Writing the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery Series - Episode Transcript

Nastasha: Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I'm your host, Nastasha Alli.

It is the middle of February now, and the snow has been falling pretty steadily the last couple of days for us here in Toronto. It's the kind of weather that, I guess makes me really grateful to have a home, not something I take for granted for sure. And in that extended downtime at home, that means a lot of reading time for me.

It means cozying up under a blanket, having a lot of coffee and tea, kind of shutting out the world for a little bit, not a bad thing to do in a snowstorm, I guess. But, yeah, it's been a nice couple of days. I've been reading, one of these books on my little travelogue shelf.

And I'm in the final chapters of this book called Lands of Lost Borders, which is by Kate Harris. She's a Canadian writer. And the book's about her travels through Central Asia, mostly, on a bike. And I've always been really fascinated about these kinds of stories. You know, I'm a big armchair traveller. Reading about other people's travel experiences has always been a form of escapism for me. And yeah, the book's really well done. So I've been cozying up to that.

And the other thing that I've been spending a lot of time doing the last little while is delving back into the world of Shady Palms, which, for people who are not familiar with either the name or the series, is the fictional town in the Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery Series books.

These are the creation of author Mia Manansala, who I'm super excited to talk to today. There are five books so far in the series. They're called Arsenic and Adobo, Homicide and Halo Halo, Blackmail and Bibingka, Murder and Mamon, and Guilt and Ginataan.

I mean, granted, I am the kind of person too, who, loves a good murder mystery podcast, so I'm kind of predisposed to liking the genre.

If these titles don't make you hungry and, like, curious to find out what the hell is happening in this town…There’s a lot to chew on, in the books. So, super excited. Let's get to it.

About Mia

Mia: I'm Mia P. Manansala. I use she, her pronouns. And I am the author of the Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery Series. And I'm based in Chicago.

Nastasha: As I'll probably say at the start of the episode too, I'm a huge fan of the books and I really love obviously the little world you've created for us, and the characters in your books and your novels. But before I get into all that, I always like to kind of start off by asking if you could tell us a little bit about your background in terms of where you were raised and where you live now. I think that'd be really interesting.

Mia: So I was born and raised in Chicago and I currently live just outside the city. But both of my parents are originally from the Philippines and I grew up in, well, actually I grew up in my maternal grandparents home. So I grew up in a multi generational household. Like my protagonist Lila and for I guess like, you know, it'd probably be a not unusual experience, but we were kind of like the way station.

So it was like my maternal grandparents, my parents, me, my two younger brothers, , for, many, many years, my two cousins also lived with us, sometimes an aunt or an uncle or, you know, something you would refer to as like a tita or tita who are not actually blood related, but they were coming over from the Philippines and needed a place to kind of stay and become a little bit more stable before they were able to move on on their own.

Like, that's the kind of household I grew up in. So I did not grow up in a large Filipino community. I grew up in a rather lower income, industrial working class, majority Latina neighborhood of Chicago. So for me, my, Filipino community was my family. So my idea of like Filipino identity and heritage and culture and family and food are all very intertwined with each other.

Nastasha: I was speaking with someone, some time ago about how growing up in a multi generational household, like, really kind of sets the tone for you, obviously, moving forward later in life. And interesting that even here in Canada, I'm going to say, like, I moved to, Vancouver first and then I moved to Toronto with my family, but I didn't move here until I was in my late teens, like 19, 20. And so I also didn't grow up, like, in, a Filipino community once I got to Canada, because it was kind of once I got here, like, you started working right away, and you kind of keep working non stop. So family really is kind of that, like, glue. And, yeah, it just goes to show that, you know, there's different ways that you can define family and community, and it's not always definitely blood

Mia: Hmm. Yeah. And it was also interesting because like my mom moved to the States when she was young. She was only 12 years old, but my dad didn't move until he was an adult in his late 20s. He moved over to marry my mom. They knew each other in the Philippines. Our families knew each other. So even growing up multi generationally, even within how the parents, you know, my mom and my dad, how they viewed things, their idea of the connection to the community and their culture is also very different. My father passed away in 2018 before I was able to, or I started writing Arsenic and Dope in 2018, but I didn’t finish it, didn't sell it until 2020.

So he passed before he could see me become a published author, but so much of it is based on him and his love of food because he was the cook in the family. But when I was including things in the book, you know, I would ask my mom because it was like, I understand Tagalog, but I cannot speak it.

If you speak to me like in a very basic conversational way I can respond to you in English. But there were certain phrases I wanted to make sure I got right or just certain, you know, just cultural elements where I wasn't sure like, oh, is this…is this a general Filipino thing or is this my family thing? And I'm, you know, I'm generalizing.

So I'd ask my mom and sometimes she’d have to be like, you know, Mia, I came here when I was 12. And so, you know, even though she's fluent in Tagalog, she's like fluent, you know, the way she was when she left home. So even she would have to be like, hold on, let me ask someone, right. And so again, it's just, it's very interesting, the ways I've had to access, you know, certain parts of the culture.

Nastasha: And it's so different, like, I'm gonna be honest too, when I first moved here, I didn't care very much about my Filipino heritage, because, you know, obviously you kind of have other, like, you're trying to fit in when you first arrive, and trying to get work, and get settled, and that kind of thing.

Mia: Yeah. A lot of it's survival mode, right?

Nastasha: Yeah, exactly. But kind of as, as time passes, there's that, you really do develop that personal and deeper connection to it. And obviously my connection to it is very strong through food and a lot of people's gateway too, I think, into understanding the culture. That's going to lead into my favourite question, which is if you could tell us a little bit about your favourite memory or experience around Filipino food.

Mia: So, thank you first of all for sending the questions ahead of time. I was like, oh, that's a good question. And even as I thought about it, it was really hard to pinpoint one thing, so I think I don't know what if I'm going to say is my favourite, but it's the one that immediately came to mind.

I mentioned before that my father was the cook in the family, right? He was a very old school cook, didn't really use measurements, so the recipes in the book are not his recipes, sadly. They are me researching. and tweaking the recipes until they taste the way I remember his food tasting, because for me that's the taste of Filipino food.

But they are not his actual recipes, because he didn't really leave them behind, except for one, which I found out a few years later.

Favourite food memory

Mia: I've always been after him to teach me how to cook, because me and my brothers, we did a lot of like, we helped with the prep work, like rolling lpia and, you know, like really simple things because we had a small kitchen and, you know, he's like, Oh, you're, you're in the way. You know. But like when I would try to watch him, I'd be like, okay, show me. And he'd be making adobo and he would just like open a bottle of soy sauce and start pouring. I'm like, how much is that? And he's like, Oh, you know, it's just, it's just one of these, like taste, Oh, okay.

This is okay. This is hard. , and so, you know, after he passed and I was really missing the food, I can't remember how it came up, but then, I'm the oldest, I have two younger brothers. My middle brother told us that my dad had left him a recipe for his picadillo. Because my brother's then girlfriend, now wife, who's also Filipino, she like, she realized, you know, because it was after my father had passed, and she realized how precious this was.

So she made a special photocopy and print and framed it for him, and she gave, like, the printed versions to me and our other brother. And I was like, he wrote you a recipe? Like, I've been, like, you don't even cook. I've been after him for years to give me anything. And, you know, and I was like, I was like really salty.

Like, it was really emotional, just seeing his writing again. But I was also, like, really salty about it. I was like, why? But, like, to be fair…I spent some years teaching English in South Korea. So I lived abroad between 2010 and 2014 and it was during that time that my brother received that recipe.

And he's like, look, it's not what you think. He gave this to me when I first moved out of the house because he knew I couldn't cook and he was worried. About how I was going to feed myself. And so he's like, this was a kind of a reasonable, you know, with my skills and nutrition and things like that.

He's like, this is something he gave to me, because he wanted me to be able to take care of myself, and he knew you were fine. And I was like, I guess. And so, you know, being able to cook the picadillo based on his recipe, had a lot of conflicting emotions, but just, I mean, as you know, smell is probably one of the strongest senses. And so just smelling my father's picadillo again, seeing his handwriting, was a very emotional experience.

Nastasha: I can imagine. Just for listeners who may not be familiar, picadillo, as you're talking about, is the ground beef, picadillo?

Mia: Yeah, it was ground beef and then chopped potatoes, usually cooked like a tomato sauce, onions. I'm trying to think if there’s…

Nastasha: Do you put peas in it?

Mia: No, so my mom…

Nastasha: This is a controversial question.

Mia: My mom has the palate of a child. She really does not like vegetables very much. Like, even now she still refuses, like she'll pick vegetables out of the things that I cook. So like he would not add green things. The picadillo was very popular because it's literally meat and potatoes, you know, in a tomato sauce.

Nastasha: Comfort food.

Mia: Yeah. Very delicious comfort food over a big old pile of white rice. Like it's excellent.

Nastasha: Aw, man. Comfort food is like, it is what it is, right? It's that thing that, like, will immediately transport you to whatever time and place you most associate with it.

So you said both your parents grew up in the Philippines. Do you know what part of the Philippines they're from?

Mia: My mom said she was from Quezon City and my dad was from Imus, Cavite, I believe.

Nastasha: So kind of like Manila, Luzon.

Mia: Yeah.

Nastasha: Have you ever had the chance to go visit the areas where they grew up?

Mia: I went there as a child with my middle brother, and then, as I said before, I spent a few years teaching English in South Korea, and since it's so much closer than Chicago, you know, it's no longer a 20 hour flight, it's only maybe like six. I visited, I want to say, two or three times as an adult while I was there.

And it would split, I'd spend half the time with my maternal grandparents side and the other half of my paternal grandmother's side.

Nastasha: How was that experience as a grownup? Have you always been fairly heavy into cooking, like yourself?

Mia: I was really big into eating.

Cooking at home

Mia: So my dad, like I said before, my dad didn't really like us being in the kitchen with him just because like, it was easier and faster for him to kind of handle the main parts of it himself. But what he didn't really do were desserts.

So I liked baking. I would, you know, I was usually in charge of baking and making sweets for the family and for celebrations and things like that. And so like, that was like kind of like, you know, everyone kind of had like their own little niche and like that was my thing. And then, you know, I had to learn, I could do like very basic cooking, of course, because my parents worked long hours.

I was taking care of my brothers. I was the one who made like their after school snacks. And like, sometimes I'd have to cook dinner for us. If my grandparents were, like, usually my grandmother would do like the day to day during the week and my father would handle the weekend cooking.

But sometimes they were busy and as the oldest, you know, it falls to me as well to do some of that. But yeah, I mostly cooked when I was living alone abroad because I had to and you learn real fast you are on your own. But, I'm still relatively new to making Filipino food because there's something about Filipino food that I feel like you can't really make in small sizes, like it's always like a giant pot of something.

Like I can't, you know, make it for one or even two, it's just really hard. So I reserve that for, and I'm like, okay, I'm either going to freeze half and save it for something else. Or like, I'm going to bring this over to a friend's house because this is way too much.

Nastasha: Yeah, I can relate to that. The whole thing, both the part where you're learning how to cook as an adult and then the, Oh my God, what am I going to do with this gigantic pot of sinigang that I'm not going to eat myself for like the next two weeks?

Visiting the Philippines as an adult

Mia: And also your original question was about like what it's like to go there as an adult. It's a little bit strange because some of them, so like some cousins and uncles and my grandparents…my paternal grandparents used to live in New York so I would visit them every smer but they moved back when I was a child, after they retired and so it had been a while since I really reconnected with my grandparents who had been close to cousins who I'd met as a child, but it's also very strange because it's such a huge family and everyone, you know, I'm meeting people for the first time in my twenties.

And I know this is a podcast, so the viewers can't see me, but if they ever just like Google my author photo, a lot of people asse I'm mixed, which I'm not. Or I mean, as not mixed as you can be from like a multiply colonized country. Right. But like my parents were born and raised in the Philippines. My grandparents, I think I might have a great grandparent who's mestizo, but other than like, I'm pretty, I'm relatively…

Nastasha: The impression, though, that people there kind of get…

Mia: The impression when people see me are that I'm not Filipino at all, or that I'm at least half, you know. I’m tall, I'm a big girl. I'm somewhat like, you know, and so there is a weird feeling of not belonging. In many ways, you know, like I would meet one side of the family and they'll be like, Oh, this is, you know, so and so's daughter. Like, Oh, what's the other parent, you know? But everyone was very kind, you know, lots of sightseeing, so much good food. I was very well taken care of every time I went to visit. But yeah, it is a very strange disconnect, like to meet your own family and be like, who are you?

You don't look like us. And I'm like, Ooh, what'd I do?

Nastasha: And the truth is, it's such a universal feeling, like, it happens to, I'm gonna say, like, a good chunk of, like, people who I've met or talked to. That’s kind of why I like asking that, too, when I get the chance, because it is, yeah, very rare that when you come, like, there's always that warmth of the family, so you know you're always welcome, but there's just another kind of, like, there's a different level of acceptance almost sometimes.

Mia: Yeah. And it was funny because, you know, when we would go out, we'd go to the shopping mall or out to eat, like my cousins would be like, Oh, don't, don't speak in public. People will know you're American. I'm like, look at me. I'm five eight. I'm taller than like half the people, like everyone knows…. just look at me. But they were trying, they're like, oh, you know, try not to speak too much in public.Well, you know, stay safe and close to us. You know, they're trying to take care of me, but I was like, guys…

Nastasha: Yeah.

Mia: Thank you.

Nastasha: Heart is always in the right place. I have lots of thoughts and feelings about going to the Philippines, but I will try to stay on track, too.

Writing the world of Shady Palms

Nastasha: I'd like to get into the books, because I could ask a lot of questions about the books, but, I also really like to write. I'm actually part of a writer's collective here in Toronto. It's been very interesting for me to kind of more professionally hear about and learn about these other authors who identify as Filipino, Filipina, Filipinx, Canadian, because I never really thought I would see that.

I think for me, when I was growing up in the Philippines, like, I loved to read, I've always loved to read. That was always something that I was like, oh my god, like, can you imagine if you'd actually see Filipino authors and stories at some point. So like to me growing up that was always kind of like a dream, and it feels a little weird now that like, oh, you know, like, we're actually in the thick of it, like, we have these opportunities to be able to, you know, tell our stories in the ways that we want to.

And yeah, so what I'd like to ask from you, as the author, is, what's been the most memorable part so far for you, in terms of how you created the world of Shady Palms and the characters in it?

Mia: So with my world of Shady Palms, what I write, you know, is lighthearted, humorous mysteries centred around a Filipino family restaurant in a fictional town outside of Chicago.

And so for me, what I write are called cozy mysteries. And for people who are not familiar with that subgenre, I like to jokingly call them like Hallmark movies with dead bodies or like rom coms with dead bodies because I have like that vibe, right? I'm like, they really like the small town where everyone kind of knows each other's business, and you know, there's going to be a happy ending, even though there's murders.

And like that’s kind of what I write. And so, part of being able to create the town of Shady Palms, which is obviously fictional, was really great in multiple ways. One was that because I knew it was a series, but I didn't know how many books they were going to be, I got to make the world however I wanted or however I needed it, according to each book's needs, right?

So like by book three there’s space for a winery. And then, you know, at the end of book five, I'm like, suddenly there's an area where we have a corn maze, you know, because there's no map and because it's not a real place, I was not beholden to actual geography. I got to just imagine what I wanted.

Nastasha: I have to say with that corn maze it's kind of funny, because I don't know if you have ever watched the Gilmore Girls or were ever a fan of the show. I love the series. When I first came across the corn maze in Guilt and Ginataan, I somehow kind of thought there was this episode where they have like a hay bale maze.

Mia: Yeah. I mean, was it Stars Hollow? You know, it's very much like, if a murder happened in Stars Hollow, that's what cozy mysteries are, right? That really, like, quirky, the town is almost its own character, right? It almost feels like, this isn't a real place, but it kind of, it still makes sense in the world of the story, you know. So much of the Simpsons and Springfield, which is like a really ridiculous place, but it makes sense within that world. And that's kind of what Shady Palms is like, being able to be ridiculous, but have it make sense within the logic of that world, because like, how many dead bodies could there possibly be in this tiny town without it being a problem?

And so, you know, having fun with that. And then also, when people think Hallmark movies or rom coms or even mysteries or small towns, it's very white, right? It's very, like, cis het white, it's very, you know, a specific idea when people think of small town mysteries.

And so being able to show, like, hey, we exist in small towns, you know, brown people exist and queer people exist and people with different abilities and all these different things, I get to populate this fictional world with the way that my world actually looks and I don't actually usually see in books.

I was born and raised in Chicago, which is a hugely diverse city, and so that was also part of like the fun. With Arsenic and Adobo, the first one, I specifically made it so that, you know, in that book, she is accused of murdering her ex boyfriend who is the food critic. And as part of the investigations, she’s researching all the other people who also receive bad reviews from him, so she has to travel from restaurant to restaurant within the town. I was using that as a way to show the town, it's demographic, the kind of people that reside there, through its food, I was also able to show you who and what resided in the town.

Because Chicago is a city of neighbourhoods, as I said it's hugely diverse, but it's also very segregated. And so I wanted to show that, like, okay, this is the area where you can get this. This is the area where this exists. This is where we find these kinds of people in cuisines or this kind of grocery store.

And so being able to just very quickly establish a world where that happens, but also kind of showing there's these little divides, basically.

Nastasha: I've been nodding my head, like, basically the past five minutes because you touched on something that I, as a reader, I loved about the series, is that it became very normal for me to expect that Lila and Adeena and Elena, like I said in my email, it kind of made me feel like I'm almost an occasional resident or like a fairly regular visitor to the town.

Narratives that shape you

Nastasha: Because the way you've written about the characters and the food, of course, and their experiences as it relates to the story has become very, like, normalized, quote unquote, and as we're saying when you're talking about, like, the hallmark small towns, that's one of the biggest things I really appreciated is that because of the success of the series, and maybe a little bit of the genre too, being able to introduce it to people who may not be familiar with Filipino culture or food necessarily, through the genre.

That's one thing I super appreciated is that it just wasn't strange to kind of like, there's Filipino characters and we're talking about, you know, these dishes that I have like a personal connection to, in some ways too.

So, yeah, I think that kind of just goes back to what I was saying earlier that when I was growing up, back home, it would be like, there's always this big look to the West, right? Like everything from the West, it's like better mindset, growing up there. But a big part of it too, is now seeing that, you know, here, and in this environment, like, there is this way for us to connect and make it so that we show other people, you know, this is who we are, and this is how we relate to the world. Our physical features are not what defines us entirely by any stretch. Here, you know, have some of our food, hang outwith us, come to the cafe.

Mia: Mm hmm. It's interesting, you know, because as someone who was born and raised in the States, it was like very different for me, where I was like, I never got to see myself in media. I never got to see myself in the books that I loved so much. I never got to see myself in TV and movies and things like that.

And so I always wanted to see myself on the page. But like, just as I am, as you said, right, you know, being Filipino. Filipino American specifically, right? Filipino American in the Midwest, which is, you know, regions matter. I'm sure, you know, there's also like you being in Toronto is very different than people in Vancouver, et cetera. I’m sure you don't need me to explain that.

And so I just wanted to show where it's just like, okay, being Filipino American shapes a lot of who I am and the way I think and it very specifically shapes the way the world sees me, but that's not all that I am. And same thing with my character, right? The fact that Lila is Filipino American and she's born and raised in the Midwest shapes her experiences. It shapes the way she was brought up. It shapes the way that she sees the world and it shapes the way the world sees her, which is very important when you are involved in murder mystery cases because the way that, you know.

Nastasha: Perception matters.

Mia: Particularly how the police department sees you will, you know, shape that, especially in the media.

And so I want to be cognizant of that in writing a cozy mystery. Like the fact that my protagonist is a woman of colour in a majority white town in the Midwest. Matters in various ways, but it also doesn't matter in other ways because at its heart, you know, especially the first book, it's more of a coming of age story.

She is a young woman whose dreams were crushed and she's trying to rebuild her life and help her family the best way that she can, and learn a lot about herself and she just happens to have to solve a murder along the way. You know, it's about more than just, you know, her identity. There's just, yeah, so many other things at play. And again, it's, it shapes her, but it's not all that she is. And I really wanted that. That's why I find genre so important because it's just like, yeah, we are just solving. Filipino food is just kind of like the gimmick to be like, Oh, what's this? You know.

Nastasha: I just wanted to ask, what was the most interesting thing you learned about the food of the Philippines? During your research, you know, maybe not, not necessarily that's gone into the books specifically. But yeah, anything you can share, interesting facts?

Mia: Like, unfortunately, the first things that come to mind, and I need to like preface this to the listeners is like, remember I write murder mysteries. So the things that I find in my research are obviously things that I'm trying to use in my books. So like, don't let that deter you based on the things I'm going to say.

But the two things that immediately popped to mind with that question is one that I learned, like in Arsenic and Adobo, that rice contains quite a bit of arsenic. If it's not like treated properly, and I was like, oh I mean, obviously we're fine. But it could be a problem and it came up in the case for a particular reason. And then also for the third book, Blackmail and Bibingka, I got the idea for that book years before I ever wrote it.

So another thing about being a writer, which I'm sure you’ve stumbled across this, where maybe you've heard a story or you saw something, or you read something in the news where you're like, Oh, I need to use this someday. I don't know for what. And you kind of like file it somewhere. So I had read and like saved the link, you know, in a Google doc like years ago, I think it was from CNN Asia. And it was reporting about dozens of people in the Philippines being rushed to the hospital and some dying because of poorly made lambanog. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but the coconut liquor, the coconut wine. And I was like, Oh, that's so sad. What is this about? And it's like, you know, in the news report, it was like, this is an alcoholic drink that's, you know, popularly, drunk around Christmas time in the Philippines.

It's kind of like moonshine, but it can be very dangerous because if not properly distilled, it contains large amounts of methanol. And so like, even if you buy it from a reputable source, again, if your source is not being very careful in their distillation, if they're trying to rush it for like the Christmas supply bump, it can contain lethal amounts of methanol.

And so like every year it's being reported, like this number of people being rushed to the hospital on Christmas day because of this coconut wine that they're drinking. And I was like, Oh, that's grim and fascinating.

Upcoming work

Nastasha: I know that you have an upcoming YA novel coming up, anything else that you're interested in sharing?

Mia: So I actually have two books coming out this year. So the first, as you mentioned, is my YA. It's titled Death in the Cards. I call it, it's like my queer brown Veronica Mars, if anyone's familiar with that older TV show. It is a young queer Philippine American teen, whose mother is a private investigator and her father is a mystery author.

And it's her dream to follow in her mother's footsteps. But her mom doesn't want that for her. Where she's like, no, I took this dangerous, unstable job because you know, I had to at the time, I want something different for you. I want something better for you.

