked from its civilisation and history.
Two days after, an article was published on CNN Philippines: " A Westerner said 'Filipino food is the worst.' Hither'due south why we care so much. " The writer, Chino Cruz, called boyfriend Filipinos to arms. "We must grab the intangible heritage of our cuisine and come across that its beauty tin can be found in its unique capacity to tell the story of our struggles and how exactly nosotros as a people rose up to overcome them," Cruz wrote.
Oddly, this whole fracas happened the week before Filipino Eating place Calendar week in the U.S. (which is actually two weeks, ending terminal weekend). I'd been eating at several of Philadelphia'southward Filipino restaurants during this fourth dimension—after having eaten plenty of Lao , Cambodian , Vietnamese, Indonesian , Burmese, and Malaysian food over the past few months. It never occurred to me to rank them. Nor did it dissuade me from enjoying Pinoy cuisine, which has actually been having something of a moment. For instance, Tom Cunanan of the Washington, D.C., Filipino restaurant Bad Saint won a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic. Also nominated for an award was the loftier-profile cookbook I Am Filipino: And This Is How We Cook , by Nicole Ponseca and Miguel Trinidad of New York'southward Maharlika and Jeepney, released this by fall.
So what, exactly, is Filipino food? "That's the toughest question to respond," says Jillian Encarnacion, co-owner of Lalo in The Bourse. "Filipino food is not definable. It's a beautiful mix of all our history, influences, and colonization."
There are not many Filipino restaurants in Philly, only iii in the urban center proper, with a few others in the suburbs. I started with the family unit-fashion Kamayan menu at Perla in East Passyunk. For the Kamayan repast, banana leaves are laid out on the table, and the nutrient is piled in the middle. First, a layer of garlic-jasmine rice topped with pinakbet , a stew of fresh vegetables similar dark-green beans, cauliflower, eggplant, and okra cooked in bagoong (a fish sauce) and coconut milk. And then, scattered on top of that are egg rolls tightly blimp with pork, called lumpia shanghai along with lechon kawali , crispy fried pork belly—served with surprising banana ketchup and a rich sauce made with dates and chicken liver. Finally, ii tangy, tender whole chickens, marinated in lemon, ginger, garlic and soy, are served along with a whole fried pompano. No utensils are provided, keeping with Filipino tradition. "Are you comfortable eating with your hands?" the server asked. Indeed, nosotros were, and dug in.
"It's a generational thing. Our generation has a unlike perspective on Filipino nutrient," Santos says. "I was sick of seeing our food not represented. Hopefully 1 day it will become as much a office of the food dictionary as pasta or Thai food."
I followed up that repast a week later at Sarvida in Fishtown, Perla's sister eatery, owned by chef-owner Lou Boquila, who's been on a mission to show Philadelphia just how special and unique food from the Philippines can exist. At Sarvida, the chicharron, wink-fried beef tendon, are the usual popular attraction, only on my visit in that location was a special Filipino prix fixe, and they offered binagoogan , sus scrofa tails served with mango and bagoong . I also enjoyed a grilled pork shoulder slathered with banana ketchup charcoal-broil sauce, as well as pancit, egg noodles served with sausage, dried shrimp in a butter infused with calamansi (a small citrus found in the Philippines that looks similar a lime and is a cantankerous between a kumquat and a mandarin orange). Yet the traditional adobo , in all its vinegary, garlicky goodness, was the signature dish.
Adobo is one of the nearly famous Pinoy dishes, and is a classic instance of the cuisine's assimilation of other cultures. Adobo in Spain is a pickling sauce, fabricated with olive oil, vinegar, garlic, thyme, laurel, oregano, paprika and common salt. Since Espana ruled the Philippines as a colony for more than 300 years, adobo was taken past Filipinos every bit a preparation and a name for a craven dish that'southward stewed vinegar and garlic, bayleaf, peppercorns, and soy sauce.
The late Doreen Fernandez, the Philippines' most famous food writer, chosen her nation's nutrient an "indigenized cuisine," considering Filipinos take taken diverse ingredients and dishes from other cultures and made them their ain. Also the Spanish, the Philippines were influenced by Chinese, Arab, Indian, and Malay traders, as well equally a half-century of American colonialism that ended with independence in 1946.
And then what, exactly, is Filipino food? "That's the toughest question to answer," says Jillian Encarnacion, co-owner of Lalo in The Bourse.
I unique aspect of Filipino cuisine is the wide array of dipping sauces—a "galaxy of flavor-adjusters," equally Fernandez called them—generally referred to as sawsawan . "In the Philippine experience, the diner cooperates and participates, and the creation is communal," wrote Fernandez. These side sauces are 1 of the joyous aspects of eating the Filipino food, adding assistant ketchup or date-and-chicken-liver or sugariness chili sauce or bagoong .
"In that location is no ego when we melt," says food writer Andre Orandain . "That is why the sawsawan exists. It's for usa to pigment our ain experience—information technology is for the states to make the meal our own."
Perhaps the most exciting Filipino spot in the metropolis is the Lalo food stall at The Bourse nutrient hall , opened past a partnership grouping that includes Encarnacion and food photographer Neal Santos. The continually rotating menu of Filipino favorites has included kaldereta , a flavorful beefiness stew, long-si-log , a housemade pork sausage over garlic rice, topped with a soft egg, and the pork-and-lemongrass lumpia shanghai .
The team behind Lalo had been doing Filipino pop-up dinners as Pelago for five years before deciding to try to translate what they're doing to a fast-coincidental concept. Encarnacion's family really once ran a Filipino eatery in the Northeast called Manila Bay. In fact, for 35 years, Encarnacion'southward grandfather used to sell kebabs and other Filipino-inspired foods across from Independence Mall on 6th Street.
As I ate Lalo's lechon kawali and their vegan tofu take on bicol express (traditionally a condolement nutrient dish with pork cubes), I asked Santos and Encarnacion why at that place weren't more Filipino restaurants in Philly. "It's a generational thing. Our generation has a unlike perspective on Filipino food," Santos says. "I was ill of seeing our food non represented. Hopefully one day it will become as much a function of the nutrient dictionary as pasta or Thai food."
Filipino food at The Bourse, with its focus on the lunch crowd, presents an interesting claiming. "Filipino cuisine is traditionally family unit style," Encarnacion said. "But luncheon here is curated for the solo diner, portioned for one person."
Within in The Bourse nutrient hall, with its influx of office workers and tourists, Filipino food tin be a challenging sell. "People come up in and it's like, 'this is breakfast, this is pizza, this is fried chicken and and then this is…uhhh'?" Encarnacion says. But they've converted a lot of regulars to the pleasures of Pinoy dishes.
"Information technology's a huge social experiment," Santos says. "People come and say, 'What are you?' Well, what do y'all remember nosotros are?"
The team behind Lalo. Photo via Neal Santos Photography 
Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/foodizen-what-are-you/
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