But my teen detective is adamant, like, no, this is where I want to be. And so she is out to prove herself, that she, you know, is right to follow in her family's footsteps. And so her thing is that she is a tarot reader, she reads tarot cards as like a side hustle at her school, you know, for money. People come to her for advice and guidance and she uses the cards to give it to them. And one day she gives a rather ominous reading to an upperclassman at her school, and shortly after that reading, the girl she read for disappears. And the girl's younger sister, who is in the same grade as my protagonist, confronts her saying like, what did you say to make my sister run?

Because it's clear that the girl chose to leave for a reason, but we don't know what that reason is. And so, this is a chance for my protagonist to prove herself and to kind of take on her very first case, on her own. So that's been a lot of fun. That comes out May 13th. I'm nervous and excited.

It's very different writing for teens. But it's funny in a way, even though in the book she's 17, in many ways she's much more mature than Lila, who's in her like mid to late 20s. She’s like 25 when it starts and she does ages as it goes on, but in many ways, my protagonist is much wiser and more mature, due to her life circumstances and where she grew up.

And so that's the first book coming out, that’s May 13th. And then it's slated for end of November, but I don't have a specific date, I don't want to like put it out there in case it changes, but end of November is book six in the Tita Rosie's Kitchen series. And it's kind of bittersweet to say, but it's also the last book in the series.

It was the last book in my contract. So we were ending it here. That one's titled Death and Dinuguan. And it takes place around Valentine's Day. And the choice of dinuguan was me playing around with the idea of like calling it chocolate meat. I don't know if that was like something you've experienced growing up, but like, my mom and grandmother called it chocolate meat when we were younger.

And so I was like, ooh, Valentine's Day, chocolate meat, let me have some fun with this, and so, yeah, those are my two releases this year.

Nastasha: Amazing. I'm sure it's been a very busy few years for you.

Mia: Yeah, I debuted, May 4th, 2021.

Nastasha: And it’s been like one a year?

Mia: One or two, yeah, because I had books two and three come out the same year, and then after that it's like about a year apart, but yeah, it's basically seven books in four years. Including my YA.

Nastasha: Lots to choose from and pick up. I mean, definitely highly recommend starting from Arsenic and Adobo. To get to, you know, so you're on the right path, the same path and story as the characters. The last thing I want to ask is what are you excited to cook or eat next?

Mia: I've been trying to nail this recipe for a honey butter mochi, like Rice Krispie treats. So in the book, you know, I don't want to say too much, but there's a character named Dr. Jae Park, who loves like the honey butter flavoured Korean snacks. And so Lila is trying to come up with like a line of treats that utilize that honey butter flavour.

And so I've been like experimenting and I'm like, it sounds so simple, but getting those ratios and flavours right, or so that's not too sweet, or it's not too this or not, you can actually taste the honey. It's actually surprisingly difficult. And you know, I don't want to waste food. So I always have to wait until I'm meeting up with friends or family so I can kind of push my experiments out to them and be like, here, tell me what you think.

My mom and my brother's birthday is coming up. So I'm definitely going to make that. And I'm also going to make something for my mom, probably something ube flavoured. And then, we'll see.

Nastasha: So if you haven't had a chance to read the books yet, you can start with Arsenic and Adobo and move on from there. Consider saving a hold at your local library, if you live someplace where you can do that, or add it to your cart online, visit a bookstore, ask a friend if they have it. And then, of course, tell other people about it, too.

Thanks again to author Mia Manansala for making the time to chat with us for this episode, and you can head to the links in the show notes for her website and more information on the Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mysteries series, including the release dates for her upcoming books, Death in the Cards and Death and Dinuguan.

Theme music for this episode, as before, is by David Szestay, with segment music by Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear. Until next time, maraming salamat, thank you for listening.

A Food Trip In Iloilo And Cooking School In Antique - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Kimberly Eng and Ken Cazenas below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

This episode’s the first of a couple from my trip to the Western Visayas region of the Philippines. Today, we’re in the provinces of Iloilo and Antique.

Let’s get to it!

It always amazes how as soon as I get back to the Philippines, I just slip back into talking the exact same way I did when I was 19. It was a sunny morning in August, and I just gotten off a plane, barely slept for 24 hours. And I’m starting my Western Visayas food trip with some solid quality friend time. Meet Anton, who picked me up at the airport and drove us straight to Iloilo’s La Paz Public Market, because I was pretty insistent on what I wanted to eat. I wanted the real deal La Paz Batchoy - Iloilo’s famous noodle soup filled to the brim with all sorts of porky, delicious things, like chicharron and liver and a healthy dollop of offal - like, intestines, and kidneys - my favourite.

01:40 Netong's Batchoy at La Paz Public Market

NA: So, eto, yung sabaw, ma-garlicky, nalalasahan mo young chicharron.

A: And yung scallions.

NA: So Anton and I start talking about why Netong’s is his favourite - because their soup is more savoury, and not as sweet as, like, Deco’s which is around the corner. But, I asked, ba’t kaya siya matamis?

A: It’s either sugar, and maybe the bones (of the pig). Kasi naturally, bones are sweet.

NA: Anton, by the way, worked as a chef in Manila, and Dubai, and the Maldives after culinary school. So he kinda knows what he’s talking about. He tells me to dip this hefty rice cake into the bowl of soup…oh my god, ang sarap.

A: Di ba, medyo dense siya? (It’s dense, right?)

NA: And while I've eaten with this guy a bunch of times - I mean, we grew up along the same main street, and went to kindergarten, grade school, high school, AND college together - this one was different. I know it sounds strange, but taking this little space of mine for the podcast - far from perfect as it is - really just reminds me of why I like podcasting in the first place.

“Nag-request ka ba ng extra?”

I might not be a mukbang star - that things where people watch other people eat on the internet - but I guess this is kinda similar. This little space is where I can do things like share a very regular conversation with a friend - with the slurping and joking in Taglish and all. I mean, this is how I regularly talk - when I'm in the Philippines, anyway - and it's just as real as when I talk into a microphone in my apartment in Toronto, like I am right now, because they're really just two sides to the same version of me.

04:00 The language I'm most myself in

NA: I think that one thing that'll still take me awhile to get, is how "changing" myself to fit into Canadian society, affected me, and shaped me, and continues to challenge my understanding of identity. For a while, shortly after we got here, I was very ashamed of talking in Taglish - the language I grew up with, and really felt the most myself in. I mean, English is just as natural, don't get me wrong, but it’s really just another side of the same coin. English is like formal, professional, writerly Tash - and Taglish is everyday Tash. Like I've said - a bowl of soup is never just about the food.

Next, we try pancit molo. Molo is a district just past the boundary of Iloilo City, home to a wonton soup called pancit molo. Now pancit, in this case, refers to the wonton wrapper - these days it’s made with wheat flour - and basically are dumplings filled with a ground pork or chicken filling, sometimes there’s shrimp - served in a bowl with delicious, clear broth, again made from either pork or chicken bones. Most places that serve it offer toppings like chopped green onions and fried garlic.

So Anton and I make our way first to Molo Church, built in 1831, this beautiful cathedral looking structure in the middle of the plaza, with lots of people around, vendors selling ice cream on the sidewalk, and kids playing in the playground. The church itself is made of corals and stone, set with egg whites mixed with sand. Naturally, the egg yolks, leftover from the building process, had to go somewhere, and in the neighbouring town of Jaro, Iloilo, bakeries like the famous Biscocho Haus - which we also visited - have long churned out biscuits and pastries that make full use of those egg yolks.

06:15 Pancit Molo at Panadería de Molo

NA: Back to Molo - steps from the church, we found this place called Panaderia de Molo - another on my list. In my continued attempt to be a little like Drew Arellano, who’s the host of this travel show [that’s] super popular in the Philippines, you’re gonna hear a big more Taglish here.

Okay, so, we are in Panaderia de Molo, which is around the corner from Molo Church and Molo Mansion. Kumakain na kami ngayon ng pancit molo. Interestingly, molo is…kaya soya pancit molo, dahil eto yung original ‘parian’ or Chinese district ng Iloilo area. Ang sarap nung sabaw. Yung sabaw niya, iba siya dun sa La Paz Batchoy, obviously. Mas clear. Pero di ko alam kung bakit siya clear, di naman siya parang lasang herbs.

A: Ano siya, basically, bones…made with bones lang.

NA: Ang sarap.

A: It tastes like chicken noodle soup.

NA: Tikman mo yung soup na to. Iba siya. Mas gusto ko yung pork. May konting iba siya eh, no?

A: Di ba nga, pork broth is sweeter than chicken.

NA: Tapos yang pancit niya, yung noodles, gawa siya sa rice flour, pero yunga texture niya iba eh no? Medyo may kagat. Parang hindi siya boiled lang.

A: Pero mas makapal siya, compared sa normal rice flour.

NA: Oo no, yung wrapper. Tsaka parang may texture siya…

So what I basically said was the soup tasted much clearer than the batchoy we ate earlier. The broth itself was still pretty sweetish, you could taste the difference between the pork and the chicken stuffed dumplings. And the "pancit" itself - by that I mean, the dough that the wonton wrapper's made of - it’s got a little bit of a bite to it. As the shopkeeper listened into our conversation, she explained it's because they actually fry the raw wontons first, before freezing them. And from there, they get shipped to places like Manila and Cebu, or they're sold on site, and simply dropped into the soup, when people order them, and enjoy a bowl at the original Panaderia de Molo. I love how these dumplings look. They’re blistered from hot oil, chewy and hefty on their own. And definitely a meal in itself.

09:25 From Iloilo to Antique

NA: From Iloilo, I take off for the province of Antique, on board a bus that cost me about $2 for a one-way fare. It took me a little over four hours to get to the town of Tobias Fornier, on the southwest tip of Panay island. A previous mayor changed the town’s name from its original name - Dao - though everyone still calls it that, including the buses and jeepneys. And I mean, to me, that’s really what makes a place “that place”. Because changing something’s name doesn’t change its character, or its history.

On the bus, the driver on the bus was like a madman. And, just a bit of a travel story, that ride kinda felt like, I guess what you’d think of when you say “hold on for dear life”. Like, if I was a purely Western traveler, who’d never been to Asia…I would’ve been scared out of my wits. Just speeding through these hairpin turns around the side of a cliff. Like, with the ocean literally metres the road. On the flipside, I happen to love this shit, and really, in a weird way, I know that’s just how they do it, as tons of drivers have done this plenty times before. That doesn’t excuse dangerous driving, but I guess it just, sets the scene for what to expect if you travel like a local in certain parts of the Philippines.

11:00 Visiting Alpas Restaurant and Guesthouse

NA: I was headed to Alpas. Alpas is a restaurant and guesthouse in this little corner of Antique. A province I honestly didn’t know much about, other than it was named for the black ants, in Tagalog, called antique - hamtik, I later learned, in the local dialect called Kinaray-a.

11:25 Meet Ken and Kim

Alpas is run by Ken Cazenas and Kimberly Eng, a couple who met in San Francisco, California. Ken has worked in kitchens since he was 17, and worked his way up to being executive chef in restaurants from places like Beverley Hills, Hollywood, Los Angeles and Hong Kong. There, he and Kim lived for a year in 2016. Shortly after that, admittedly kinda burned out from a fast-paced life where “living” became a second distant to “working”. And they decided to move to Ken’s parents’ hometown in Dao.

I found myself attracted to the spirit behind Alpas - almost instantly - when I first came across them online, on Instagram. Ken and Kim’s belief in living sustainably, with zero waste where possible, to revive local culinary traditions, and genuinely work with people, local people, to bring about a deeper understanding of the reality of our food systems. As broken as it is, and in strong need of repair, especially in places like these in the Philippines. I don’t know, I guess, it just resonated, so well, and I knew I had to visit soon, and I knew I had to make it a stop in my western Visayas visit.

Alpas is along the main highway that follows the coastline of Antique. The property’s right by the beach, and I highly recommend staying overnight at the guesthouse. Beyond a very relaxing, you will be treated to a fantastic set of meals - from dinner, to breakfast and lunch the next day - made with ingredients sourced from the garden on site, or the local market.

I got off the bus on this rainy day, from that driver who was a madman, and walked up to this tall bamboo structure, with slanted roofs that looked impermeable to the unpredictable weather. Kim came out to greet me with an umbrella. I checked in at the desk, and then Kim led me out back towards my home for the night. This rustic hut, steps from the beach, with banana and coconut trees all around. I settled in, had a cigarette, then walked back up to the restaurant for a dinner that I had been looking forward to for months.

Here’s Kim.

14:00 Sulig and tisa

KE: So this is a salad of kulitis and kamote leaves, with cucumber, radish, tomato, onion. [There’s] a chilled spicy beef stomach. Third dish is a roasted kamote, with house-made mayo. Fourth is a grilled eggplant with fried garlic and peanuts. And the last is grilled sulig, with fermented cabbage. Dessert will be suman with coconut cream, candied tisa and banana.

NA: What’s sulig?

KE: Sulig is a fish.

NA: Okay. And tisa?

KE: Tisa is a starchy fruit. It resembles like a cross between a mango and a kamote, but when you taste it, it’s like an already boiled sweet kamote.

NA: I’ve definitely never had that before.

KE: It looks like, I don’t know if we have the whole version of it anymore, I think we’ve already processed it…but it looks like…I hope I didn’t delete it already….it looks like this.

NA: Oh wow. Almost looks like cacao fruit. Like the whole thing.

KE: And on the inside, it looks, like powdery. When you taste it, it’s like, already cooked kamote, but it’s super sweet. It’s so cool.

NA: That’s crazy.

15:30 "Only the goats eat it”

KE: And it came about because we were watching a YouTube video of, um, you know Mark Weins, the travel blogger?

NA: Yup.

KE: Yeah, so we was going to Peru. And he went to the market there, and he picked up this fruit. And we’ve always been, like, nagging the girls, our staff, asking if they have neighbours or family members, who like, grow these things, that are literally just falling and rotting on the ground, to let us know. Like, we’ll ask you to harvest it, or for someone to harvest it, collect it, and we’ll pay per kilo, at a reasonable price. And they didn’t mention it till they saw him pick it up at the Peru market, and they were like, oh, we have that here! And then we asked, why hasn’t anyone used it? They said, basically, it was so high now, so all the fruits fall to the ground.

NA: Oh, like the tree itself is pretty high.

KE: Yeah. So the fruits fall to the ground, and only the goats eat it. So, yeah.

NA: Sweet. Okay, so I get to try the candied tisa.

KE: It’s really, really interesting.

NA: The smell of that lemongrass is like, whew.

KE: Did you want another drink? We also have cocktails. We have a calamansi tanduay, and a butterfly pea with gin cocktail. Or buko banana shake.

NA: I did see the butterfly pea one…is that an actual pea, like a type of pea?

KE: No, it’s a flower. But they call it, like, there’s the blue ternate flower, also known as the butterfly pea flower. It’s this really beautiful, vibrant violet colour.

NA: I already had my eye on that. So yes.

KE: I’ll join you on that one.

17:15 Tonight's dinner menu: green salad, grilled fish, spicy beef stomach, roasted sweet potatoes, grilled eggplant, suman with coconut cream and bananas

NA: Everything on the table in front of me was served on a broad leaf that lined one of three types of tableware. Bowls that were made from dried coconut shells, hollowed out tubes of bamboo, and plates that made of woven rattan.

So my observations on everything so far…the grilled sulig is so delicious. The texture of the fish itself is a little bit milky. Very light on the fish flavour. Pairs so well with the fermented cabbage, like, sauerkraut style, no vinegar at all. But for some reason, it’s just so soft, and so tasty. I don’t know why. Next up we have the beef stomach, that has quite a bit of kick to it. It’s got quite a bit of bird’s eye chilli, and I’m guessing some radishes. Also with a little bit of acid. Very good. Then the salad - the salad is one of my favourite things. The leaves of the sweet potato are very tender. Kind of looks like sili leaves, but much smaller that what I would typically associate with sweet potato leaves. It’s got cucumbers, tomatoes. What kind of flower is this?

KE: Blue ternate, or butterfly pea.

NA: The butterfly pea. I’m just recording my tasting notes on everything. There’s also the fingering kamote and potatoes with aioli. The aioli is very good, nice balance of the acidity, with quite a bit of garlic. The grilled eggplants are also very soft. There’s - mmm - a lot of friend garlic on top of that. Very tasty. The rice is something they call purple rice. It’s a mix of red rice and SRI rice. Just digging into the dessert now. The tisa, which is the fruit…I’m trying to figure out what that tastes like. It does taste, like, sweet potato-ey.

KE: Yeah, you’re getting a hybrid of flavours, because there’s muscovado sugar added to that. And some toasted coconut flakes also.

NA: Then there’s bananas, the suman. So just to run through that again: I had a salad of amaranth, or kulitis, and sweet potato, or camote leaves, with cucumber, sliced radishes, tomatoes and onions. I had a starter of chilled spicy beef stomach - man, that was so good. There was some roasted camote with housemade aioli. And grilled eggplant with fried garlic and peanuts. There was this crisp-skinned, deliciously charred whole sulig - a silver-skinned fish found largely in southeast Asia up to Japan. And I had a drink that was made with gin and garnished with blue ternate leaves, also known as butterfly peas. And for dessert, there was suman, a rice cake, with coconut cream, candied tisa and bananas.

21:30 A feeling I chase

NA: Under this cavernous structure made entirely of bamboo, built by people from town, with this wood-fed hearth that anchors and powers the kitchen...I was just beyond myself. By this time, the power went out, and I could hear the rain start to trickle, just a little bit, beyond the doors. There were three little tea candles in cut-off bamboo ends in front of me. I just had a fantastic meal and I was feeling pretty great. I was feeling happy, and pretty content.

The next day, I woke up pretty early to skies that barely cleared up, and watched a couple of fishing boats - the motorized bancas that you see everywhere in the Philippines - offload their catch for the day. There wasn’t too much of it. For breakfast, I had stir-fried rice and vegetables with a cup of coffee.

22:45 Off to the market

NA: We were gonna head off to the market before my cooking lesson, and so Ken called a tricycle, and we hopped in and then made our way to the market in the main town. It wasn’t a very busy one, given there aren’t that many people here. But everyone knew him and said hello, in that way I miss so much about the Philippines. We walked around with baskets called “bayong” to collect fish - more sulig, since it was in season - a variety of vegetables, and then we stopped by the dry goods store to stock up on beer. Also an essential. This was my kind of morning.

I couldn’t help but feel, I guess, unsurprisingly, at home. While we were on our way back, sitting in a tricycle as it sped past rice paddies and the jagged coastline that was just by the side of the road. You know I love a good landscape, and the mountains, and the sea…it’s just stuff that made me feel like I was in exactly at the right place, at the right time.

24:00 What "Alpas" means

NA: Alpas, by the way, means “to break free”. As in, “naka-alpas ka”, meaning you’ve broken free from your regular routine, your daily life. And their philosophy, here, is really kind of that, in a nutshell. It’s breaking free from tradition, and breaking free from your view of things that can sometimes be kept in a box.

We got back, and it was time to get cooking. I mean, I did come for a cooking class, after all. Here’s Ken.

24:40 Our goal for today's market haul

KC: We’ll go over the ingredients really quick. We have the kamote leaves, that you saw at the market. Kangkong also, which you saw at the market. These will be for the salad. There’s sweet pepper, eggplant, cucumber, winged beans, okra, calamansi, sili, onion, ginger, garlic, and tomato. And the goal is to have minimal wastage. Meaning, if we’re gonna use just the leaves for the salad, then we can take the tender stems, [and] we can either add it or incorporate it into the salsa. Or we can cook it along with the stuffing. Right? So you kind of want to [think that] doing minimal wastage allows you to do things that you wouldn’t normally think about doing, you know. You kinda have to be resourceful and creative. Because I think a lot of waste comes from laziness, right? You’re not really exercising your brain, you’re kinda just like, whatever. Easy, throw it away, you know, be done with it.

NA: But then the kangkong stems especially, like, I remember my lola used to just make adobong kangkong. And that’s one of my favourite parts actually. The sauce would just go into it, but then it still has that crunch.

KC: Yeah, exactly.

NA: After we lay out the morning’s haul on the table, I ask Ken to give us a rundown of what’s happening.

26:20 Cooking school with Ken

NA: So we’re gonna make a salad?

KC: Yeah, a really nice salad, not just focused on leafy greens, but more on vegetables. So for example, like, winged beans, okra, eggplant, bell pepper, cucumber. So it’s gonna be like a really filling salad, not just leaves. And then I’m thinking of making a stuffing for the fish, and also some sort of like, salsa, for the fish. All in all, a nice hearty meal, but it shouldn’t feel heavy, because everything is mainly plant-based. And yeah, the fish we have is sulig. But once you’re ready, [with] the apron, towel, and then we’ll get started.

NA: Can I say, I just gotta give some big love here. All morning Ken’s got this wicked playlist going. Right now, we got Lil Troy’s “Wanna Be A Baller”, a sweet 90s throwback, with chickens crowing in yard. It’s honestly the best. I’m pretty certain there’s nowhere else on the internet you’re gonna hear this particular juxtaposition of cultures. Like, old school hiphop in the Philippine countryside with this guy who’s born in Saudi, and me, a Canadian transplant, learning how to make the most of the foods that grew around. So what’s the trick with preparing sulig, I ask?

28:10 Preparing sulig

KC: Salt will firm up the flesh, because it’s a very soft-fleshed fish. So that it can hold, or withstand, really nice roasting, without falling apart. It’s only been about an hour or so [since we salted] but it’s just very light. We’re gonna let it go a little bit longer. After, we can finish our vegetable prep. Then we’ll wash this, and cut open the cavity so that there’s more room for the stuffing.

NA: Do you normally roast it in like banana leaves, or like some other kind of leaf? Or does it go directly on the coals [over a grate]?

KC: I mean, I think it depends on what you really want. Like what you wanna do. I think roasting in a banana leaf is more a steaming/baking sort of thing. But what I want is the skin to get charred, you know.

NA. Nice and crisp.

KC: Yeah, exactly. I mean the banana leaf, it does impart a good flavour, but that’s not what we’re looking for today. I mean, there’s really no rules to cooking, it’s all really what you have in mind, and then your execution.

NA: Well that’s reassuring - and I say that without sarcasm. Because a lot of times, I find I just hesitate with trying stuff. But, I guess, how else will you learn? Now that we got the fish sorted out, it’s time to turn our eye to the salad, stuffing, and salsa.

29:40 Salad, stuffing and salsa

KC: So what I’m thinking is, maybe it’ll give a nice contrast to the salsa, if we just roast the stems in a pan, you know. And then we’ll chop it up and add it to the salsa. So the salsa’s not 100% raw and fresh, you’ll have a little bit of like, smokiness.

NA: Cool.

KC: Right. So the eggplant also, we will cut, and then we will toast [with] the bell pepper. I mean, you can basically utilize all these things, in those three elements, meaning the salad, the stuffing and the salsa.

NA: All from this basic set.

KC: Yeah, I mean, you can use this in all three, or that in all three. However you please, but then that’s up to you.

NA: I have a quick question about the winged beans - the sigarilyas, that’s what this is, right?

KC: Yes.

NA: I don’t have much experience with preparing it. Like, how would you normally make [them]? Like for the salad we’re gonna make today, how would we prepare it?

KC: I would just sear it, so it’s still crunchy. I mean, again, we want to create layers. Not just blanching everything, not just steaming everything, not just grilling everything. You want a mixture of raw, fresh, cooked, caramelized, to charred, what have you. But you want depth. And that’s what we’re gonna try to do with these vegetables.

NA: I’m ready.

KC: Alright.

31:20 The winged bean theory

NA: So I’m a little fixated on winged beans at this point. Because I see them so often in grocery stores, here in Toronto, where lots of people specifically from South Asia use winged beans in their everyday cooking. For me, though, I kind of just knew one way to prepare them, in a savoury stew for something like pinakbet. But what else is out there? I don’t really know much very about how to prepare it.

KC: I eat it raw. I eat it pickled. I eat it fermented, and grilled, you know. As long as you like a certain ingredient, you can prepare it any way you like. Here, it’s in soup.

NA: Adds some nice body to it, I guess, a little bit? It doesn’t have any slime inside it, right?

KC: No, it has a pretty resilient structure, you know. Sometime in the past, I read about it, it has a lot of health benefits, just has a lot of nutrients.

NA: And it happens to be very tasty. Even like, raw.

KC: Yeah.

NA: Kinda like green beans, taste wise. I kinda like the idea of charring these, to get that kinda smokiness on the outside.

KC: So I’ll go ahead and get that started, I’ll put this on the grill.

33:20 Breaking it down

KC: Let’s start by putting the salad ingredients in here. We’ll put the stuffing ingredients in here, and then we’ll put the rest here. So this is why I exercise this also, the thinking part of cooking. You have to compartmentalize what you have, you know what I mean. It’s like, this is the reason that you have, like, a vision for dish. And then after that, you understand the ingredients you have. Then after that, you break them down even further. Once you break them down into their categories, you can break them down even further in terms of cooking, and texture, and technique, and execution. Them you break them down further, in terms of seasoning and mouthfeel.

34:25 "How do you normally approach cooking?"

NA: Okay. I haven’t really thought of approaching it that way, but that makes sense.

KC: How do you normally approach cooking?

NA: Based on what my cravings are, at the moment.

KC: But like this, if you’re given something you’re not craving, but it’s more of like, resourcefulness-based. How would you approach that?

NA: Um, well, flavour, I guess. Like the kamote tops, after having them in the salad last night, I know 100% I want to eat them raw, in a salad. Because I really like them that way, they’re really good. So I definitely want these to go in the salad. Maybe the stuffing too, a little bit.

KC: You also have to consider, like, the size of the fish that you saw. You can’t overstuff it.

NA: Right, you gotta have a little bit of room in it. Yeah. So I continue to ponder on what to include in my stuffing for the fish, and, I guess naturally, this led to another line of thought - about rethinking my relationship with vegetables.

35:35 Rethinking my relationship with vegetables

NA: Because I think when you say, like, salad, and like most ensalada in Tagalog, like where my mind goes, what I immediately picture is more kind of like, a tomato and salted egg salad.

KC: Yeah.

NA: And that’s kind of what’s interesting for like, Filipino people who have grown up abroad too, is that like, for the most part, you don’t really think about vegetables in that way. Because in most Filipino dishes that you would cook at home, like in your sinigang or pinakbet, like the vegetables are always stewed.

KC: Or disguised.

36:30 The definition of a salad

NA: Yeah. They’re not featured as kind of like, the base ingredient. Which is obviously kind of a shame and a waste, but then maybe that’s just because people don’t think of them that way, as something that like, you can eat raw. Or like the definition of a salad I just, for most people, the salted egg and tomato. But there is a lot [more].

KC: But I think it’s just so bizarre for me, being in an agricultural nation, that vegetables seem to be…I mean, besides the fact that it’s not really part of the diet, it’s also expensive, which doesn’t make sense to me.

NA: I know.

KC: Like, poor countries eat plant-based, you know. It’s what’s there, it’s what’s available. Farmers eat what they grow. It’s just, I don’t know, something really deep, deep down, that fucked everybody over, in terms of the thinking.

NA: Well, like from a historical context, I guess it’s also just the idea that, like, if you have meat, then it’s kind of like a status symbol. But then the sad part is, that that has resulted in vegetables kind of being relegated as like, for lack of a better word, a poor man’s food. Even though it shouldn’t be.

KC: Maybe historically, but in terms of modern times…only the rich are actually vegans and vegetarians.

NA: Yeah.

KC: So what’s happening in this world?

38:20 Food deserts in the Philippines?

NA: What is happening indeed. The issue of vegetables being expensive is really a global one. Here in North America, lots of people talk about “food deserts” and it’s honestly pretty eye-opening to just read about it. A “food desert” is basically someplace - for example, like, blocks of apartment buildings in a big city, that are far away from public transport, far away from grocery stores and other shopping areas that are accessible. Places that sell fresh fruit and vegetables. And because, for example here, in Toronto, where winter can last for up to half a year, if you happen to be a single parent with school aged kids, who live in one of these place, a food desert…I mean, if you work two jobs and rely on a bus to get you everywhere, it’s just all that more difficult to include the things that you know you need to include in your diet, because it’s so much easier to just buy a frozen dinner at a convenience store.

In the Philippines, I guess, I kinda like to think that the parallel to this urban “food desert” is the fact that in the countryside - like in rural areas where many farming families live, places like Tobias Fornier, where I was - money tends to be spent on highly processed meats, like corned beef in a can. But how, exactly, has the Filipino palate come to rely on, and prefer, the intense saltiness of these food items? I mean, this opens up a whole other conversation about the everyday effects of colonialism, but to bring it back to now…that desire to consume foods of the land, that are such an intrinsic part of Filipino culture, in traditional ways…if there’s a way for us to reconnect that, or to at least, make that a much larger part of our lives [compared] to how it already is…I think that would be at least a step forward. How do we get back to yearning for, and choosing, to consume more vegetables, because we genuinely like them?

I’m gonna riff off a little bit on the salad you made last night. Cause I really liked the texture of the cucumber. So it has, like, a different kind of fresh crunch, along with the sweet potato leaves. And I do like the shallots in there as well. It doesn’t have that extra bite. Maybe for the salsa, let’s do a mix, and put some of the raw [kangkong] stems, chop it up finely for the salsa. And then, let’s try roasting these cause I’m curious…

KC: But these are, I mean, at a certain point they do get tough. But another thing that I encourage people to do in their house, if they’re not growing kangkong, or kamote leaves, if you’re not gonna eat the stems…all you have to do is stick them in water, and in a couple days they’ll start to root, you know. And then you just plant it directly in the ground. And it’s very low maintenance.

NA: Makes sense.

KC: But no one does it.

NA: Okay. Well I’ll stick some into the fish. I’ll put some shallots, and garlic, a little bit of calamansi juice. The winged beans, what do I do with that…actually, maybe I’ll put some of the chilis into the fish. The okra, I want to roast, I will put that in the salad…now, the sigarilyas, where would that go? With some ginger, in the stuffing.

43:00 Applying the bean theory

NA: I’m trying to think of where I want the sigarilyas to go.

KC: Well, you have four of them.

NA: I like them raw, actually. So I’ll save them for the salsa. Although maybe, I want to roast these too…

KC: But like you said to me earlier, about [how] you’re not so familiar with it…this is your chance to be able to prepare it in other ways, because you’re already gonna have it raw.

NA: I do like them raw, so I’ll keep two for the salsa. And then, since I want to include a bit of the charred element in the salad, I definitely want to roast the okra. I’ll try roasting that too, the sigarilyas. And then the eggplant and the pepper..

KC: They’re roasting now. Don’t forget about your kamote.

NA: Wonder if I should roast these ones too.

KC: But then, like, you’re going in the same direction with everything. You know what I’m saying?

NA: Oh, it’s really soft. Is this already cooked?

KC: It’s been blanched. Think outside of the box. Like what have you never had kamote in? If you always have it roasted, what other preparation have you never had it in before? That’s where we wanna think.

NA: It’d be really nice to kind of, like, slice it. Because of the purple, I really like the colour of it. Maybe that would be nice, thin slices to top the salad with.

KC: Boom.

NA: Let’s do that.

KC: So then, at this point, we’re gonna go ahead and start processing each tray, at a time, before we actually touch the fish. So I think for the salad ingredients, we will start cutting it and then we’ll put everything in here. And then your plan for the winged beans, and the okra, is to roast it?

NA: Yes.

KC: Okay, I’ll go ahead and roast these. This bowl is gonna be for your vinaigrette. But you can go ahead and start processing this, however size and shape you want.

NA: So Ken asks me what Filipino dish I actually make quite a bit at home, in Canada. And I said, as expected, I often make chicken adobo with coconut milk. We talked about stuff we’ve read about the origins of adobo as an indigenous cooking method, and how it was given a Spanish name that most closely resembled what the colonists knew in their language. Ken pulls out The Governor General’s Kitchen, by Felice Sta. Maria, from his little library, on a shelf behind us.

KC: Okay, so this recipe, it’s in Spanish, but it’s saying equal parts water to vinegar. Then you put onions, with parsley, garlic, salt and pepper. Parsley. So once upon a time, it grew here.

NA: And people actually included it in [their] cooking.

KC: Well, you know, capers actually grew here too. Because of the Spaniards. I think we’re losing our biodiversity. But it’s not even, like, plant life that’s lacking diversity - it’s everything, you know. And it’s so sad, we’re losing more and more plants. Just because no one’s utilizing them.

NA: I like the charred taste of this, so I’m putting a little bit of it in the stuffing.

KC: Yeah. Because that was my thought, at first. But I’m trying not to think so loud, so you don’t catch my thoughts, and [let it] interrupt yours.

48:05 Today's lunch: salad of roasted okra, peppers, eggplants, winged beans and sweet potatoes, kangkong-stuffed fish, cucumber and tomato salsa

NA: Okay, so my cooking class with Ken has just finished. And I am about to sit down and eat this incredible spread. I am so excited. I’ve spent the last hour prepping everything. We got some ingredients from the market this morning, when we went out for a quick walk. So yeah, I’m gonna give you a quick rundown of what we have.

Obviously there’s some rice, some red rice that they serve here. Moving onto the salad, we had sweet potato leaves, or kamote tops, some cucumbers, shallots. We also had some grilled okra, grilled sigarilyas, or winged beans. Grilled eggplants in there, because I really wanted some smoky elements and textures to the salad, thanks to Ken’s prodding and suggestions for that. On top of the salad, as a garnish, we also have some purple sweet potatoes, very much looks like ube, but it’s technically not, it is a sweet potato, just blanched, so it’s got quite a bit of heft to it. And beyond the purple sweet potatoes, there’s also two other kinds of sweet potatoes that were a lot starchier. And we kinda decided to make it a crumbly topping, because they were quite starchy. When I was cutting into it earlier, it kinda just like, fell apart. And so we decided to roast them, and that added an incredible dimension, in terms of texture to it. So now we’ve got that sort of, mmm, crunchy crumble on top.

For the salad, the dressing is also made of calamansi, and some coconut vinegar. Now, the coconut vinegar itself is flavoured with lemongrass and ginger. God, it’s so good. And the kicker is that we also added some extra-virgin coconut oil. And let me tell you, this coconut oil is like, the best I’ve ever had.

Moving onto the fish, we had sulig, which is the same kind of fish that I had last night, grilled over an open fire, for about three to four minutes each side. We did make a stuffing for the fish, that we sautéed beforehand. Again, using the same, sort of, market basket ingredients that started off with. So the stuffing in the fish has garlic, ginger, shallots, sautéed in a little bit of pork lard. Honestly, I don’t understand how such incredible aromas can come from something so simple. But when the quality is good, can’t complain about that. We sautéed the stuffing with kangkong stems, and kangkong leaves. Now that is something I would not have every thought of doing.

The flesh looks really tender, and very milky. Oh my god, that tastes so good. Okay, so beyond the fish, there’s also a salsa, that you see on the board. The salsa is made of chopped up cucumbers, tomatoes, a little bit of calamansi as well in there. And because I’m kind of in love with sigarilyas right now, we roasted them for the salad, but for the salsa I kept it raw. And the flavour and the texture of the raw sigarilyas is…it’s not bitter, which is what I like about it, and I guess what surprised me about it. It’s just nice and crunchy and crisp. It keeps that freshness of the salsa intact. Also tossed in some of the young, tender stems of the kamote tops, with the idea that nothing ever goes to waste. So yeah, I’m ready to dig in.

I’m gonna start with a little bit of the salad…god, that dressing is delicious. See honestly, if I could have this for lunch, every day, I would have no problem switching over. It would’t even be an issue, switching over to a plant-based diet. Now to try the fish…it’s crazy how much flavour the stuffing provides. Despite the fact that, I think sautéing the stuffing really does make the flavours a lot more immediate…because it doesn’t have a lot of time to seep into the fish, like we literally stuffed the fish right before it went on the grill. But you can definitely taste the aromatics that went into that. And the salad, along with that, so good. Alright, well, I’m gonna enjoy the rest of this, and probably dream about this lunch for a little while, until I come back here and get an opportunity to do it again.

WRAP-UP

My warmest thanks to Ken Cazenas, Kimberly Eng, and their lovely staff at Alpas Restaurant and Guesthouse in Tobias Fornier, Antique. Maraming, maraming salamat. You can find Alpas on Facebook, Instragram, Tripadvisor and their website, alpasph.com.

54:35 Uncovering culinary experiences in the Philippines

If you’ve listened this far, I really hope I’ve convinced you to visit and seek out experiences like these in the Philippines. Because there is a growing number of them, and I honestly just urge you. If you’re interested in visiting places for food, and their food culture, there’s so much of that to see in the Philippines. And especially if you’re a Filipino person…you kind of owe it to yourself to explore that. And that’s really what Exploring Filipino Kitchens is about.

Ken gave me so much food for thought during this visit. As someone who chooses to make the country that my parents worked so hard to leave, basically the place I want to visit every time I save up for two weeks of vacation…it’s rewarding, in more ways than I can count, and more ways than I can describe right now. Not just because your dollar goes a long way, but because as someone who has the opportunities and the financial resources to actually travel…I guess, in my continued quest, let’s call it, to understand more about what I can do as a person in the diaspora, if I’m the kind of person who’s interested in travelling anyway for those kinds of meaningful connections and very personal experiences when you’re out travelling the world, like, there’s so much of that in the Philippines. I highly urge you to go. Because the understanding that you’ll get of yourself, as you walk away from it, is something that’s very hard to measure. At least for myself. And of course, thank you to my good friend Anton. I love that we’re adulting, and we’re doing it right I think.

Our theme music for this episode is by David Szestay, segment music is by Eric and Magill, Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear.

Visit exploringfilipinokithchens.com for past episodes, and I’d really love if you shared this episode with someone else who’d enjoy it! Like I’ve said, recommendations are everything. Because, even if a small percentage of all the people who visit Iloilo City, made the short drive up to Antique, it would make a big difference, and you’d have an experience to share with the world.

Maraming salamat, and until next time - thank you for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 23: A Food Trip In Iloilo And Cooking School In Antique”.

The Coconut Kitchen - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Regina Tolentino Newport below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

This episode, we’re going nuts - you know it’s coming - for the coconut. I am so excited. You know, I kinda forgot how much fun it is to do a spotlight on certain ingredients, and while this episode isn’t comprehensive in any way…if you wanna learn about coconuts and how they’re prepared in the Philippines, Regee Newport is basically the best person to ask.

01:40 Why I loved the book

I first learned about Regee and her book, called “Coconut Kitchen: Appetizers and Main Dishes”, through the Culinary Historians of the Philippines, which I’ve actually been following online for a couple of years now. When I went back to Manila, I went to a bookstore that I knew specifically stocked the book, because it was just really interesting to me, to see that there’s this person based in the east coast of the US, writing about coconut recipes in the Philippines. And I mean, lots of other cookbooks feature coconuts, for sure, but this was more like the kind of cookbook you would pick up at like a Chapters Indigo bookstore, that’s like a big chain here in Canada. It looked appealing, the titles of the recipes all sounded like things I wanted to make, and the instructions - and the way the recipes were structured - as I was browsing through the book, seemed very approachable. And that to me, is a good hallmark of a cookbook that I’m actually gonna use.

And so I was excited to bring it back with me, here to Toronto. And honestly, all the dishes I’ve made from it have been amazing. They turn out they way I picture them to. They’re colourful, there’s like, lots of different textures in the dishes, and they’re packed with all this flavour, which, I mean, I know coconuts are flavourful, I know they’re got a lot of depth to them. But when you combine them with other ingredients and spices…you can get a really deep and complex mixture from it. Anyway, so I tried using canned coconut milk, and frozen coconut strips to make some of the recipes, and they turned out pretty well. So right now, I’m just imagining - if I actually had a kitchen in the Philippines, where I could easily get like mature, dried coconuts, with that really nice kind of coconut meat…the kind you can freshly grate, from something called a ‘kabayo’, or horse. It’s that little bench, with the tool scraper thing at the end. I can just picture myself spending hours on this thing, scraping away a whole bunch of coconuts. And like, squeezing them, feeling that thick coconut cream just glide through my fingers as I press into it. Probably it’s gonna be in like, this plastic tub, maybe a metal one. And you know, you’d use the first press of that cream for a really nice stew, and then use the second press as coconut milk - like, really good coconut milk, we’re not talking canned stuff here. And a third, because nothing ever goes to waste.

So you can imagine, I’m reading this book, and thinking about how i can bring a sense of that into my kitchen, into my condo. It’s exciting. So I’m equally excited to share this episode with you all. We’re gonna learn all about what the Coconut Kitchen is with Regee Tolentino Newport, and we’re gonna learn about her incredible culinary journey. Going back to school, rediscovering the value of foods that grow in the Philippines, and what led her to founding the Culinary Historians of the Philippines, which is such an amazing organization in itself. And of course, we’re gonna talk about the book. If you find a copy of “Coconut Kitchen: Appetizers and Main Dishes”, I highly recommend you buy it!

Let’s get to it.

INTERVIEW

05:00 About Regee

RN: I am Regina Tolentino Newport, but friends call me Regee. First off, I am a lola to two really adorable grandchildren. And secondly, I’m a late blooming cookbook author and culinary student. I grew up in the Philippines and I moved to the US when I was 29. After I retired from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) in 2003, I decided to go to culinary school, at the age of 55. There’s a whole story to that.

NA: I'll bet! When we came to Canada, I worked in different hotels for a long time. I really like that work, and I’m still sort of in the hospitality and travel industry now, at my day job. But I also really wanted to learn how to write, because like I mentioned in my first email, the appreciation for the depth and the diversity of Filipino cuisine…I think really, as with a lot of people, it kind of hits you, when you start missing it, and you’re out of the country.

RN: Well, times have really changed, you know. I’m really very happy and proud that Philippine cuisine is now in the forefront, you know. And a lot of people are putting a spotlight on it now, globally. You know, it was very different just ten years ago. I mean, even I have four sisters, and three brothers, and all the girls are good cooks, including my mom, her mom, and her mom’s mom. Everybody is a good cook. So it’s just taken for granted, and you never really focus, you know. And this is what I realized, you know, when I went to culinary school. People were asking me, why are you going to culinary school? Because I love to cook, and I really did not think that way before. You just cooked because, well, because you cooked! And you get compliments here and there, but you never really focus on [the fact] that you can really cook up a storm, and make yourself proud. It never occurred to me. Only now.

NA: As you say in the book, it’s never too late, and there’s always a lot of room to learn.

07:50 Going to culinary school at 55

RN: No, no…it’s never too late. So it was a year and a half Cordon Bleu diploma course. And it very funny, you know, because my classes, at 55, literally all my classmates were younger than my kids. So I was the mommy of the class. They called me ‘mom’.

Now I have to make yabang, brag a little bit, because my cookbook won two awards - one international, and one national. My cookbook is the “Coconut Kitchen”, and I’m gonna tell the story of why I decided to write a cookbook about coconuts. The Coconut Kitchen was published by Anvil, in the Philippines, in late 2017. I really got the surprise of my life when I was informed that I had been nominated as one of the three finalists in its category, for the 2018 annual Gourmand World Cookbook Award. I nearly fainted when I saw it, I thought it was a prank, you know, when I got the email. Anyway that’s the international award. The other one is a local one, again, one of the three finalists for the 37th National Book Awards of the Philippines. The category was ‘Best Book - Food’.

09:45 On becoming an author

RN: So can you imagine, this tiny little book, you know, which I laboured for more than two years on, all of a sudden won these two awards. And my mother, my own mother, when she heard it, she was just astounded. Like we all were. Well, my husband, who’s my number one fan, was the one who said, “Who was not surprised? See?” Anyway, so I’m very proud of that.

So I divide my time between Washington, DC, and Manila. And while I was working on the book for the past, more than two years really, I made so many trips to Manila. And there was an agreement with Anvil for me to do a second book, but I haven’t really started focusing on that. Because this first book, at their insistence, includes recipes for appetizers and main dishes. Because, they said, coconut desserts deserve their own book. So they didn’t want me to include desserts in this first book. So I said, okay. Now, the second book is supposed to be all coconut desserts. But, you know, I have all the recipes collected, and I just need a kick in the behind to start working on it. So that will be another, I don’t know, another maybe two years of my life down the line.

NA: Okay, so I gotta pause here for a minute and say that every time I listen to this part, when Reggie shares her plans for a second book about how coconuts are cooked in the Philippines, for desserts especially…and she lets us glimpse a little bit into the amount of work this entails - it makes me feel all kinds of things. Like, I can only imagine how daunting it might be to see all these amazing, delicious recipes, like laid out on a table, printed on paper, written out on cards. And knowing that there’s so much in there you just wanna be able to capture and share with everyone. But, also thinking that, wow, it’s gonna take a long time to test and evaluate and develop all these amazing recipes, which are treasures in themselves, but translated for a home kitchen. And then, obviously, to write an entire book about it. And I don’t know, it just excites me, because I love the idea of developing recipes for people to actually replicate and cook from.

Anyway, at the same time, like from the perspective of a Filipino person living in Canada, who just like yearns for this stuff. This pretty simply made, but still incredibly better than anything you can find in a grocery store. This kind of dessert, like the homemade stuff, I can’t help but think, what can I do to show that I support the creation and publication of these kinds of resources. Because, we need them. Like, if I asked any Filipino chef in the diaspora - even just starting with that set - whether they would like to include a cookbook of coconut desserts in their collection, I bet you 100% would say yes.

And I think of this stuff because, imagine you're at a dinner party, or maybe a potluck at work. If you're listening to this, there's a pretty high chance you live somewhere where at least one other person around you has never had a coconut dessert from the Philippines. Maybe you haven't either. And maybe on your picnic spread, you see a Korean rice cake, or a sweet Indian gulab jamun on the table. Would it be great to see some some biko - that sticky rice cake, that’s just proudly Filipino, topped with latik, and latik is like this coconut cream that’s reduced to this beautiful caramelly, syrupy consistency. It’s made with coconut milk and sugar and it’s thing that you just drizzle on top of rice cakes, and basically everything else you put in front of me, if we’re being honest. I can just taste it now. I’m aspirational, but admittedly, this is the kind of thing I aspire to.

15:20 How Culinary Historians of the Philippines (CHOP) began

RN: I forgot to mention about CHOP, the Culinary Historians of the Philippines. I founded an organization called Culinary Historians of the Philippines, or CHOP for short. And it is a sister organization of the Culinary Historians of Washington DC. I founded this group in 2011, can you believe? It took almost three years to really get going, for the membership to expand. And now, we’re running close to about a hundred members. It’s a wonderful organization. Everyone is so friendly, you know, it’s like a family.

NA: I can almost imagine being in a room and in a meeting for that. I wondered if, for listeners, you could give us a quick summary of what the objectives of CHOP are?

RN: Oh yeah, of course. Well, first and foremost, it’s called “Culinary Historians of the Philippines”, but we do not claim to be historians in the scholarly sense of the word. We are students of culinary history, about the Philippines. And our principal objective is to study, help preserve, and promote [the] heritage cuisines of the Philippines.

There’s a lack of knowledge among, I’m not talking about people in the culinary world, but among regular folk, ordinary people, about our heritage cuisines. So we want to play a part, a role, in spreading that information and help educate ordinary Filipinos about our own cuisine. And we have been sponsoring a lot of events, food tours to different parts of the Philippines, seminars and lectures.

NA: The thing that I personally find very interesting, and I guess, a little bit of a calling for those who participate in CHOP and support it, is really that desire to spread awareness of the regional cuisines for example, and the deep history that it has played. Because for myself, growing up in Manila, and for a lot of Filipinos who grow up in the city…I guess, like in North America, it’s talked about a little more that there’s this disconnect between, you know, what people eat on a regular basis. And now that people are starting to be aware about where their ingredients or where their food comes from…even when I went to culinary and hospitality school in Manila, I don’t remember there being a course that really focused on regional cuisines of the Philippines. And after I started reading about it…

RN: Which, yeah, is a big mistake. Because, you know, when I went to culinary school here, we had courses on regional cuisines in the whole of the US. And this is something that is lacking. I have yet to sort of research what the curriculum is at the bigger culinary schools in the Philippines, and I really don’t know if they have such courses to educate culinary students there, about our own regional cuisines. I’m not sure.

19:30 A solutions-based approach to storytelling

NA: Okay, let’s pause again for a minute here. I feel this is a good time to like talk about something else I've been obsessed with recently. Something called "solutions journalism". So I've been reading all these stories from solutionsjournalism.org, which I totally recommend you visit. Basically, what solutions journalism is about, is the idea of bringing the ‘good news’ part of a story forward. Like right up in the lede. But it’s not just the fact that it’s a good news story. Really good pieces are able to highlight what is working in a particular situation, and really investigate further, like, the context of why this particular solution is working.

So what these stories and photo essays have in common, is that at their core, it has this approach to storytelling that focuses on solutions - the "good news" part of the story, we’ll say - versus the numbers and results that tell us a different story. So for example, that means that instead of story being about how much coral reefs have been damaged, and in places even wiped out in the Philippines - the story could be about, organizations, or even individuals, who are actually doing something to address that situation. Backed up with numbers and data and first person interviews, to show that this person’s approach to addressing that problem, their solution, is something worth noticing. It’s newsworthy in itself.

Anyway I bring this up because, here's my theory. It's not a secret that people who go to culinary school in the Philippines have immense talent. But the reality is, like right now, and I'd probably say for maybe a couple of decades now, like since the 70s - some of our best cooks and chefs have just gone abroad, to pursue their dreams of living in someplace like New York City, or London, or Copenhagen. And that’s great, and I totally respect that, but I can’t help but think. I’m certain a lot of them also do it simply because that’s where the work is. No one really likes the idea of having to leave your family behind, in order to have a career. And I mean, work in the culinary industry is just one of the many things that the Philippines has exported, talent-wise, out of the country. I can’t help but think that, what if we could draw people to different regional centres, throughout the Philippines, because of its food?

I mean, culinary tourism in itself has always been a thing. Ask any Filipino and I’m sure they’ll tell you [that] they went somewhere once, at the very least, to eat a local specialty. What can we do to make it something that will keep the talent in? Something that will convince young people to stay and learn the traditions of their ancestors, for preserving these foodways? And being able to present that to people who will travel for food? Because there’s a growing number of that too, and I don’t know. If this tourism revenue, towards the development of those kinds of programs, could just like keep a lot more people…that’s like a win-win situation. And I’m really excited about this, because working in the travel industry, I see first-hand reports and experience, and myself see the effects of food tourism to local economies, also working as a tour guide here in Toronto. So it’s just something that I care about because, what if we could do that? What if we could set up coconut kitchens all throughout the country, and help preserve those foodways? I guess the thing that gets to me is, if that happened…what would Filipino food culture look like, twenty years from now? And how often can I visit? Wouldn’t you want to read a good news story about that? These are the kinds of solutions that I know are happening on the ground, and just need a little more exposure.

RN: Yeah. And you know something? I try to be up to date on our archives of all our events, because eventually, I have started making a list of all the dishes, those that count, of all the dishes that we tasted and we learned about, and we’re gonna come out with a cookbook. That’s my dream right now, is to do a cookbook for CHOP, on all our events, actually from the past five years. So that is a project for the hopefully near future. But that’s something we want to do.

NA: And hopefully, that’s something that we, collectively, people across the diaspora, would be able to support.

RN: That’s the thing. We need to find a way to make it international. So well, down the line, we’ll see. Just cross fingers that we can do that, because it would be good to be able to distribute the book to the diaspora, as you say. Very important.

26:00 Foods we take for granted

NA: It’s a good segue into the content of Coconut Kitchen. Because that’s one of the things that I guess I initially picked up on. And when I was showing my friends the book, who were not Filipino, they were reading the first couple of chapters, like the introduction, and the part where you describe the “tree of life”, and really kind of just list all the products from coconut trees. I guess for me, because, having grown up in the Philippines, I’m used to all this, I know the different food products you can derive from coconuts. I’m aware of the “tree of life” and how can really make use of everything from the tree. But what was interesting to me was like, the reactions that my non-Filipino friends had to the book. Because here, coconut water, for example, is so common now in a lot of supermarkets. And I have a personal thing about how I wish it would be a product from the Philippines one day, but that’s a whole other story. But they were just very surprised by all of the food products. And thankfully, there are more and more restaurants, even here in Toronto, that non-Filipino people get to visit. But they were just like, oh, I wish I knew that much about coconuts, like the magical fruit, there’s so much you can get from it. And I guess as a Filipino person, I was just like, I guess that’s something that we take for granted. That there really is so much.

RN: Exactly. Yeah. And really, you know, in my sort of journey to this point…I was so embarrassed to admit that I did not know anything about the coconut. You know. When I found this book by mistake, the book by Dr. Dayrit, you know, I couldn’t believe how much I did not know. And I started questioning myself, like how come I didn’t know any of this, you know? It’s because it’s part of your everyday life, and you take it for granted.

28:35 "The coconut figures a lot in our cuisine”

RN: My research is about three years old, but we’re at the top three or four coconut-producing countries in the world, together with Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka. The coconut figures a lot in our cuisine. And you know, just imagine a map of the Philippines. There’s not really much coconut life in the northern part, but starting from Bicolandia all the way down to Mindanao, to the bottom of Mindanao, there are plenty of coconut dishes. I did not know this, at the time.

NA: Yet further proof that it’s never too late to learn.

29:30 Regee's turning point

RN: First of all, after retirement, I started to try to think of, what am I going to do with my life? You know, I’m 55, and I need to do something to keep me busy and happy. I even considered going into the import-export business, you know, but that didn’t pan out. On one of my visits to Manila, a friend of mine treated me to a cooking demo, by Reggie Aspiras. She was one of the few, then, who was popular. And when she told me about it, at first, I must have sounded really reluctant. And she said, sis, you can’t say no because it’s expensive, and I already paid for it. So, okay, we went. And this was at the end of my search for trying to find what I was going to do in my retirement. So we got to this state of the art demo kitchen, in Ortigas. I sat there and I tell you, my dear, the room was packed. There must have been about 40 attendees. And all the dishes that she cooked, I already how to cook. So I just sat there, watching how she organized the whole thing. And something clicked in me. I said to myself, this is what I want to do. And I was leaving to come home to the US in a couple of days.

As soon as I got back home, in two weeks, I was in culinary school. That’s how I got into culinary school. And I don’t regret it. I don’t know about your experience, but I had the time of my life. It killed me physically, because of the high level of energy and stamina you need, you know. But I was in heaven. And I would do it again in a heartbeat. I loved it.

31:15 Finding Dr. Dayrit

RN: So after that, not being able to decide what I wanted to do, I went back to the Philippines. And this is when I found Dr. Dayrit’s book.

NA: And this book by Conrado Dayrit - it’s called “The Truth About Coconut Oil” - was the next thing that opened up a whole new world for Regee.

RN: Do you remember how I came to learn about the coconut, when I found that book by Dr. Dayrit at a National Bookstore? I was just browsing, and I bought the book, and I read it from cover to cover. I showed it to a couple who were really good friends of mine, and I asked them, do you know anything about coconuts?

32:05 A visit to the coconut house

RN: And my friend, the husband, starting laughing. Before I knew it, they were driving me to this “coconut house”, a restaurant in Quezon City, owned and operated by a dear friend of theirs. So we went there for lunch, and I was just astounded. All the dishes had one or more components of the coconut. And they were all delicious. And so, luckily the owner was there. We were happily sampling, I was happily sampling a lot of the dishes. So I just asked, would your restaurant have a cookbook that I can buy? Because I want to cook these things at home, you know. And he looked at me and said, Regee, you know, fate brought you here. Would you do a cookbook for the restaurant? Oh my god, I nearly fainted. Anyway, so that was the beginning.

33:15 First setback

RN: Unfortunately, after a couple of years, or a little bit more, of recipe testing - on my own you know, I did this on my own - most of it, his restaurant’s recipes, and some I culled from research. The project fell through, because of financing problems. So that was a low point. And I thought that was the end of it. So I had all of this, more than two years of labour, hard work, and you know, testing recipes - and nothing to show for it. Anyway. When god has a plan, he has a plan. And you know, no matter what you do, the plan is gonna get accomplished.

I was at a cooking demo at the Maya Kitchen, and a friend of mine, a food writer, told me, “Regee, Gwen and Carina are here”, the marketing director and managing director of Anvil Publishing. “I want you to meet them.” So she dragged me over and introduced me to these two very nice people, in the world, you know, and she mentioned to them shamelessly, oh you know, she’s finished all the work, and she was going to publish a coconut cookbook but it fell through. And wouldn’t you know it, these two were very strong proponents of the health benefits of coconuts. I still remember, their eyes lit up and [they said] “Let’s do it!” So you see, it fell on my lap. And it took another year before the book was published. But you know, I’m just so grateful.

35:00 Finding our path

NA: One thing that I really like being able to highlight, and really feature, and something that I’ve kind of fallen in love with, in the course of doing these interviews, is that at the end of the day, even if we are talking about food, a lot of this is very much a ‘people’ story. It’s a story about how we sort of find our path. All of it is very personal, and even with things like publishing books, or if you’re an entrepreneur, like, getting that one deal that you know is going to bring your business up to the next level…

RN: Exactly. Yeah. And I tell you, my forming the CHOP group really was the beginning. It opened many doors for me. And this was the reason I went to culinary school, you see. Because I told my husband, if I want to do this, I need to have ‘street cred’. I cannot just go into the Philippines and try to seek out people in the culinary world and introduce myself. That’s not how it’s going to happen, you know. I need street cred, and I need to do a project that people can respect. That would be my way into the culinary world.

36:30 Building something you love

RN: And I tell you, Nastasha, I don’t know how many people you have met in the Philippines, in the culinary world - you have talked to a lot of the ‘biggies’, you know - but I was very happily surprised that almost all of the people I have met and known, and [that] have become good friends to me - they’re all nice people. I mean, I sort of went into this with trepidation. I didn’t know anybody in the culinary world. But through CHOP and my book, it all happened. Now, I have a big circle of friends, and I’m just very very happy, you know, in this second phase of my life. And you know, I just turned 70, and we really don’t know how long we are going to be in this world [for], but I have to tell you, ever since I went into this culinary journey, I have been the happiest person on earth.

38:00 "Cooking is so fulfilling”

RN: It’s so fulfilling. I mean, I’m not talking about the awards, or all these big things. Cooking something for people you love, you know, is so fulfilling. And it lifts me. Even though I die at the end of it, physically, it makes me so happy just being able to cook for my family, when my children visit. When I go visit them. Or when I’m in the Philippines, and here, when we have people over, you know, for meals. It is I think the most fulfilling effort that you can do. Cooking for the people you love.

NA: One of the things that I especially love about your cookbook is that there’s a good mix of very ‘everyday’ sort of dishes that you can do. As well as things like the recipe Beth Romualdez shares, the guinataang kurakding at kayos, which is mushrooms with coconut milk and black-eyed peas, which is a very regional thing…

39:20 Recipes from contributors

RN: Yes, these are just a few of the very nice people I have become really good friends with. And you know, I ask them, would you contribute a recipe or two to my book? Of course, no problem! So that’s how I wanted to, sort of get from them, these recipes that they love to cook. These dishes they love.

NA: For coconuts especially, like the way that Filipinos use coconuts in their cooking, is I guess, for lack of a better word, really not that complicated. There’s the three different, I guess, presses of the coconut that you can use. So I just wondered if you could give an overview of some of your favourite ways of preparing coconuts?

40:10 The magic of burnt coconut cream

RN: Well, most of the ways that coconuts are used are quite simple, as you say. But there are also very curious and interesting ways. Like have you heard of burning the grated coconut, before squeezing the milk?

NA: So Regee explains that this particular method is best enjoyed in a dish called “kulawo”. Kulawo is made of grilled eggplants, with their charred, toasty skin peeled right off, swimming in like this pool of thick, gingery burnt coconut sauce that just tastes so much better than the sum of its parts. To make it, she says…

RN: What they do, they grate the fresh coconut, unsqueezed. And then they put live coals into the grated coconut, and sort of “burn” the grated coconut. After that, they squeeze the milk, which has a smoky taste. That’s what they use for cooking, instead of just regular coconut milk. So it’s very interesting. And I never knew anything about that, until CHOP went on a tour to Casa San Pablo, [where] we had a food tour. We also had another food tour to Villa Escudero, and they also had a demo on the burnt coconut technique. Interesting. I never knew that. For me, it was just coconut milk. That’s it.

41:50 Coconuts in regional cuisines

RN: The coconut is very versatile. It can be used for savoury dishes, as well as sweet dishes, and desserts. And you know how it is with our kakanin (rice cakes) in the Philippines. Everything is with coconut. And the savoury ones, as I told you earlier, starting from Bicol all the way down to the bottom of Mindanao…I haven’t even scratched the surface. So many coconut dishes. You know, CHOP, [back] in January, we had a cooking demo by a datu who was also a chef. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Shariff Pendatun? He cooked Bangsamoro muslim dishes, and all of them were coconut based. And I tell you, we were in heaven. It was so good.

NA: …almost, like, representative, or a carrier of the cuisine. Because like yourself, people who kind of, really understand and believe that there’s so much more to this ingredient, than a lot of people sort of recognize and see. I’m such a big fan of the idea of showing and leading by example…so even if it’s something, like, a cooking demo, that’s able to sort of encourage people in the audience to sort of think about this dish, or this food, a little bit differently…I’m just amazed, because it has so much power, and possibility, almost.

RN: I know, yeah. And I love doing cooking demos. I did it at the beginning, after I finished culinary school. But I didn’t want to make a job of it. I did it for friends, I would invite them, you know, to my home. Going to culinary school really changed my life. And I have to say, I was a bit cocky about being such a good cook, [thinking] that I don’t need to do that, to learn that. But boy, it was humbling. There was so much I did not know when I went to culinary school, and I was is happy for that.

44:20 3 essential lessons

RN: For me, there were three essential principles, methods, techniques that I consider as the most important for any cook to know, and to master. The first is food sanitation. You know, a lot of people don’t pay attention to using the same chopping board for raw meat and vegetables. And that gets used, you know, and they just wipe it off. I was guilty of that, in the past. So that for me is prime, it’s at the top. And the second one is mise en place. It makes a big difference when you prepare everything before you turn the oven or the fire on. You have to have everything ready, that’s very important. For me, it’s the only way I would cook. Everything has to be next to me, and ready to go into the pan, before I start cooking. The third one is the technique of ‘blanch and shock’. Because specially if you’re handling beautiful vegetables, the one mistake a lot of people make - which I used to make myself - is to overcook the vegetables. And this blanch and shocking, I use it now whenever I cook vegetables.

45:55 Regee's pinakbet

RN: Even my pinakbet, you know. When I cook pinakbet, the sitaw, the okra, the ampalaya, even the shrimp - they’re blanched, half-cooked. And then, when we’re almost ready to eat, I start sautéing the garlic and onions, and put the shrimp head juice, and patis. And at the end, when you’re almost ready to eat, you just dump all the vegetables in, give it a stir until it’s heated through, and voila. You have radiant, green vegetables staring at you. And wonderfully cooked to perfection. For me, that’s very important. I do this even when I do kare-kare, or even sinigang. I blanch and shock my vegetables.

NA: Next, I wanted to know - what were some of Regee’s favourite recipes from the Coconut Kitchen cookbook?

47:05 Chicken coconut soup & roasted shrimp with coconut sauce

RN: There are some recipes that I go back to, to cook, specially when I have company. Because they’re tried and tested recipes, and they always come out really well. For the very easy ones, the quick and easy Coconut Chicken Soup - these are so easy, but they’re so good. For appetizers, I always, always do the dish on the cover - the Roasted Shrimp with Coconut Sauce. That’s always a “wow” dish. When I bring that out to my guests, they all say, wow. So I always do that. It’s a keeper, as I would say.

47:50 Shrimp summer rolls and coconut meatballs

RN: Now for the medium [difficulty] recipes…I’d say the Shrimp Summer Rolls. I serve this when I have friends over who are not Filipino. I would show them how I wrap it. I try to include heart of palm in there, with turnips, carrots, cilantro, and the shrimp, and I do a shortcut and buy the Thai sauce to save myself from making it from scratch. I just buy a jar of that, or a bottle, and it’s so good. So these Shrimp Summer Rolls are a winner. Even if it’s not summer, I make them. Oh, and my sweet and sour sauce. You know it’s very funny, my mom is an excellent cook. When my book came out, I told her, my sweet and sour sauce recipe is foolproof. She had that look in her eye, like, hmm, really? Better than mine, you know? So I said, why don’t you give it a try? Just follow the recipe to the letter, and let me see what you think. Which she did. She wrote the recipe on a 4 by 8 [inch] index card, and it’s now on the fridge.

49:00 Ubod-stuffed squid (with heart of palm and coconut)

RN: There’s one labour-intensive recipe that I also make a lot. It’s the squid with ubod stuffing. It’s labour-intensive, but oh my god. When I serve that, I sort of put the squid whole, and then I slice it in front of everybody, then they see the filing, and then I put the coconut sauce. Oh my god. I would like to cook some now, it’s making me hungry. So that’s my favourite, the ubod-stuffed squid.

NA: I’m looking at the picture of it right now, and I have not tried that, but I definitely would like to, because that’s an afternoon, when you have a weekend to cook [kinda thing].

RN: One tip that could help with the prep, you know, when you stuff the squid…I used to just use my finger and a teaspoon, you know, and it’s a hell of a job. It’s really time-consuming. The other day, when I made the dish, all of a sudden, it came to me. I put the mixture in a piping bag and I tell you, I went through those squid in a jiffy. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I wish I could include it in the recipe, you know, as a tip. Because it really makes all the difference in time management.

NA: Personally, what I really love about cooking too, is that it’s always going to be a process of discovery, and a process of improving. And just like, sometimes, if you just want to change the way you do things, or how long you cook it, there’s always room to kind of change things, a little bit. Like for me, and I don’t know how many people have had a similar experience…like, there’s no shame in going away from the way a Filipino dish is traditionally prepared. Obviously you have to make those sorts of adjustments, if you’re not in the country. But then it doesn’t mean that just because you change the ingredient, or you change the substitution, that the ‘soul’ of the dish is kind of lost.

51:15 "For me, dishes evolve"

RN: No, no. I mean, for me, dishes evolve. If that’s the way that it’s made back home, and you’re in a different place, you need to adapt. But even with that, you know, it’s okay to substitute things, for some of the ingredients. There should not be any guilt in it. I mean, a dish becomes yours when you cook it.

NA: And on the topic of adjusting to your tastes, and like, what’s available around you, Regee and I talk about vinegar - and what to expect when you find really good coconut vinegar.

RN: When I make my sawsawan with vinegar, like for instance, for my lumpia, sometimes I would scoop the vinegar with a teaspoon and put it straight into my mouth. I love it. And when I buy singkamas, or turnips - when I make the Shrimp Summer Rolls, of course I don’t use the whole turnip…so whatever is left, I peel and chop, and I have this vinegar, a salted vinegar, to use as a dip. And I almost drink the vinegar. Anyway, I digress.

52:50 Simplicity in Filipino snacking

NA: It’s not a digression! I was actually gonna add that that’s one of the things that I personally have found fascinating about Filipino food products. Like the example you just shared with us. It can just start from that, but even that in itself is almost like a microcosm of what makes Filipino cuisine so distinct, and so unique. Because there’s that balance between the strong acidity of the vinegar. And if it’s a good quality coconut vinegar, for example, you can tell that it’s had time to ferment and age. And then, the simplicity of a sliced turnip. And it’s not that it’s kind of, putting it [that way]…if you were a US food writer, for example, you would go, oh this is a great revelation! But really, this is just a regular snack, that a lot of people eat.

RN: You know that sawsawan is a very important part of our heritage cuisine. You can custom tailor [what you eat]. If you have four people eating, four Filipinos eating - they can custom tailor their meal by the sawsawan they choose. You can have soy sauce, suka, patis, bagoong. Or you know, all these [kinds of] atchara. It’s just part and parcel of our cuisine - sawsawan, you know, condiments.

NA: And because really, what most of us are gonna be cooking with, is a can of coconut milk or coconut cream, I wanted to hear Regee’s thoughts on how to properly cook with it.

54:30 Coconut cooking tips

NA: For Filipinos who live outside of the country, if their sort of, main access to coconut is canned coconut milk, or coconut cream - I hope that that doesn’t deter them from trying to cook a lot more with coconuts. Would you say that one of the keys to not letting the coconut milk or cream curdle, is just to do it low and slow, in terms of like, heat?

RN: Yeah. Slow, with gentle stirring. And not leaving it with the fire on for a long time. What you do is you heat it up until it starts to bubble a little bit and simmer. And then you turn it off and just keep stirring. And then when you’re ready to serve, do that again, just a gentle simmer. Then you serve it right away. Otherwise if you keep reheating it, it’s gonna curdle. You don’t hard boil coconut milk. I think I mention in the headnotes for some of the recipes, that you can use tinned or canned coconut milk, because I do here, in the US.

I have my favourite brand of canned coconut milk, it’s Chao Koh. I also get the Trader Joe’s, but you have to be careful with the Trader Joe’s brand. They have the coconut cream, which is thicker, and the coconut milk, which is more liquid. And there’s a big difference, because you know once, I made guinataan, the dessert…and in my hurry, I pulled out the Trader Joe’s can and [only then] realized it was the cream. But I already opened it, and so I said oh, what the heck. Big mistake. It should be the liquid kind. There are uses for the thick, almost solid cream, but not very many uses if you’re using it for cooking savoury dishes.

NA: Finally, I ask Regee - what does she hope readers can take away from the Coconut Kitchen?

56:45 Takeways from Coconut Kitchen

RN: Well, the very first thing would be, I would love it if more people could be educated about the coconut, specially among Filipinos. If we can all be educated about the coconut and its importance in our history, culture and economy. The second one is the knowledge and the belief in the science and the evidence about the health benefits of eating coconuts. And I would like people to master how to cook with coconut milk, and make it a staple in their kitchen. That’s my third takeaway.

WRAP-UP

My warmest, sincerest thanks to Regina Tolentino Newport for this interview. I really do feel blessed getting to speak with some incredible people, and I hope to continue sharing these kinds of conversations and experiences around Filipino food with anyone who wants to listen!

Our theme music is by David Szeztay, segment music is by Eric and Magill, Podington Bear and Blue Dot Sessions. As always, if you enjoyed this episode - I’d love if you tell someone else about it! Honestly, word of mouth means everything. And I think it’s the reason why the podcast is steadily growing. I’m totally committed to doing this show, you guys, and I want to keep working on episode ideas, themes, deep dives, researching a bunch of stuff…and finally, I hope to hire a producer to help with my audio, that’s my ‘in the next year’ plan. But the reality is, living in Toronto ain’t cheap, and it takes real world resources to polish up and take Exploring Filipino Kitchens to the place I’d love it be. And ultimately, a better place for you to listen to.

Head to exploringfilipinokitchens.com and find the show on Facebook and Instagram, drop me a quick line if you think we can do something like Patreon!

Maraming salamat, and thank you for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 22: The Coconut Kitchen With Regina Newport”.

The New Filipino Kitchen in Toronto - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interviews for The New Filipino Kitchen book launch in Toronto below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

You guys, June’s been kinda crazy. Besides being the first ever Filipino Heritage Month across Canada - huge in itself - I came back from a one week media workshop with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, in London.

I got back to Toronto, had one day off - kind of, cause I moved apartments - had one other day off, and then I did The New Filipino Kitchen book launch here in Toronto. Then I filmed a segment with the CBC on how to make halo-halo - the CBC is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, also huge, pinch me. And I also hosted pulutan night with two amazing chefs in the city. Then on top of that, I also spent a pretty awesome weekend celebrating PRIDE in Toronto.

01:25 What place do my stories have?

I wondered whether any of this had room in my podcast about Filipino food. To be honest, and this isn’t the first time it’s happened, this whole issue of being comfortable with talking about reality - my reality - about whether any of my stories have a place in the wider world, is something that came up quite a bit. Actually, a lot, this month.

So I guess this episode’s kind of about that. And I kinda just want to be real with you all. The reason all of this means a lot is because when I first started Exploring Filipino Kitchens, the idea of hosting events and being published in a book and getting on the CBC…like, these are things that kinda just felt like a dream. And it took a while to find a community of people - an inclusive community - who cared about our culture and heritage and understanding that complexity - and how that sort of shaped our identities.

I’m still really amazed by how deep this connection to culture runs, for a lot of people. I guess that’s really why this month meant a lot. If these kinds of celebrations bring out the kinds of people that I saw a lot - including some of the people who are going to be featured in this episode - if we get that opportunity to really, I don’t know, spread our wings and just fly out into the world…that’s such a great way for Filipino culture to flourish. And naturally, because food is such a big part of that, then our cuisine also gets the proper spotlight it deserves, really just out of that curiosity that’s gonna stem from those people who do have a really deep investment in learning the flavours and the ingredients that comprise Filipino cooking.

So anyway, all of this is like, I guess just a way of saying thanks. For being in a place, in Toronto, where I can be loud and proud, about myself, and about the things I care about, and having that ability to live someplace and make a difference someplace where you can express who you truly are. And I guess, take advantage of the opportunities that come your way. That’s not to be taken lightly. And that, in a nutshell, to me, is what Filipino Heritage Month really meant.

Coming up, we’ve got some clips from The New Filipino Kitchen Book Launch held at Islas Filipino BBQ and bar in Toronto. Eventually, when I can afford to have someone help me with the audio editing stuff, I promise it’s gonna get better, but for now, I promise the stories are good, and I hope you’ll stick around. Let’s get to it!

INTERVIEW

05:30 "Every Sunset"

Let’s start with “Every Sunset” - something that’s near and dear to me in a lot of ways. Here’s the part I share at readings. To hear the rest, you’ll just have to buy the book, if you haven’t yet:

In our apartment in Toronto, I gaze out on the city skyline framed by slate grey skies, thinking of how much I’ve grown. When I came to Canada with my family, I started a new life with zero dollars to my name. After years of work in hotels, overnight shifts for celebrities who partied until dawn, gallons of midnight oil burned to finish my college degree - and a challenging internship at a national magazine - I finally could afford a place of my own, in this corner of the world. A place where I could relax and unwind. A place I’d love to call my home.

Today, like many other days, I long for food from my homeland, the Philippines. But this time, I pine for something a bit out of the ordinary. A rice noodle dish with shrimp sauce called pancit palabok. Now, I hardly cooked until I moved out of my parents’ house in Canada. In the Philippines, I and most kinds I knew had a nanny, or relative, who did most of the cooking. But I knew that my ideal self - a financially independent, socially conscious, bike-riding millennial - would not be complete without learning how to cook pancit palabok, and many of the other Filipino foods I love.

Pancit palabok brings to mind my birthday, when I turned 18. I went to hotel school in Manila at the time, and while most of my college friends trained to be chefs in cruise ships and high end restaurants, I prepared to work for luxury hotels. After class, to celebrate my entrance into legal adulthood, my friends and I headed to a place along Manila Bay. The kind that served pulutan, food that went with drinks, with buckets of ice cold beer on sometimes rickety plastic tables that spilled onto the sidewalk. The incoming breeze always felt sticky, and smelled of exhaust fumes, cigarette smoke, and salty sea air.

Of course, we ordered pancit palabok - a large platter of it. It came on a mound on this round, woven, banana leaf lined tray called a ‘bilao’. The rice noodles, white as a blank canvas, were smothered with this rich sauce, blazing orange as the setting sun on Manila Bay. A generous scattering of sliced boiled eggs, crunchy chicharron, tinapa, or smoked fish, shrimp, squid and scallions, all adorned the sauce. My friends and I clinked beer bottles and took photos of our tipsy ass selves before selfies were even a thing. It was my job to portion it out. Noodles that tended to clump together. Palabok sauce, notorious for its chunky consistency. And toppings that were almost impossible to evenly distribute to everyone.

That dinner felt like home to me, as a teenager. I was surrounded by friends and the comfort of familiarity, and knowing things. But, looking back, the memory also carried this sense of excitement for the mysterious future. None of us knew then, to which corner of the world life would take us.

10:00 What The New Filipino Kitchen has to offer

I knew this had to be real. That “The New Filipino Kitchen” had so much to offer, to everyone who let a part of it into their lives. I wanted to share my story for a couple minutes, then, for the event, hear from everybody else for the rest of the nigh. To have conversations that flowed on, kinda like the podcast, to experience these stories and lessons learned from people who knew how to hustle, in the most earnest sense of the word. To know that you’re not alone in feeling misunderstood, underestimated, and just flat out beat, especially if you work in any kind of creative or service-related industry. These people know.

We had two seatings for dinner that night. And Filipino TV even came to cover our first panel chat. Check out the episode link, we had an amazing round of speakers from Filipino Fusion Desserts, some writers from the Pluma Collective here in Toronto, and a co-author from The New Filipino Kitchen, who actually came in from Virginia.

11:05 Meet the panel

For the second panel, we brought back, firstly, Marc and Mariel Buenaventura, who are the amazing owners of Islas Filipino BBQ and Bar. Marc leads the kitchen, he’s executive chef, and Mariel takes care of the front of house.

I invited some of my good friends - Jennilee Austria, who you heard on the pulutan episode, a local author here in Toronto, and Gelaine Santiago, who runs an ethical fashion company called Cambio and Co. Plus, we had two incredible leaders from our local community - two Filipino food restaurant owners, Diona Joyce, who runs a Kanto by Tita Flips along with her catering company, and Dolly Flores, who runs a restaurant called Carinderia by D’Flores, that’s in the city of Mississauga, just next door to Toronto. Mississauga is one of the fastest growing regions for migrant settlement in the greater Toronto area. I think that’s really interesting, and we’ll talk about that more later on.

Every single day, Dolly and Diona and Marc and Mariel, together with their teams and crews of very talented cooks, these bring Filipino food out of their kitchens - Diona even does it from a tiny one in a converted shipping container - to people who want to try, just eat, really good Filipino food.

12:30 What does your Filipino kitchen look like?

For the panel chat, I wanted to ask questions like, what Filipino dish or food have you most “connected” to and why? Two, what are you most curious about in the world of Filipino food? In your dream Filipino kitchen, what would be there and why? And finally, what 3 words or phrases describe your relationship with Filipino food today?

So we’re gonna get to all this in a minute, but first, and this actually happens in most of the events I go to - people end up starting a talk about food by something that isn’t directly related to the food itself. Here’s Gelaine Santiago.

13:25 Gelaine and heritage

GS: It’s this open mind of constantly being open to learning more, and not being afraid to question the things I had been told. And also, what are the preconceived notions of what it was to be Filipino, what the Philippines was like, based on my parents’ understanding, and things that my family members had told me. And there’s just so much where I’ve been told, it’s dangerous in Manila, don’t go there, don’t pay this much for this. That the Philippines isn’t worth it, that things made in the Philippines are cheap. And like, there are just so many things I had been taught. Going back to the Philippines for the first time, like I really realized that there’s so much that I had been raised to believe, that was just really not how I would interpret things [now]. And also, what I realized is that my parents haven’t been going back to the Philippines every year. When they left it was almost 25 or 26 years ago. So their idea of what the Philippines is like may have been accurate at that time, but it’s totally not the same now. And I’m actually in a position of privilege, where I can go back every year and I get to travel all over, to the north and in the south [of Luzon province], to Visayas. I get to see things that even my family members are not able to see, and I’m the one now who gets to tell them about sisig and inasal [from these places]. They also had never tried inasal before. And so I think it’s just the need to be curious, and the need to want to understand where both my parents are coming from. And also what people’s lives were like, and just not coming in with my own judgments or preconceived notions of what things should be like. And then, accepting the fact that it’s an ongoing process. I think people in the diaspora, or anyone who just has grown up slipping in and out of multiple cultures…I think it’s just [realizing that] this process is gonna be lifelong. Needing to accept, and kind of learn, the best and the worst parts of your culture and identity, then learning from that and how it will shape you. It’s gonna change so much. So that’s really my experience, it’s just been a constant need to be empathetic, curious, and just willing to change what I think of how things are, all the time.

NA: Wow. Well, that’s Gelaine’s take on understanding her relationship - and it’s a changing one - with her Filipino heritage. Next, Dolly talks about her favourite memories of merienda. Typically, it’s a snack, but something that can also be kind of a mini-meal, specially if what you’re snacking on are delicious leftovers from lunch.

15:45 Dolly and merienda

DF: I’m the owner and operator of Carinderia by D’Flores in Mississauga. When I came to Canada, I was in my early twenties. I worked with one company until I left and opened my own restaurant. When I opened the restaurant, it basically brought back the culture to me. It brings back memories from back home. So I when I opened, the food that connected to me [the most] was merienda.

16:30 Dolly's favourite dishes

NA: And some of Dolly’s favourite dishes - not just for merienda, but ones that she just knew had to be on the menu - these were classics like laing - a stew of taro leaves cooked with coconut milk. And diniguan, made with fresh pig’s blood and always served with rice or puto, aka rice cakes. Bibingka, another kind of rice cake. And arroz caldo, a rice porridge with many iterations across the world.

DF: Our laing is kinda ‘daring’ for non-Filipinos to try. But once we tell them what’s in it - saying it’s taro leaves simmered in coconut cream, with fresh ginger, fresh chilli, and a dash of shrimp paste - they kind of [say] oh my god, it’s so good! Our food is similar to other cultures. Like our diniguan, is like blood pudding.

NA: And in fact..

DF: It’s a ‘non-Filipino’ favourite as well. Also, bibingka. Bibingka is actually from India, they have a version of bibingka as well. There are Spanish customers who come into the restaurant, [and] they ask about arroz caldo, and say “yeah, I know about it!”. It’s also like Chinese food, from when Chinese merchants came to the Philippines.

NA: And at her restaurant, Dolly says, they really do get a diverse group of restaurant patrons - being in Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto that’s just seen an explosion of residents in the last 15 years, as the region continues to grow and house large numbers of newcomer families from all over the world.

17:55 Diverse patrons

DF: We connect with a lot of diverse patrons in our restaurant by telling the stories of our dishes. For them, when they arrive in the restaurant, our Filipino restaurant, they say oh, I feel like I’m in another country. So telling the story about the food is everything. It connects us with Filipinos and non-Filipinos as well.

18:40 The power of referral

DF: I’m very happy if once they’ve tasted our food, they keep coming back. They ask some of their colleagues or friends [where to eat], and when they come, they say [things like] oh, my boss, who’s Italian, told me about Carinderia. It definitely makes me feel good…

NA: …about our food, our culture, and the opportunities we have, to invite all kinds of people over for dinner. Diona echoes the sentiment.

19:05 How Diona brought Filipino street food to downtown Toronto

DJ: My name is Diana Joyce, aka Tita Flips from Kanto. Kanto is, we claim, the first shipping container Filipino street food [stall] in Toronto. I say that because we’re going into our seventh season this summer. When we first got the container, there was no such thing as Filipino street food [downtown], back in 2013.

NA: What we had, at the time, here in Toronto, was the kind of takeout shop/grocery store that you’d find in places where large-ish numbers of Filipino people lived. Along with maybe a couple of sit down restaurants, that were quite a ways out from the downtown core.

DJ: [We had] just the regular, you know, Filipino restaurant, like the ones we called ‘the originals’. Like FV Foods, in the Bathurst and Wilson community. But downtown, there’s really not much, at the time.

20:10 Defying the norm

DJ: When I was telling my friend [that] I’d like to open a container, because there’s no ‘street food’ really in Toronto, serving the real thing…they were like oh, it’s not gonna work. How come? Because Filipino food is served at home, or something, right. Like you don’t buy Filipino food. [I said] like what are you talking about? There’s so much more to Filipino food. So I just went ahead and did it. And here I am, seven years later we’re still going, and we’re very thankful for that. Being there at the forefront is very…it’s a good feeling, you know.

NA: At Kanto, Diona serves the classics. Your tapsilog and longsilog sets, some crispy lechon kawali, lumpiang shanghai, pancit, and because we *are* in the north, a riff on Canadian poutine called sisig fries. But certain mainstays will always be near.

21:10 Diona and sinigang

DJ: The dish that fascinates me is sinigang. There’s so much beyond the Knorr sinigang mix. When I was growing up, we use like the sampaloc, the tamarind leaves, the guava. There’s so much more to it, and I think it’s very underrated. Like if you just have the sinigang mix, and that’s it. Although it is very convenient.

NA: But these are true things, that I really appreciate Diona admits. The sinigang packet is very, very handy! When you need it - like, crave it - that packet of sour powder is a lifesaver. And I swear sinigang has this magical power, because just like it turned the tides for me, it gave Diona an eye opening experience, too.

DJ: Like, Filipino food is so diverse, that you have a lot - every region has their own [take]. Like adobo, for example. You have different versions of adobo. It goes also for sinigang.

22:20 Diona's childhood...and lechon

DJ: I grew up in Mindanao, I was born and raised there. Bisaya, represent! My mom is Bisaya, and my dad is Tagalog, he’s from Luzon. So you know, their cooking styles are totally different.

NA: And one of example of this difference, in terms of a known food or dish that’s done differently, in different regions, is lechon.

DJ: So basically, our lechon is the same pig, but it tastes different.

NA: All, essentially, cooked over an open fire pit, with a whole hog rotating on a spit, slowly over many hours, until its meat and skin become godly. Same process, different results, depending on where you enjoy it. As Diona explains…

DJ: What I found is that they have the sauce - the lechon sauce [that’s different]. The ‘sarsa’.

NA: The sauce, made from pork liver, usually, drippings and stale breadcrumbs and a host of delicious things - this stuff becomes the prevailing, essential condiment to lechon, if you live in Luzon. Here, the Tagalog lechon isn’t complete without sarsa.

DJ: [But] in the south, they have different aromatics in there, like lemongrass, and all the spices inside the pig. Which is I think the most awesome thing that could happen in a pig.

NA: This imbued flavour, that intensely aromatic whiff of lemongrass that just cuts through every slice of lechon, that makes it distinctively Bisaya, or Visayan. In the Philippines, people order entire roast pigs from Cebu, like entire lechons, and have them priority shipped to Manila on a regular basis. We’re talking like, boxes shipped over on local airlines and brought straight to your classic Filipino party. How exactly they keep the skin crisp, while these delicious pigs make their way to Manila on express flights, I really wanna know. All this talk about lechon got Gelaine thinking.

24:35 Gelaine's revelation

GS: In terms of the dish that I’ve connected to the most, it’s lechon. Because I grew up, like, at Filipino parties here there’s always lechon. There’s always like, the big lechon baboy. It’s there on the table. And like I grew up just knowing that that’s a thing, and I liked it, but I didn’t particularly love it, the way that people talk about it. People just seemed to love lechon, and I’d never felt that way. I went back to the Philippines for the first time in 2012, since we moved to Canada when I was three. My cousins and my family had roasted this big lechon, all night long. Like cranking it up by hand. As soon as we arrived, and got off the plane, they served us this big piece of lechon. It was like, the best meat I’d had in my life. And I was like, oh my god, is this what lechon is? This is what it’s supposed to be like? It was such a powerful way that that lesson was delivered, through the taste of lechon.

26:00 What's in your dream kitchen?

NA: That leads really nicely into my next question, which is - in your dream Filipino kitchen, what would be there and why? Now, when I first thought about this question, I was like, you know what I want? Vinegar. And this is actually from an event I was in a couple of years ago, with Amy Besa and Chef Romy Dorotan who own Purple Yam restaurant. And what they did is they worked with the Philippine government to export some of these rare varieties of ingredients, to the US and to Canada. When they were here in Toronto, my mind was blown by this line of vinegars on a table. They were all different colours, they tasted like a range of different tartness [levels], and they were all made with fruit. There was this mulberry vinegar, I was like, I didn’t even know mulberries were a thing in the Philippines. So it’s just exciting to see that there’s that wide variety we can cook with. And then the question to diaspora communities then becomes, what do we do to get that? From my perspective, I’m really interested. I know there’s a lot of hoops to go through, issues with how those fruits are processed, for example. How to get that to market.

27:25 What Chef Marc wants

NA: Being at his restaurant, I asked chef Marc what his dream Filipino kitchen looks like.

MB: I don’t know, I think when I think about that…what I would like is what Suzie shared earlier, she said she wanted a calamansi tree in her kitchen. Which was like wow, that’s interesting. But for me, I think the only thing outside of what I have already, something I would like to focus on more…if I had a wood-burning oven, something where we could do, like, real good pandesal. Because I think pandesal is a staple for Filipinos, something that just reminds me of home.

28:30 On Dolly and Diona's wish list

NA: For Dolly, it was an easy choice. Rice.

DF: The food I’m most curious about is rice. I grew up with only white rice, but all different kinds, [in] different colours. From the north, south, east and west. There’s purple, there’s black, red, brown.

NA: Diona followed with one of my personal favourites. Dried fish.

DJ: The seafood, man. It is to die for! Have you heard about the bacon of the sea? You gotta try it. The danggit!

NA: The bacon of the sea. That’s such a great way, such a Diona way to explain it. Danggit is basically this small, dried, salted fish…

DJ: …and you fry them, and they’re so crispy.

NA: So she says that if you fry this fish, you won’t even think about bacon for a minute. Jennilee’s got a different ideal kitchen altogether.

29:40 Jennilee's dream kitchen

JA: In my dream Filipino kitchen…don’t you guys have a relative who has, like, diabetes, or gout, or cholesterol, or high blood. Right? Like it’s so common for Filipinos to have high blood pressure, you always hear ‘naku, high blood, I have high blood’. My dream kitchen would be a place where we can still make some really delicious Filipino food. If there was a way to somehow merge the flavour with the healthiness, in the dream kitchen - that would be incredible. That’s my one answer. The second answer is of course, bananas. Guys, those bananas…they’re like the size of my hand, they’re so small, you can eat like ten of them. Holy smokes. That would also be in my kitchen.

NA: Gelaine had a couple answers for me.

30:30 Gelaine on fruit, halo-halo and cacao

GS: I would just want, like, all the fruits in the Philippines, in my magical dream Filipino kitchen. Like, every time we go, there’s always these fruits where I go, I don’t know what this is. Like, what is it? The first time I ever had kaimito, like the star apple, I was like, this is the most amazing thing I’ve ever tasted in my life. And like, the first time we had halo-halo, as well, in the Philippines. The first time we had really good halo-halo was in Davao, when we were there to meet one of our partners. They took us to this little corner shop and you can choose, like, from a sheet, you could check off all the fillings and toppings that you want in your halo-halo. And it was the best I’ve ever had in my life. The next day, literally we were on the other side of town, and we took like a one hour Grab ride to get to this little stall. I don’t even even know if they’re open, it’s like Sunday night. So we get there, everything else is closed, except the halo-halo spot. We had the best halo-halo again. So I would have all these fresh fruits and ingredients. I would also have Philippine chocolate, like Philippine cacao. Because basically, the Philippines got cacao from Mexico during the galleon trade, under Spanish colonial powers. And at some point, the Philippines was actually considered the ‘gateway’ of chocolate, across the rest of Asia and Europe. So everything would be moved from Mexico, via the galleon trade, to the Philippines, which was the main entry point, and then brought to like Vietnam and Indonesia, then to the rest of Europe. The Philippines was becoming this like superpower of chocolate, until a series of things happened, and a bunch of the cacao trees got sick. So the economy kind of collapsed. But at some point, we were producing some of the best chocolate in the world. Cacao trees literally grow in peoples’ backyards. And I was like, that’s so cool! You literally have a chocolate tree.

32:30 Spaces like iSLAS

NA: With all of this said, I am so grateful to have spaces like Islas, where people who do want to learn about Filipino cuisine can just go. Islas is also in one of my favourite neighbourhoods in the city, the western edge of Parkdale, where Queen and King streets merge, just above Lake Ontario. It’s gentrifying, like many other places in the city, but there’s still a sizeable number of Filipino residents in the area. Here’s Marc.

33:00 Why Marc and Mariel built their restaurant

MB: For us, it reminded us a little bit of the Philippines. And we kinda saw it as the best place for us to represent Filipino food. Like I said, this is our second year, and we’re still very new, but so far we’re really proud about what we’ve done so far, and where this is going. You know, like there’s so many people that are here, and they don’t know much about Filipino food, outside of like pancit, or spring rolls. So we have like a platform where we can showcase the different flavours the Philippines has to offer.

NA: And so here’s a challenge for everyone listening. Find your local version of Islas, because they are definitely out there!

34:00 Marc's favourite dish

MB: So what resonates with me, one of my favourite dishes that I shared earlier, is chicken inasal. We have it on our menu, and for that dish, it was something that when I first tried it…I hadn’t really had it at the time, this was when I visited the Philippines in 2010. I tried it for the first time, and I thought I knew all about Filipino food, thought I knew the dishes. But I tried this particular dish, and I was like, wow! Like to me, it’s all your senses. I loved the flavour of it. But I just never knew about it. So I was like, wow. It opened my mind to know that there’s so many other dishes and flavours, foods and ingredients that I don’t really know much about. Which kinda started me on a journey of like, wanting to learn more about where it came from. Or how come only that region has, like, the best inasal. It’s something that, when I came back from that trip…you know, I started to research it. I had to have it here. So I started to make the dish. It even started me into doing some catering, as well.

35:25 Jennilee and champorado

NA: And speaking of finding places to belong, or at least to find the community you’re looking for, and its relationship with food - Jennilee’s story about champorado I think about sums it up.

JA: Because I grew up in Sarnia - it’s this town where there are very very few Filipinos. At the time, it was really really hard to get Filipino ingredients, Asian ingredients in general. So my mom, instead of making champorado, she used to make it not with rice, but with oatmeal. Not the actual tablea or the tablets, but with hot chocolate mix. That was how I thought champorado tasted. So then, in 2007, I come to Toronto, and all of a sudden there’s Filipino grocery stories. And I’m like, holy smokes, champorado is in a box! Wow, right, you just have to add milk! This is amazing. I started working in the community as a settlement worker, which is like a newcomer counselor, mostly with Filipinos. And the more I got involved in the community, guess what got better? The champorado. Because, then I started going to different events, people would bring these huge pots, and there’d be this lola stirring it. And that was when I realized that the closer I get to the Pinoy community, the better the champorado gets.

36:45 About "Filipino Talks”

JA: So now, I’ve started an initiative called Filipino Talks. Which means I go into different schools and I teach teachers how to teach Filipino students better. Honestly, what I do, and I’m totally serious, is [that] I make teachers cry. Teach them about Filipino students and all the issues that they come with. I love making teachers cry, but today, I’m gonna make you guys laugh a little, right. So that is my story. Thanks!

GS: Something that I’ve been really interested in, not just with food, but in general with learning more about Filipino culture…is just how things have come to be the way that they are.

NA: And with her work for Cambio & Co.…

37:30 What led Gelaine to Cambio & Co.

GS: Cambio & Co is an ethical fashion company based here in Toronto. We work with artisans in weaving communities, and socially conscious brands, in the Philippines, to bring fashion accessories that are all ethically made, designed and handcrafted in the Philippines. And our main goal is really to inspire younger Filipinos, specially Filipinos in the diaspora, to reconnect with our roots, by sharing stories of the craftsmanship behind the pieces that we have at Cambio. The traditions of precolonial, you know, indigenous craftsmanship that exists out there. Whether it’s jewelry, or different type of fabric that we have. It’s so rich in the Philippines, and I really didn’t know any of that growing up, here in Canada. And something I’ve learned so much in the last four years that we’ve been travelling to the Philippines every year - being able to meet a lot of rural artisan communities, a lot of them living in remote areas, a lot of them very linked to their indigenous roots still. So I’ve been finding it really fascinating to just learn about the history of our ingredients, and the history of our food. Like my mom is Filipina-Chinese, and I didn’t know anything about that side of my family history until the last few years. And I didn’t even know that pancit - which is like, our noodle dish, which my dad cooks all the time - that’s actually a Hokkien Chinese dish. And pancit actually comes from a Hokkien word.

38:55 Cuisine in flux

GS: So I found that really interesting, just to like learn those roots and how things evolve. And then that had me also really interested in how things are continuing to evolve. Even Filipino cuisine here in Toronto is something that is so recent, in the last few years. Like Diona was pretty new to the scene in 2013, and things have changed so, so much. I think the way that Filipino cuisine is starting to express itself, in diaspora communities in Toronto, the San Francisco Bay area, LA, New York - like that is all influencing a two-way dialogue, too. It’s not just that we’re making food in Toronto. What we do here, today, goes to other parts of the US, the UK, like it’s constantly in flux.

39:45 "Our expressions make us nuanced and interesting"

GS: And I found that really really fascinating. It’s just something for me to keep in mind, that having different types of Filipino cuisine, as different expressions of Filipino identity, is not necessarily a bad thing. And it doesn’t necessarily make us divided, as a community. It just makes us more nuanced as a community, and so much more interesting. To be able to say, this region has that.

40:25 What's your relationship with Filipino food today?

NA: At the end of the night, I asked, what words or phrases best describe your relationship with Filipino food today?

40:45 Jennilee's wishes

JA: My three words for us would be: bigger cultural footprint. Okay, so…there are so many Filipinos in Canada. We’re the fastest growing population. And there are so few that actually have businesses and restaurants. Thank god for you guys, cause you’re like, unicorns, right? Entrepreneurs in the Filipino community. We have the lowest rate of entrepreneurship out of any immigrant group. So, bigger cultural footprint. I wanna see more Filipino food. I wanna see more kids that go to culinary school and don’t work in a French restaurant. I also wanna see people like us, who go to these restaurants. I wanna see more Google reviews, what about Tripadvisor? Get more people to come, right. We have a really big community, and we have to be a little bit louder in how we support each other. And so that would be my dream.

NA: Diona keeps things short and sweet, on what Filipino food means to her.

41:40 Some words from restaurateurs

DJ: I live with it, I breathe it, and I create with it.

MB: For three words, I would say…it’s actually there on our wall, but it’s “kain na tayo”. Let’s eat. It’s a phrase, but that phrase to me, kind of reminds me of like, it’s time to eat with my family. Growing up, my mom’s a great cook, and she always used to cook food for the family. And every time I’d hear those words, I would drop everything and go to the kitchen. And I think when I hear that, you know, when anyone says that, you know, it kinda just reminds me of the times we come together at the table, and you eat everything up.

42:35 What keeps Gelaine going

GS: My three words…were really about curiosity, understanding and ongoing.

42:50 A beacon for me, and maybe for you

NA: And I couldn’t agree more. All of this - the work and discussion and dialogue - it’s an ongoing process that in the end, I really believe helps. Because bridging the gaps and these divisions within Filipino communities - it’s an ongoing process, and a challenge. But getting to be here and to know the people with a hand in all this, it’s just, very meaningful. And to me, it’s kind of the light that I need. And maybe these stories can be someone else’s light too.

WRAP-UP

My warmest thanks to Marc and Mariel Buenaventura, Dolly Flores, Diona Joyce, Jennilee Austria and Gelaine Santiago for joining our panel chat. The New Filipino Kitchen Book launch in Toronto was everything I hoped it would be. Like, a life turning thing.

Thank you to the kitchen and service team at Islas Filipino BBQ and Bar at 1690 Queen St West in Toronto. You all carry Filipino hospitality to a T. It honestly feels like home every time I walk in.

Music for this episode is by David Szestay, segment music is by Eric and Magill, Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear. Visit exploringfilipinokitchens.com for past episodes, check out my instagram @nastashaalli, cause I think that’s the thing I actually update quite a bit. And as before, if you enjoyed the episode, I would really appreciate if you told a friend.

Until next time, marking salamat, and thank you for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 21: The New Filipino Kitchen in Toronto”.

No Forks Given - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Yana Gilbuena below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

This episode we’re diving into a book called “No Forks Given” by Yana Gilbuena. It’s a collection of 50 recipes from her 50 US state tour from 2014 to 2015 . Every week, Yana’s crew - which sometimes, was just herself - would arrive in town to hold a “pop up” dinner featuring a kamayan, or hands-only, feast of Filipino food. Yana would find someplace to stay, someplace to shop, someplace to host her dinner and actually get people to attend - a massive undertaking - often within ONE week, with so much on the fly.

So on the topic of fly Pinays, here’s a good-sized list of things I learned from the book.

01:25 Lessons I learned from the book

One. Vulnerability. That’s a big one.

Two. Curiosity. It matters to have it.

Three would be conveying nuance in Filipino culture. Because that can be kind tricky, but if you do it right, and really well, it matters a lot.

Drive. That’s something else that also matters.

I can see how we all seek to understand our identity in many different ways.

That you just gotta deal with what life throws your way.

That risk is real, and rewards can be invisible, annoyingly.

Sometimes, you just gotta say, fuck it. Put it on the line, whatever “it” is for you.

That determination pays off, and that really at the end of the day, this is about food, and I’m gonna talk about how Filipino cuisine is so varied and has so many layers to telling the story.

That recognizing what’s special about our culture is key. So that you, in turn, can share that pride with others, coming from a real place.

I’ve learned to not regret anything.

That we’re all human with complex emotions, and sometimes, you just can’t say everything you want in one conversation.

And that even the headstrong can be fragile.

That we all love to eat, though let’s be honest, I’ve known that for quite a while now.

That Filipino food and many beer styles, and other cuisines, go very well together.

That our adaptability to ingredients, seasons and circumstances is a skill.

That learning how the system works, that matters. That others are curious, and if they’re curious, why not show them what you got?

That the world is vast and lovely.

That we all crave connection, and that doubt is a constant thing, and that’s OK.

That yes, “the universe will provide” is something that you can believe in, and it’s something that Yana believes in.

That sharing your personal story is pretty powerful.

That the truest lessons can transcend cultures and backgrounds, and reveal our layers, the layers that make us human. Like a nice, warm, coconut pie.

And that it’s never too late to try.

So needless to say, I’m pretty in awe of this girl. And can’t even imagine what it’s like to travel through all of the US’s 50 states - getting up, finding someplace to stay, someplace to host a dinner, people to come to that dinner - then creating a menu around it, actually shopping for ingredients, and preparing things and cleaning up - that’s so much work, all to share the wonder and joy of eating delicious Filipino food. I can’t wait, let’s get to it.

INTERVIEW

06:35 Summers in Iloilo

YG: So I grew up in, actually, between two islands. Like my family originally is from Negros Occidental, which is in the Visayas region, and then I also grew up in Iloilo, because my grandfather’s side is from that island. So I grew up between those two, mainly because during the summers, my grandma would like send me to the probinsya, which is where, at the time, we had a hacienda. So we had like sugarcane and all that stuff. And I hated going to the probinsya when I was a kid. Mainly because there was no, like, electricity. So I couldn’t watch my favourite tv shows, you know. When you’re a kid, who lived for cartoons, you know. So that kinda bummed me out a lot, in a sense I kinda hated being sent to the probinsya.

But otherwise, I was really really happy in the island that I grew up in, because it had everything that I wanted. Like if I wanted to go to the beach, the beach was there. If I wanted seafood, everything was so accessible. I didn’t really have to look far. So I kinda had the comforts in life, but at the same time, like you know, it’s still very sheltered. It’s not in the ‘city’ city, like Manila, for example. So I still had, I would say, a great childhood.

I think ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been sent to the kitchen. Cause I’m an only child. So basically that meant my grandma raised me. My mom, classic OFW story. My mom pretty much had to go overseas, and work as a nurse, and I was left with my grandmother because she had to work. My grandmother, at that time, I think she was in her fifties maybe? I’m not sure. But like, she was the one who raised me.

NA: So then I asked, did she learn how to cook from her lola?

08:30 Growing up with lola

YG: Um, well the thing is, my grandma was a doña. My grandma doesn’t cook. She was a proper doña, like she didn’t cook, she had people to cook for her. It sounds so spoiled, whenever I tell people, like, I had a nanny, or we had cooks, you know. But it wasn’t like that. They were kind of like extended family, and I think I remember my grandma telling me before, like, they’re working for us because they need to. They don’t have any other option outside. Farming, even at that time, was not a viable occupation to have. And it kinda sucks.

NA: In this sense, I totally stand behind the idea that, at its very core, this books is a book of our time - a book for people like me. And I don't just mean because it's written by someone who miraculously managed to set up 50 pop-up on the fly dinners across the United States - a crazy feat in itself! - but because the themes that Yana talks about in this book, are things that people in the Filipino diaspora, today, tend to think about, and talk about.

10:05 A book of our time

NA: Books, in essence, are a reflection of the society they're written in - and the reality is that the conversations I imagine Yana has with her diners - I remember this from her dinner here in Toronto - these are conversations that happen both online and offline, things that people actually wanna talk about. Things like, the topic of colonialism, and breaking free of this colonial mentality in itself, right now, by educating yourself and learning as much as you can about the history of the country. It comes up in Yana’s book, and resonates with the kind of people who are likely to think that much more deeply about their culture, again, through food.

I know, I can’t help but bring it to light, because understanding this kind of history and how it affects our everyday lives, including our interactions with food and the people who prepare them…that’s such a strong part of the story of our ood and where it’s going. And with communities as complex as the Filipino diaspora, understanding that nuance is key.

So then we ended up talking about this article that came out in The Atlantic a couple of years ago, about this Filipino family who moved to the US and brought their domestic helper along with them. Unfortunately, and this isn't too uncommon, they purposely withheld many of the rights that should have been given them. We talked about this for awhile, because it's an aspect of Filipino culture that both Yana and I - having lived half our lives in the Philippines, and the other part in North America - it’s something we feel strongly about, because it definitely still exists, and it is something that our society in general is still coming to embrace the effects of.

I could talk about this for ages. If this isn’t the first episode you’ve listened to, you’ll know that I often bring up this feeling of being stuck in between two worlds - and what Yana’s talking about is a great example that I can relate to.

Growing up in Manila, both my parents worked long hours, which left my sisters and I primarily in the care of our yaya, our helper who lived with us, who was from the province of Pampanga. I can count on my hands the number of times I actually had to cook in the kitchen - because we didn’t need to, and at the time, my primary responsibility was to study and to do well in school so that, eventually, when we moved to Canada, I could be successful and make it own my own. Yaya Jennie was integral to our household, and she was extended family, for sure - her young child lived with us after some time, my sisters loved him, like, a lot of families have that relationship with the people who live with them.

12:50 Cooking to heal and reclaim

NA: The funny thing is, circling back to food for now…that “success” and “making it on my own” in Canada - to me, very definitely needs the cooking component. And I’d argue that even if you’re not an intense “foodie”, it’s necessary to learn how to cook one or two basic dishes. For me, at least, to get past my own hang-ups on parts of Filipino culture that are less than ideal, that still carry some notion of shame and guilt by association…I guess, learning how to cook and discover, for myself, why the breadth of Filipino cuisine is just astounding. That was really important. Because I hear people talk about ‘healing’ these kinds of cultural wounds and reclaiming parts of that culture that have gotten away from them. And for myself, and I imagine Yana and others who feel a very strong connection to something you really believe in - for us, it would be making food a part of your everyday life, and just, something that helps enrich what you do on a day to day basis.

I imagine that this isn’t really a solitary feeling.

15:00 The Stone Barns Fellowship

NA: I’ve mentioned a book called “The Third Plate” before, by Dan Barber. So for those who’ve read that, or at least heard about the book, or his farm called Blue Hill in upstate New York - the Stone Barns Fellowship is, I believe, now in its second year, or just past it. It’s a pretty big deal for people in the community, who really want get, obviously, a very hands-on experience working with people who, I guess, are considered visionaries in their own sense. Because they are able to recognize that there are much broader umbrellas that food touches, than just the food that’s served on our plate. And thinking about how we can approach some of the problems that are facing our everyday lives today.

At the farm, it’s like an environment where people who are curious, very passionate, and determined to make a change in food and agriculture systems - it gives them a place to thrive, much like the crops that are nurtured on the farm.

In 2017, the first group of Stone Barns Exchange Fellows gathered for a 3-week residency at Blue Hill - getting on their hands and knees, like digging in the fields, holding workshops, learning exchanges, and I imagine, absorbing absolutely everything that each of the ten fellows brought to the table. From fields like journalism and law, to being an entrepreneur, community organizer and of course, farmers and producers involved in the whole food distribution system - to listen and act upon what it takes grow and produce food that’s resilient and regenerative, holistic, and approachable.

Yana was part of that first group of fellows - yet another feat achieved.

So earlier, we were talking about this type of rice grown in the Philippines, in the northern Benguet province. This variety called pirurutong, which is technically a black rice. After you cook it, though, it develops like this really beautiful purple colour, like that lovely ‘ube’ hue. Traditionally, it’s what gives my favourite rice cake - the bamboo-steamed puto bumbong - its intense colour.

I guess to bring it to, kind of a broader conversation about food in general…that touches on farming, and the importance of trying, at the very least, to create en environment where, you know, you don’t have like, a vast majority of your population really just relying on this one thing. Which, for a lot of Filipinos today, is very much still farming rice. And a very shitty system, because it’s obviously not, you know, gotten many people the prosperity that they’ve wanted, over generations.

I feel very optimistic as a young person in day and age, because I do hope that there’s, you know, an openness to a different kind of system, that would allow that to happen, in the Philippines and other places in the world where that’s still happening.

18:45 "We're an agricultural country"

YG: Mmm hmm. Yeah. And it sucks because it is what we are made of. You know, like, the thing is, we’re an agricultural country. That is the backbone of our country, is that, like rice, and [native] crops, and all of that stuff. Like, food should be equal, I think we talked about food equality earlier. And I hate the fact that organic is ten times more expensive than non-organic. I think that isn’t fair for people who are actually trying to grow things and make a difference. Just because there’s this invisible hand that kinda sways, you know, the trends, or the kind of seeds that we’re putting out there. The kind of crops that we’re growing.

And also, as a side note, that’s something that I learned while I was at Stone Barns. There’s a whole trend of monocultures, versus having the diversity that we once had, you know, in agriculture. So trying to go back to that, and wanting to like, [work] on the fact that yes, Filipino food is not there yet, in terms of like having to charge x amount of dollars for it…but I would like to justify that it should be, you know. Because the kind of care, and the amount of preparation that you do is the same, if not more, than all the other western cuisines out there.

20:50 Why storytelling takes drive and courage

NA: Coming back to present-day for a second - leafing through No Forks Given is really like being in the driver’s seat of Yana’s thoughts. Or at least, as far as she’s letting us into that process. To shine a little light on why completing this 50 state tour meant a lot to her. For sharing a story like that, I’m grateful. It’s reassuring to see that people can and will make it, out of the muck that you sometimes just find yourself in.

And while I’m on the honest train, here’s a particular passage that struck close to home. It’s on page 70, the intermission:

“The road ahead seemed more daunting, even though I was already halfway through. Half done, or half not done, right? I had a mind to just crawl back to Brooklyn, call it a day, and never talk about it again. But I knew in my heart of hearts that I would regret it if I did that. I recognized that this project was bigger than me, bigger than my little life setbacks. I had to remind myself why I was doing this in the first place. That gave me the jolt to get back on track. I told myself everything was going to be fine. I took a deep breath. A simple reminder of the life I was gifted.”

Girl, you don’t even know. This rings so true. And I mean, this idea of placing yourself out there, for the world to see…it’s exciting, but at the same, terrifying. And to be honest, for me, the entirety of last year was just a blur. The one thing pulling me through right now is knowing, at the very least, that even if I’ve lost one thing that I really really loved…if I’ve got this other thing that I really really love, which is doing this, I can’t have lost everything.

23:45 How we shape our food culture

I’m into the idea that on an everyday level, we get to shape our own food culture. And if what you want is a bowl of pancit - well, make it! Or go and find a restaurant that makes it, if you can. Living in someplace like Toronto, this sometimes what I struggle with, because when I crave Filipino food, I want it really bad. But I’m not always up to cooking, and so my options then are to go to a good Filipino restaurant, then travel back home, or actually spend the time to make it myself, even if all I wanna do is veg out on the couch and watch RuPaul’s Drag Race. I know, this doesn’t really make much sense, in the scheme of like how big my problems are, but sometimes when eating something that just gives you so much comfort, is the thing that saves you from a very shitty day…you’re gonna go the lengths to get that thing.

Now I know that by saying that, this puts me in this position of being like, how are you undervaluing your cuisine, and I know, that is something that struggle with, but I’m saying this because I’m not the only person who has thought this. There is, certainly, still that hesitation to go out to eat at a Filipino restaurant, because most Filipinos who regularly cook it, think, well I can just make that at home.

The thing is, for me, I’m more than happy to pay for the service, and the food and the experience of going out to eat - and I want to stress that that’s important, it’s a vital thing for the restaurant culture of Filipino establishments to really support each other, and to show that this is a worthy investment to go and spend an evening out, at an establishment that does that what they very well. These kind of restaurants are the frontrunners to promoting our food culture. But given everything though, there’s this reality we can’t escape.

YG: To be fair, if I’m like, serving hand-pulled rice noodles, then I would definitely charge $25 for pancit. You know, but it’s again, like, something the craft isn’t there. Like I don’t know anyone here in the United States who’s making rice noodles from scratch, let’s put it that way. Although I know a lot of people who are making pasta from scratch, so there’s that.

NA: So if the craft and technique of making rice noodles from scratch, or even knowing how to cut up a chicken, for example, so like the bones aren’t cracked into these tiny shards that float in your bowl of chicken tinola - stuff like that, if that isn’t there, it eventually contributes to the acceptance that Filipino food is a little “less” than others, if we measured cuisines by their perceived value for diners in the western world.

27:15 Immigration and the loss of knowledge

YG: And I think there’s another factor where culture and heritage is not actually transferred over, just because of the immigration story. A lot of the immigrants who come here, don’t necessarily come from that industry. You know what I mean? Like for example, my mom, who’s a nurse. She doesn’t cook. She’s one of those Filipinos who just doesn’t cook. And it’s sad because she never transferred any of those recipes to me. I think the only thing that she knows how to make from scratch is the Ilonngo version of bagoong, the pink one.

But it’s like, where do you get the small, tiny shrimp here? You can’t. No one in our family makes rice noodles, or egg noodles in our family. Like we just go straight to the market, and they pretty much just get it from the guy who makes it, from the suki. We don’t make lumpia wrappers from scratch. And probably the people who do make lumpia wrappers from scratch, are not the people who are gonna be immigrating from the Philippines to the US. So the point I’m trying to make is there’s a lot in our cuisine that is not being transferred over to the younger generation. It’s because we don’t have the tools to do so. And we weren’t prepped for that. So it’s a sad reality, but that’s kinda where we are right now, in terms of getting in touch with our heritage and culture.

NA: Next, Yana and I chat about how we eat today. What our habits are like, how often we eat, and why Filipinos in general love to have people over for dinner.

29:30 Creatures of convenience

YG: We are now all creatures of convenience. Like, why would I want to make my own wonton wrappers, when it’s already there in the market? That’s also another way where we’re losing a lot of the preservation of these ethnic foodways.

NA: Going off of what you’re saying, you know, we are creatures of convenience, that’s true. And for several generations, many people in the Philippines were also, and still are, creatures of convenience. We got used to canned goods, with the arrival of the Americans, and the flood of canned and convenience foods that came into the country, that became absorbed by the local people…and then ended up coming back to North America, with those families that immigrated, and still want to eat Spam for breakfast.

YG: Well, the thing is, it’s like, can we talk about, really quickly, how canned goods were suddenly considered kind of like an elitist thing? Like if you’re eating canned goods, oh my god, you’re rich. Do you remember that? And it’s just like, it’s so ridiculous. How again, we were kinda tricked into this thinking that oh, if you’re eating canned goods versus the fresh fish that you get from the sea, your social status goes up, just because you’re eating Spam, or Vienna sausages. And then when you come to America, you’re just like, oh shit, no one even eats that here.

NA: I find that totally fascination. Like I love reading about the history of food. To me, it’s the kind of questions I ask myself, right. And I’m finding that I’m able to understand myself as a person more through food. And that is one of the great characteristics of food. As you say, with the SALO series, if you think about it on a personal level, you know, all of those people go to those dinners and gather to build their communities around food. Because they themselves, on a personal level, kind of realize that this stuff actually matters to me. Like I want to know where my food comes from, and I want to support alternative methods of how my food is grown. Support the fact that there’s not enough research being done in certain fields, specifically relating to sustainability and foodways and that kinda thing.

With that said, how do you feel [about] food and everything you’ve learned with cooking, having played a role in how you’re developed as a person, and how you kinda shape your identity?

32:35 "Food has always been part of our identity"

YG: As a Filipino, food has always been part of our identity. I don’t think you can ever separate the two. Just because, for me, like every single waking moment in a Filipino household revolves around food. Like we eat six times a day. There’s almusal (breakfast), there’s merienda (a snack), there’s pananghalian (lunch), there’s merienda (another snack), and there’s hapunan (dinner). And then after that, you might even get another pulutan (foods paired with a drink) at the end of the night. So that’s six times in a day. Like how many cultures out there can say that they eat six times a day? Just saying. And on top of that, for me, any reason to come together at eat…we’re there. Like, ‘oh, si neneng, gumraduate.’ Oh, tara, let’s go! Let’s go out and eat. Food trip!

33:45 Barkada's first question

YG: Or like, with me and my barkada. Every time I would come home, you know, either from university or if I come home from the States…we’d all meet, and the first thing they would ask me is, what do you want to do? Either we go for chicken inasal, or we’d go for oysters. They know me so well. They just know. They’re like, Yana only wants two things, whenever she comes home. It’s chicken inasal or oysters. It doesn’t matter [in] what order, I just have to get them. And I have to get them every day. And that’s the thing we used to do even when we were in high school. Like after school, guess where we would go? We’d go to the talabahan (oyster shacks), you know, and grab talaba (oysters). Like, come on. Now that I think about it, I was like, what did we used to do? All we did was eat. We were the worst. All we did in high school was eat, how were we not fat?

NA: It’s a very good question. It’s interesting though, because that kinda just boils it down again to [how] you know, Filipinos are crazy hospitable. And it’s so integral. And I think that’s one thing, to gather around something to eat. Even if you’re not hungry, you’re gonna be forced to eat, or like take a little bite of something.

34:55 Pride in hospitality

YG: Yeah. And it’s like, everyone takes pride in like entertaining. Like my grandma would hate me if I would just like, bring friends over to the house and not tell her. She’s like, how could you do this to me? You don’t understand, you don’t bring people unannounced into our house. Like, I have to prepare, our house is not prepared to entertain guests. And I’m like, what do you need to prepare in our house? I don’t get it. Like, we’re fine. And she’d be like, well I didn’t make merienda, and I’m like it’s okay, we’ve got Tang (orange juice). It’s so funny.

But now that I’m older, I actually kinda like, inherited that, from my grandma too…now I’m just like, oh yeah, whenever I kinda have people over, well, when I had a house, you know, like I wanna have everything set and prepared. And not just have random people like just show up at my doorstep. Now I hate that. It’s kinda funny how we become our elders when we’re older.

WRAP-UP

My warmest thanks to Yana Gilbuena for chatting with me, quite a while ago, for this interview. As soon I put in my Kickstarter order for “No Forks Given”, I was like hey, I would really love to ask you about the book.

We’ve talked about a lot of things this episode, so head over to the show notes to find links to things like the Stone Barns Fellowship, and some of Yana’s media coverage from places like The New York Times, National Geographic, NBC, and the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Follow Yana and the SALO Series on Instagram and Facebook @saloseries and saloseries.com/merch to order a copy of No Forks Given. There are e-books at this time, but who knows, maybe if you’re listening to this in the future - if we say we all want it, I say never give up on another print run! Salamat Yana, for sharing your story and those of countless others who gave life to the SALO Series.

Head over to exploringfilipinokitchens.com for past episodes, subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you download your shows.

Our theme music is by Eric Szestay, segment music is by Eric and Magill, Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear. Visit fma.org for their music and more. As always, if you enjoyed this, I would really love if you told a friend, or anyone who might enjoy it. Your good word means the world to me, and if you got another minute to spare - I’d really love a review, on whatever service you’re listening to this episode on.

Maraming salamat, and until next time - thank you for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 20: No Forks Given With Yana Gilbuena”.

Pulutan - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Marvin Gapultos and the Pluma Writing Collective below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

This episode we’re gonna try something new - like, a new format for the show. In addition to talking about a Filipino food book - whether it’s a cookbook or reference book - what I’m gonna do is invite a few people over to my place, to chat, to eat, and enjoy Filipino food in the ways that the foods we’re gonna be talking about are really meant to be experienced. To be honest, there aren’t any hard and fast rules for what I’m gonna call Nastasha’s Filipino Dinner Parties, except to come hungry, come excited, be yourself and ready to learn. It’s gonna be a lot of fun!

01:25 On Filipino drinking food

So we’re gonna start off this episode by talking about “pulutan” - basically, that’s food that we Filipinos typically eat with a beverage. They aren’t strictly bar snacks - because, as we talk about later on - “bars” in the western sense aren’t really where most Filipinos go to drink. Having done my fair share of drinking, I know that Filipinos do enjoy typically drinking at home and in places where they can gather with other people. Like the neighbourhood basketball court, a sari-sari store, or even somebody’s garage. When I was in high school, we’d often spend Friday nights underneath this tin-roofed garage at my friend’s house. We’d squish in between her parents’ car, the water tank, her mother’s gigantic plants, and usually a couple clothes hanging on a line to dry.

The point of having pulutan, for me, is that it’s an integral part of the “inuman” or overall drinking session. The thing that keeps people fed and, by extension, the party, pretty much going. Plus, pulutan is really just an entire category of recipes that are pretty easy to make - they’re economical, super tasty, and they’re literally all over the Philippines. At the tricycle terminals, jeepney terminals, basically anywhere people are out on the street. And this kind of cooking totally aligns with my current “eating well on a dime” situation here in Toronto. I promise you will be surprised at least once, with the kinds of foods and ingredients that eventually turn into really great pulutan.

Let’s get into things and kick this pulutan session with our interview with Marvin Gapultos. Marvin is the author of “Pulutan: Filipino Bar Bites, Snacks and Appetizers.” This is a book that came out last year, in the fall. I’ve wanted to chat with Marvin for the longest time. His “Adobo Road Cookbook”, which has always been on my shelf, since I got it maybe six or seven years ago, it’s always got a place in my kitchen now. And as soon as I read Pulutan, I knew I wanted to ask him more about how that cookbook came to be, and really about how the recipes that are in there, translate into what people who live outside of the country, can do in terms of experiencing a real pulutan session. So as soon as I got my hands on it, I knew I had to make some of the recipes, and invite people over to try them.

Let’s get to it.

INTERVIEW

04:45 About Marvin

MG: My name is Marvin Gapultos, and I’m the author of Pulutan. It’s essentially a book of Filipino drinking food. Mainly appetizers, finger food, and things of that nature, that go great with an alcoholic beverage. Mainly [with] beer. I don’t want to pigeonhole Filipinos as mainly being beer drinkers, but we are. At least I am, and at least my family is. So yeah, that was the approach I took with this cookbook. [It’s got] some traditional Filipino appetizers, some more contemporary takes, or a Fil-Am take on some things. That’s what I wanted to do with this cookbook.

05:45 What does pulutan mean to you?

NA: The thing that I really love about it, is that it does kind of put that ‘spirit’ behind pulutan, and the idea behind pulutan, front and centre. And I know you talk about it in the beginning of the book as well. Like for me, and the people I grew up with, pulutan really meant sort of a gathering, right. It’s very much an opportunity for you to like, hang out with people, and enjoy some food and drinking with it. So for you - what does it mean for you to have people over for that kind of cooking or eating experience?

MG: It’s always been just about being with family and friends. And the food and drink just happens to be the thing that brings us together, and keeps us in whatever vicinity we are eating and drinking in. For me, growing up, I mean we had birthday parties and family reunions and things like that, but sometimes, people just came over to hang out. Somebody would cook some food, and people would start drinking.

06:45 Great Uncle Nick and his buddies

MG: I have these early memories as a kid of my great uncles. My great uncle Nick would have like, a card game going on in the garage, and he’d have a bunch of his buddies over, and I was just being a kid, playing with my cousins and stuff in the driveway. And at the time, you know, I didn’t know what pulutan was. It was just oh, my uncle’s drinking with his buddies and they’re playing cards. But you know, my auntie would bring food into the garage from the kitchen, and stuff like that. There would always be little bites while these grown men were playing cards, and laughing and arguing, and you know. I just remember lots of whiskey, and lots of Budweiser. Those were my early memories of that kind of setting where it was just friends having fun, eating and drinking. And not necessarily in a party, like a birthday party situation, if that makes any sense.

NA: That is something that I think is unique to Filipino culture. It’s that you also talk about, you know, our drinking food not being restricted to something you would have like, after 5 pm, like an after-work drink sort of thing. And it doesn’t always have to be, you know, for a big birthday celebration, but it’s also kinda everyday. And for people who grow up in the Philippines, myself included, you know, sometimes it would just be going to the corner store and you would have some barbecue grilling, and you would get a couple of beers, and chat with your neighbours, stuff like that. So it can be kinda casual too.

MG: Yeah, it is. And it can be very casual, just an everyday thing. Which I think is cool, that part of our culinary culture, and our culture in general. I have this quote in my cookbook, by Doreen Fernandez…I’m paraphrasing, it says something like, you don’t need to drink, to enjoy pulutan. But it definitely helps. That’s not word for word what she says, but that’s the spirit behind what she was trying to say. I don’t want it to sound like we’re just a bunch of, you know, alcoholics, but it’s just a part of being together, and having that camaraderie.

08:50 Doreen's advice

NA: For those listening, I’ll repeat the quote here. Doreen Fernandez - who’s the premiere food historian from the Philippines - the quote is: “True celebration is of the spirit, and needs no spirits to make it lively”.

MG: That’s it!

NA: And that’s really, I guess, at the heart of it. What is very infectious about the recipes you have in your book. Because you’re right - they’re not that fussy, you know, there’s chicken wings, which is almost, I’d like to say, a universal bar food. And in the process of, I guess, narrowing down, or even testing, the recipes that you wanted to appear in the book… what were two or three favourite things that you learned about how these flavours come about? Was there anything the came up while you were doing recipe testing, that you were like, now that you know how to do it in this particular way, it’s gonna be like the [only] way you’re gonna do this particular snack for like, a very long time?

09:50 Papaitan (a bitter Ilocano stew with innards)

MG: The one that jumps out to me is my papaitan recipe - which is a very Ilocano, bitter dish. Typical pulutan in the northern part of the Philippines. For those of you who don’t know, it’s typically made with different cuts of beef or goat. Tripes and livers, different cuts of meat. And it’s made bitter with bile, the bile of the animal. Which not only Filipinos use, it’s used all across southeast Asia. To the uninitiated, it might sound crazy, but it’s not. That bitter profile is one of the things I like and love about Filipino food. And knowing that there would be some people who’d be averse to using bile, [and] also knowing that bile won’t be easy to find - although it is generally easy to find in a lot of Asian markets, at least here in California - I wanted to see if I could come close to replicating that bitterness. And I found that by using a bitter IPA, or India Pale Ale beer, you can get that bitter flavour, without the bile. So that was a good discovery for me. And it was a fun experiment for me.

It’s funny, talking with other people, other Filipino cooks who have had people say, oh it’s not really papaitan without the bile…I agree, I’m not saying I won’t use bile going forward, it’s just discovering that I could get that flavour profile was just kind of a fun thing for me to discover in recipe testing.

11:40 Highlighting flavour profiles

NA: And I love that that is something you do focus on quite a bit as well. Not just with this cookbook, but even on your blog, even on The Adobo Road Cookbook. It’s really sort of the flavour profile that we want to be able to highlight, with the dishes, I guess. And that’s kind of a good segue to your Cicerone - am I pronouncing that right?

MG: Yeah, that’s right, Cicerone.

NA: I think it’s really interesting, I don’t know how many of the folks listening are familiar with it, but if you could describe what that is, and how that plays into your cooking, and into your recipes and the book, particularly?

12:20 The Cicerone Program

MG: Well, basically, there’s this Cicerone program…the way I like to describe it, and the way other people in the beer industry like to describe it, is to compare it to the sommelier program, for those who drink wine. So Cicerone is basically a beer sommelier. And like the sommelier program, there are different levels of Cicerone. The first level is [for] a certified beer server, then there’s a certified Cicerone, then an advanced Cicerone, and a master Cicerone, similar to how there’s master sommeliers and things like that.

12:55 How it led to “Pulutan"

MG: So after I wrote my first book, I knew that Pulutan was something I wanted to focus on more, should I have an opportunity to write another cookbook. Because I like bar food, and I like to drink. I’ve always been interested in craft beer, and different types of beer. And so I decided it would be cool if I could go through the process.

In order to become a Cicerone, you have to take this huge test, very difficult test, and do all these tastings, and be able to identify different beer flavours. I don’t want to bore everybody, but I wanted to get that certification, just to kind of show that Filipino flavours are just as great with, you know, the world of beers, as any other cuisine. That was important for me to show.

13:45 Beyond ties to San Miguel

MG: Because you know, Filipino food is typically tied to San Miguel Beer. Which is great, I like San Miguel too. But in order for us to, you know, expand and introduce more people to Filipino food, as different chefs highlight stuff…

NA: So what Marvin’s basically saying is that as more professional chefs - and by extension, home cooks like you and me - learn about foods that Filipino people have enjoyed for ages….it’s pretty natural to want to know how to prepare those foods so that you can enjoy them, even if you’re far away from a neighbourhood street food stall in the Philippines. To my mind, if you swap the hockey for basketball on TV, who says you can’t have pulutan night in Canada?

In that sense, it’s really kinda more like, I guess an education, about the different flavour profiles in a beer. Reading that in Pulutan was educational, for me, and I can imagine that I guess is the appeal for you as well, in sort of teasing out those different combinations and flavours that are highlighted with those kinds of beers.

15:25 Filipino food and a world of beer styles

MG: Yeah, it definitely was the fun part of writing this cookbook, just my experience with Filipino flavours, I like to think. So it was fun to see how I could match that with different beer flavours, with different beer styles, in different parts of the world. It was definitely enjoyable and eye-opening. And also, I just want to say that they’re just suggestions - everybody’s palate is different. So I want to encourage people to not follow my suggestions to a T, although of course, I mean follow them if you like. But also, experiment on your own, try different beers with different Filipino foods, and see how you like it.

16:05 "It just clicked”

NA: I was gonna say, one of my favourite recipes in the book, just because I have a personal affinity to gin poms…your gin pomelo shrimp cocktail, which is a really nice, sort of, like a version of kinilaw, where the seafood, the shrimp is cooked in the citrus, and I thought that was a really fun way of bringing that technique, a new way of [making it].

MG: Yeah. It was one of those recipes where it just kind of clicked, and made sense. You know, I have the gin pom cocktail recipe, and I knew I wanted to make some sort of shrimp kinilaw. And then it just made sense, to use the pomelos in there, and it kinda just evolved from that. So I’m glad you liked it.

17:15 Moving up the ladder

NA: It was really…when I moved out of my parents’ house, at like 21, that was really my first sort of, I got thrown into the deep water of like, okay, if you really miss Filipino food, if you miss the tastes and the flavours of what you love eating…you’re gonna have to cook it yourself, and you’re gonna have to sort of explore and learn.

MG: Definitely. I can definitely relate to that. I mean, I grew up with Filipino food all the time. As somebody who was born here in the States, my mom still cooked it, and I didn’t realize, I took it for granted until I moved away. Similar to how you were saying, right. I missed it, I missed that taste. And then that’s what led me on this journey of learning how to cook. And its funny, you know, you wanna learn to cook the food that you grew up with, but then there’s so many other different variations beyond what your mom cooks. And that’s the cool thing, you know. Like you could learn how to cook your mom’s pinakbet, but then learning to cook like a Tagalog version of it, or just another person’s version of any Filipino dish.

It’s like you keep moving up in this Filipino food ladder, I guess. And the higher you get, the more experience you have, the more you gain familiarity with the different varieties. And it’s fun, it’s great.

18:55 Cooking is a process of discovery

NA: I guess it’s sort of about establishing a comfort level too, for those tastes. I wasn’t the kid who like hung around with my lola in the kitchen, and like pestered her to teach me stuff. I didn’t really have much of an interest in cooking until I became older. And I guess because I’m really interested in also, just what happens when you cook food, like the different techniques you can apply, how you apply heat to a certain ingredient, to a dish, is going to change what the end result is. The texture of it, how you can impart different flavours, and stuff like that.

Filipino cuisine is such a great example of starting with those sometimes very basic ingredients, but like many other cultures, if you start with a really good thing, and you treat it well, and you have a few little things…like for us, the vinegars. When Amy Besa and Chef Romy (Dorotan) were out west, you attended one of their cooking demonstrations, right? Where they had different ingredients from the Philippines?

MG: Yeah, and they had brought a mulberry vinegar. Which blew my mind. Chef Romy had made it, I believe, if I remember correctly. It was cool how he used it to make something as basic as an adobo, to be so different, to have a different flavour profile, with just a change in vinegar.

20:15 We all evolve as we grow

MG: You know, the more you make Filipino food, the more you cook certain dishes, the more you want to make something your own. That’s kind of an evolution in all of us, you know. We take a very basic recipe that we may have gotten from our mother or our lola. And just based on geography and availability ingredients, it slowly changes to what we like, and it becomes our own dish. So it’s definitely a cool thing.

Even now, as a father, it sounds weird saying this, but you know, I like to take comfort in knowing that someday, hopefully, my kids will take one of my dishes, that I took from my mom, and make it their own. And it’s just this continuing evolution of our culture and our cuisine.

21:15 Chicken wings with fish sauce and calamansi

NA: That sort of, desire to want to improve, and tweak things a little bit, is really exciting because, just going back to the chicken wings, your recipe for “Hot Wings with Fish Sauce and Calamansi Caramel” sounds like such a winning flavour combination, and that sounds like an example of like, really nailing how to do chicken wings right, and then kinda putting your own spin on it, and seeing how that turns out…and maybe even jumping off from there, and doing a different version of it. With a different citrus, or you know, some other tiny tweak.

MG: Yeah, definitely. And I had reservations, because I had another chicken wing recipe in my first cookbook…it’s funny, this is kind of an evolution, or a tweak to that one, using a different glaze with different ingredients, you know, using citrus instead of vinegar. And they’re completely different wings, but it’s funny you bring that up. Cause yeah, that’s a good example of you know, tweaking a recipe and making it completely different with some changes in ingredients.

22:25 Mind-blowing vinegar

NA: Like you were saying, that mulberry vinegar kinda like, blew your mind because, like, wow, I can’t believe that you can get so much depth of flavour, and that mulberries even existed in the Philippines. For me, it was the coconut products that were really kinda mind-blowing too. Because for people who are really keen to really try these different tweaks and experiment with these Filipino dishes that they already have a penchant, or a taste for…knowing that those kinds of ingredients exist is kind of exciting. Because if we can start demanding it a little bit more, then maybe, hopefully that’ll make its way outside of the Philippines, and a lot more people will get to try these different ingredients that are again, very unique and kind of speak to the flavours of the land and what Filipinos like to do with these ingredients.

MG: Definitely. And it’s something I’ve seen over the years. Cause I remember, way back when I had my blog I wrote about Ilocano sea salt. It must have been over ten years ago, like back in 2007, that I think X Roads [was selling it]…I believe they’re still around. They’re a company that imports sea salts from the Philippines. Like really great, flaky, sea salt. And so yeah, it would be great to see these different indigenous products from the Philippines get that kind of demand.

23:55 What should we take away?

NA: So I guess as sort of, a bit of a parting thought for us…beyond the Pulutan cookbook, and beyond the Adobo Road cookbook, what’s the one thing that you kinda want to see, in terms of how people take their Filipino culture, and have that play out in their cooking and what they like to eat?

MG: Just to not be afraid to share it, and not be afraid if it’s not as good as your mother’s. When I started cooking Filipino food, I was always in my own head and worried. What will other Filipinos think of this? What if they don’t like my adobo? But ultimately, who cares? You know. I want us to stop comparing what we cook to what someone else cooks. We should base how good a Filipino dish is, based on how it tastes, rather than how it compares to some preconceived notion. Our own pride that we have, is definitely spreading it, it’s taking our food to new levels. We’re kind of moving away from that adobo comparison. So you know, taste the dish and if it’s good, it’s good.

NA: I think it is personal for people whenever we talk about food. It’s never just about what’s in front of you, or what you’re preparing. It’s always, the gateway I guess to a lot of other things, like family. So I really like that that’s something you believe in as well. That there’s no right or wrong. If you like how you cook a particular dish, and it makes you happy, then go for it.

25:45 Dinner party #1!

NA: Welcome to the first of Nastasha’s Filipino dinner parties! So after chatting with Marvin and getting a little more insight on the foods that become pulutan, I wanted to know whether this category of drinking food was something familiar to Filipinos who grew up in Canada. You’ll have to listen to find out! One very snowy, wintery, stormy day in January - like, I was so thankful these guys trooped it out - Jennilee Austria, Eric Tigley, Jaisa Sulit and Justine Abigail Yu came over for pulutan.

So this month we are cooking from Pulutan. We’ve tried the meatballs from the book this evening, as well as the mushrooms with lemongrass, it’s turned out pretty well so far. But what really interested me about the book is just the concept, that there is a book specifically about pulutan recipes.

So pulutan is drinking food - lots of cultures have drinking food. Filipinos definitely have food that they like to pair with drinks. A lot of it is grilled, or fried. And so this book is able to sort of translate some of those common pulutan recipes into things that you can cook in your kitchen, such as the Bicol Express meatballs that I made in my apartment in Toronto. Right now, it’s like minus 20, I believe outside…but it’s feeling pretty tropical in here. So we’re gonna talk about pulutan this episode. If you could tell us a little bit about yourselves, and we’ll start from there.

28:15 One of Jennilee's favourite words

JA: Hello everybody. My name is Jennilee. I’m a YA author, and I also run a workshop series called “Filipino Talks” in district school boards, where I try to introduce Filipino culture to a bunch of educators, and then do workshops with students. So, pulutan, is one my favourite words in Tagalog because it sounds literally like what it is, like a pollutant…it is junk food, and I just find that hilarious. It’s so perfect. And when I think of pulutan, I always think of, you know, a bunch of Filipinos around a really small table, like there’s one bottle of beer and you’re passing it around, and you know, there’s isaw, kwek-kwek, Adidas, and Betamax. I always think of those kinds of things, that I think would probably scare off a lot of Canadians. And it’s the kind of food that brings you together. And this is a word that I feel like other cultures should have too, because I don’t know any culture that drinks and then eats healthy food. Right? Like everyone’s got their poutine.

NA: I mean, in the Philippines, some of the really popular pulutan items are things like sisig, which is pig’s ears, cheeks, jowls, boiled then grilled, and possibly fried, with like an egg on top. It’s personally one of my favourite things to eat. So then we talked about sisig for awhile - how to cook it, why keeping a crisp texture to sisig is everything, and about the one time I cooked pigs ears sous-vide for half a day and then finished them in a blazing hot cast iron skillet. I was really, really craving some serious old-school sisig that day and it totally hit the spot. So it’s not surprising that pigs are like top of the food chain when it comes to pulutan. And that, we proved next.

30:20 Eric on sacred pulutan

ET: My name is Eric, I’m a teacher in Toronto. And I did a couple of books. I like to make art. And I like to eat things. That’s why I’m here today. And with pulutan - I haven’t been to the Philippines that often - my only memory of pulutan was how it overrided everything else. [My family] is from the province of southern Leyte, and I remember somebody was like, hey, you want some chicken? I was like, sure, and he just reached underneath the chair to kill the chicken. You know, it’s not like you’re ordering off a menu. Extremely fresh. And you just got off a plane, and you’re like, okay, wow. And I remember we were saving pork, for Christmas, and you know, at Christmas everybody sees their family and everybody starts drinking…I remember we were saving one, just this one bowl of pork, to cook for Christmas, but a couple of my cousins got drunk two days before, and they cooked it that night. At like, three o’clock in the morning, and they ate it. And my mom was so pissed off the next morning. But then their whole alibi was, oh, it was pulutan, like, what else are we supposed to do? Like, we needed to drink and eat, so, we’re all family, you know? What’s yours is mine? And she was obviously upset by it, but then it got a pass for some reason. So that’s my only experience with pulutan, is like it was kind of, sacred, you know, when you’re drinking it’s what you have there to eat. It overrides everybody’s authority, I don’t know.

32:00 Jaisa and connecting through food

JS: So my name’s Jaisa, I’m an author and therapist. I’m born and raised in Toronto, and I didn’t have any cousins growing up, they didn’t immigrate until I was already in my twenties. So I actually never learned of the word, or the concept of pulutan, until like a couple of years ago. I’m turning 40 this year. And that’s one of the reasons I’m inspired to learn more about Filipino food, and just connect with other Filipinos, is just because I only learned last year, how food can be the most direct way to connect with the Philippines. And I was like, oh, right. Being born and raised in Toronto, Queen and Bathurst, I didn’t even know if a fruit or a vegetable grew on a bush or a tree. Like I had never been to a farm until I was in my twenties. And so this is kind of like, for me, a way of still learning about myself, and this like disconnect from this sense of who I really am. So coming here today, and just being with you guys is just, really helping heal this part of me that’s like, you know, I do feel like my soul chose to be Filipino in this lifetime. Why? And I was really surprised today with what we ate, that it can be really healthy and different! Because normally, so when I just discovered pulutan in the last couple of years, it’s always deep fried. Tonight was kinda like, inspiring, that okay, I could feel quite in line with my diet, whatever it may be, and desire to eat healthier while still having pulutan, over wine.

33:40 Justine's fam jams

JY: I’m Justine, and I am the founder and editor of a new magazine called “Living Hyphen”, which is all about exploring the experiences of people who are living in between different cultures, within the diaspora here in Canada. So that’s what I do, and I’m really relieved actually that Jaisa, you mentioned you hadn’t come across the term pulutan, because when you were first talking about the idea for this podcast, I was like, I don’t know if I have anything to contribute really…I was born in the Philippines, and I lived there for four years, but I’ve lived most of my life here in Canada. And honestly, I’ve learned a lot about Filipino food, mostly from you Nastasha, so that’s within the last year. It’s all very new to me, but as we’re having this discussion, I’m realizing that pulutan has always been a part of my life, I just didn’t know the word for it necessarily. But you know, [we had] so many Filipino fam jams growing up, and you know, there’s always karaoke or always drinking, and there’s always, always food around. And you know, you’ll have dinner, and then you’ll have drinks, and then the magic mic will come out and all the titas will get on and start singing. And then it’s like, round two of eating, and round three, and I guess I just didn’t figure that as pulutan, specifically, but it totally is. And now, it’s cool that I have the language for it, or that I have a word for it, which is really really special.

35:20 University parties in Toronto

JY: I’m listening to everyone talk and it is so different from so many of my experiences growing up, and you know, partying here in Toronto. I went to U of T (the University of Toronto), and went to a bunch of university parties. Now that I think about it, drinking and food for a lot of the parties that I went to, were always very separate. Like in university parties, like I feel like they would’ve had food there, but it would’ve been either chips or like, some cheese or something like that. But it was never part of the party. It was a ‘side’ thing that was there. And then even outside of university, you know, when you go clubbing like in the Entertainment District, it’s all just at the bar. You’re just dancing, and you’re drinking. And then, after, you would go to Smoke’s Poutinerie or something. And that’s the food portion. It was never together, it was always very distinct from each other. Which, yeah, is so different from a lot of Filipino family parties that I grew up going to. It’s funny, I just never thought about it in that way.

36:25 Jennilee's pet peeve

JA: Can I tell you a pet peeve of mine? It’s when people have parties, and there’s alcohol, and all they have is like that little plate of vegetables. Like celery, and carrots, and the hummus. And you’re like, no Filipino house would ever only serve that. There’s no way. You would leave, right? Or just a fruit platter, with all the grapes are off the vine at that point. There’s a couple of really gross pieces of pineapple.

37:00 Celebratory vs solitary drinking

NA: And then, well, we started to get a little tipsy, and we ended up talking about celebratory versus solitary drinking. I mean that in like, how the experience itself is different. Whether you’re ‘celebratory’ drinking for, example, like a birthday or some kind of special occasion…versus ‘solitary’ drinking, where you’re having a quiet drink at the bar, maybe reading a book on a good night or maybe mulling over your life choices on another night. I also talked about how, like, one of the first things I kind of learned to shed my misconceptions of, was this idea of going to a bar and spilling your problems to a bartender. Maybe it’s because that’s all I saw on American TV and movies growing up, but the initial reaction I had - here, once I got to Canada - was thinking, “doesn’t this person have anyone else to talk to?”. You end up spilling all your secrets to this stranger at the bar. That kinda stuff was set aside and given a little more room for interpretation. And it’s really just part of the process, of understanding the situation and community you live in now. Justine basically says what’s on my mind pretty clearly.

38:45 Justine on a certain kind of western freedom

JY: I thought of two things while you were talking about that. And I think a lot of it is rooted also in the different between east and west, in eastern and western cultures. In how, I don’t know, in the east it’s very much, like ‘it takes a village’, you know. There’s so much more emphasis on community and family and creating those really embedded - sometimes too embedded - support systems, you know. Whereas in the west, it’s like there’s just so much focus and emphasis and prioritizing around individualism. And dealing with your problems on your own, and having that kind of independence, that I think lends itself to that kind of, you know, going to the bar and speaking to the bartender. And I don’t know if I prefer any one way over the other, but I guess it’s because I grew up here, that I can see how that can also be very liberating, in a sense. And I’ve travelled a lot and it’s similar I think, in that when I’m travelling, I’m so much more open, and I’m so much more…all the inhibitions go away, and you go to a bar, and you’re just much more open to talking to anyone. And it kind of helps to not know the person, and to be able to just lay your shit, you know, without having to think of who’s gonna know? Or who will this be relayed to? Like, the ‘too embedded-ness’ of Filipino culture.

40:20 Why Nastasha loves bars

NA: Exactly. That’s why I said, one of the reasons why I love living in Toronto is because I love going to a random bar…nobody knows anything about me, and I can just be like…

JA: No chismis around?

NA: Nope. I can just be who I want to be, and just enjoy.

WRAP-UP

My warmest thanks to Marvin Gapultos for the interview on his book, “Pulutan: Filipino Bar Bites, Appetizers and Street Eats.” Last year was a pretty monumental one for Filipino cookbooks published in the US, and Pulutan is definitely one you’re gonna want to cook from.

Super huge thanks as well to Jennilee Austria, Eric Tigley, Jaisa Sulit and Justine Abigail Yu for coming over to talk about pulutan. I promise it won’t be the last! Most of us met through Pluma, a collective of Filipino writers, poets and artists in Toronto. Please take a minute to learn about their work and visit the links in the show notes.

Our theme music is by David Szeztay, segment music is by Eric and Magill, Podington Bear, Blue Dot Sessions, and Makaih Beats. Visit FMA.org to listen to their tracks and more. Visit exploringfilipinokitchens.com for past episodes, and a couple new tweaks to the website. Before the next episode airs, let me know what you think of this one!

Maraming salamat, and thank you for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 19: Pulutan With Marvin Gapultos”.

For The Love Of Cooking - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Jenn de la Vega below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

Hard to believe it’s been two years since I started the podcast. While it still feels very indie, and there’s a lot I’d like to improve, what really keeps me going is the excitement with everything I wanna share with you all. I

Because on the show, what I really want to do is talk about our culture, our traditions and history, and how that interweaves and mingles with our food, to really make cuisine a part of who we are. This kinda stuff fascinates me…and I think you’ll find it captivating, too!

The biggest thing that’s happened is that today there’s a number of amazing podcasts out there about proudly being Filipino. If you think about it, that’s pretty amazing. There definitely wasn’t this much content out there, or this many voices, from the Filipino community when I started, and it’s only gonna get better and bigger. If you haven’t listened to shows like “This Filipino-American Life” or “Long Distance”, which are two of my favourites - you guys need to, right now.

The reason I fell in love with podcasting in the first place is because it really just allows you to share a good story. At the end of the day, that’s really what it is. On a technical side, it kind of democratizes this ability for us to share those stories, with anyone in the world. And the really good ones, they’re like listening to a friend, a friend you miss from back home. You can talk about anything, talk about life right now, what you’re feeling, what you’re thinking about. And for me, when you listen to someone who’s a good storyteller - someone who can really get you into it, wrap you up in that story - it’s amazing, because then it makes you feel that you can be part of something bigger. Like, they get me!

And I love it because when I first started writing about food, I didn’t really know anyone who felt that same way as I felt, about cooking, or really about the world in general.

Exploring Filipino Kitchens has been great for that because it’s how I get to meet people like Jenn de la Vega, who’s an author, editor, a caterer, and super skilled don’t-put-her-in-a-box kind of person. She edits a magazine called “Put A Egg On It” which I love because it’s just as crazy fun indie as I like them. And after I read her book called “Showdown Comfort Food” I badly wanted to get to New York City asap.

So I went - and it was great! Let’s get to it.

INTERVIEW

NA: Today we are sitting in a lovely park in Brooklyn, that’s um…what’s the name of this park?

JV: This is McCarren Park, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

NA: So we’re on location today, and it’s a beautiful, sunny winter day, and I am here with Jenn de la Vega. Welcome Jenn!

JV: Thanks for having me!

NA: It’s a pleasure! So I was wondering if you could start by introducing yourself and telling us about what you’re doing.

04:25 About

JV: Well hello! I have always been a person who juggled careers. I left my job in technology of four years, to pursue cooking. On the side, in the mornings and at nights, I would be cooking non-stop, every day. And exploring Filipino food, as you do. But also, other cultures that I was interested in, like Spanish food and classic French, so that I could build my skills. For [that] one day, when I did have the time and opportunity to pursue it - which is now - so I’d be ready.

NA: I got in touch with Jenn because I got a copy of “Showdown: Comfort Food”. I’ll start by asking if you could tell us how the book came about, because one thing I really really loved about this book is that as I read it, I felt like I was really drawn into your neighbourhood, and into your world. And the detail that you give with Takedowns, and you know, sometimes forgetting things, like tongs, when you’re out to go catering, it gives you kinda like, I don’t know if insider is the best word…but I kinda feel like I’m there with you.

05:35 From competitions to a cookbook

JV: And in the vein of forgetting things, I also forget that I am an author. Page Street Publishing, which is the imprint that helped me release Showdown, they approached me, oh gosh, I think it was two years ago, to write a book. And we sort of had trouble, we were brainstorming on the phone, like what we could write about, I had trouble focusing on topics…I have varied interests. So I love all kinds of food. I have all kinds of career interests. But I really wanted to write a cookbook. It was in my five-year plan.

NA: It’s a good plan to have.

JV: Yeah, and we were moving the timetable up, so they were asking me earlier than I thought. And I still had to put together a proposal and things like that. But I was looking around my apartment, and before we were about to hang up, I said, oh, how do you feel about competitions? They’re like, why? Well, I’m standing in front of a 7 foot trophy that I won maybe in 2012, and they’re like, well why do you have that? Oh, I forgot to tell you, I won this barbecue series in Bed Stuy, which is not known for its barbecue, but they’re known for cookouts and sort of family gatherings, and there was a bar that hosted a friendly competition one summer. I joined in, thinking oh, this is one way to get to know my neighbours. And I did not know that the format would be very intense. It was NCAA bracket style elimination rounds, all summer long.

So there were maybe four times during the summer where we had to pretty much build up a pop-up restaurant in the back of a bar. It was like throwing me into a pool. Which is the best way for me to learn.

NA: It’s a sink or swim situation.

06:55 The thrill of it all

JV: Exactly. I love learning by doing. And we had to learn how to make a menu, how to develop recipes. Week to week, we had to learn how to sell and price things, make vegetarian food. That was new to me. So it was really fun to innovate and iterate very quickly, much like a start-up does. But I think the competition really pushed me to keep going and keep creating. And I got addicted to it. As you read in Showdown, I also started to participate in the Takedowns, which is a quarterly competition in Brooklyn. There’s a low bar of entry, anyone can enter. In the beginning there used to be a fee to participate, but they took it away because they wanted more people, more diverse sets of talents, and recipes and flavours. And again, like I said, I got addicted to the feeling of competition. But it wasn’t necessarily winning. I lost a lot. I lost for maybe five years straight. But I kept going because the people that you compete against become your friends, and you get to try maybe 20 to 30 new dishes each time, and I don’t know, I really loved it.

08:40 "Showdown" was born

JV: And so Showdown, the book, sort of rounds up 100 of the recipes that I’ve thrown into competition. I’ve gone through and fixed them, I’ve tested them again, I’ve sent them around to friends and made sure it actually tasted good this time around, you know, it was refined. And very much [like] how you said, you get immersed in the story - I very purposefully structured the book so that you sort of were growing along with me. And recipes get a little…you know, they kinda grow in skill level, and incorporate the concept of using your leftovers.

The thing that annoys me about other cookbooks is they introduce a specialty ingredient to you, and you never see it again. So I made sure that either it was threaded through the book, or that there were notes in the back on how to use it, how to use up leftovers. I don’t like wasting things. It’s a very Filipino thing, you know we don’t like to waste.

NA: But that’s what I loved about the book as well. Because apart from being written in a very conversational tone, and having things like lumpia chips…like it’s a common ingredient, but you’re like, oh, you really can serve this in a non-traditional manner. That’s the fun part of it, it puts that ingredient front and center, not wasting it, and you can serve it to people and have fun.

11:10 Bake that lumpia chip!

JV: I like that you caught that. Because in this book, it’s not Filipino-focused, but there are notes of it. Lumpia chips are like nachos, and that is something that as a Filipino-American child in northern California who had a Taco Bell nearby, that was, you know, very nostalgic for me. To combine both my 90s childhood with you know, a nod to the past. But also, introducing people to this new ingredient. Even sort of challenging the traditional Filipino notion of, oh, it should only be rolled. Or it should only be fried. Like, you can bake it! Whoa.

NA: I mean other people have talked about this at length, about how food is really an entry point or gateway into learning about culture, and really getting other people to kind of, share an experience I guess. One thing I love about talking with people in the food industry, or people who cook…like you mentioned earlier, you iterate a lot, and it’s just a process of, oh well this didn’t taste as great as I think it should, so you try it again next time. There’s this spirit of just wanting to do it. You want to get better, even if it’s just this competition against yourself.

JV: There’s a lot of that, yeah. Like, can I do that better next time? Yes, I can.

NA: Did that drive your recipe structure, and recipe building, for the Showdown recipes?

11:55 "I'm not just cooking for me”

JV: Yeah, it did. As soon as I found out that I lost a competition, I was already, in my head, making notes, or on my phone making notes. Like next time, do this. And I’m not just cooking for me…I realized over time. I mean, that sounds so obvious, but I’m accommodating all kinds of palates and experiences. So I’ve learned [from it].

12:15 A spectrum of taste

JV: There’s a paragraph about this in the book, [that] I’ve learned to under-season. That’s okay, because I’ve found that as I take this book to other cities…like in the midwest, or Pennsylvania…it was interesting to hear people describe the food as too spicy, but not in a ‘hot’ sense. I didn’t understand. I thought, but I didn’t put any jalapeños in this one, this time around. Why do you think it’s too spicy? And then I noticed, oh, okay. There’s a different definition of spiciness. It is “seasoned”. Like there’s a spectrum of taste, that’s interesting [to see] across America, and I’ve learned that I need to accommodate both the expert and the amateur and the novice. Food is always adjustable, it can be changed. And that’s really beautiful.

13:25 Embracing new culinary ecosystems

NA: It is. I was talking with Allie Cuerdo, she directed this documentary called “Ulam: Main Dish”. And we talked about that, about food being, like it doesn’t have to be boxed in. What’s really exciting about the way that people are approaching Filipino cuisine today, is that there’s a lot more…even just that openness to interpretation. Having a set of people and an audience - like a set of people from the chefs’ side, who really want to experiment, and know that they can, unapologetically - and the combination of having an interested audience and people who are learning a lot more because we now have this ecosystem of people writing about it, pop-up dinners, just like bringing more awareness and stuff. [It’s] an entry point to Filipino cuisine. And as you mentioned, with Showdown, it’s not a Filipino cookbook, strictly. But what’s great is, we really get a sense of how your Filipino culture is played out, as well, in the kind of cooking that you do.

14:25 Longganisa and champorado

JV: Yeah. A lot of my entries for these competitions were to educate. That was the biggest point. There was one specific dish in there that features longganisa, and champorado, together. Champorado is usually a sweet chocolate dish. This competition was hosted at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, it was the chili chocolate festival. You could enjoy both those things at once. So they had a bunch of chocolate vendors, they had a bunch of chili vendors, and then they had a competition in the middle, where you had to combine both. And I did not know a single Filipino dish that combined both. So I had to make one. But instead of adding so much sugar to the champorado, we made it more savoury. I took the idea of adding chocolate to mole, and ‘remade’ champorado in that way. Then I made my own longganisa, super spicy this time, for the competition. And there were just people who weren’t expecting that, you know.

15:20 Contextualizing the food we grow up with

JV: This an interesting challenge of [doing] Filipino food, you know. I grew up with it en masse. It was in bowls, and stews, and it kind of piles, in a way, that is unappetizing to some cultures, or some people who have never seen that before. And so visually, it’s something that I try to work on. To either re-contextualize the ingredients and food, or introduce common elements, like nacho chips [to] lumpia chips, you know, things like that, that I grew up with.

16:00 "I'm influenced by a lot of things”

JV: My experience with jobs and the things that I do is pretty multi-faceted. And I think that’s how I approach food. I don’t think that it can be wrong…if it tastes good, and it can feed you, you feel nourished, then [that’s] wonderful, right? And you can see, just flipping through the book, and through my Instagram, that I’m influenced by a lot of things. And you can choose how many things, or how much it can impact you. And for me, I’m always hungry. I’m always looking, always reading. Much like you, I’m always cracking open a book, about this or that. Like, gosh, I need to go look that up, right now, right now. That’s what’s exciting about keeping it going, and moving on, and changing and evolving.

NA: Jenn’s story is of somebody who grew up in the US, with roots in the Philippines - and it’s one of millions. The point of this show is to shed light on as diverse a set of stories as I can, knowing that it’s never gonna be perfect, taking logistics and resources and stuff like that into account. But, I do think that it’s worth telling.

17:35 My story and your story matters

NA: And even that little breakthrough - that my and your story matters, that we don’t have to wait for an organization, or some other big entity to talk about something that’s taboo - I’m slowly starting to learn that, to own that. But if no one’s willing to do that in the Philippines - which is a place I clearly care a lot about, where many of the people who I love, still live - how do we, as a culture, stay afloat, and thrive, with these waves of change that sweep us up in with the rest of the world, to become this one, homogenized thing?

And in a place where you can see both extremes of “speaking your mind” played out so differently - on one end, for example, where you have reporters who vanish after writing about farm workers going on strike, and the other end where people say the craziest shit you can imagine on social media - that courage, that determination to speak your mind is something I really admire. Going against what’s normal can get you in trouble, for sure, even when we talk about food. But if we can’t talk about food without questioning “authenticity” every single time - how do we keep our food culture, which is such a big part of our identity - from simply fading away?

So it’s a beautiful winter day, Jean and I are sitting on this park bench in Brooklyn, a couple blocks away from the Museum of Food and Drink, where we’re heading to next. As you can tell, we talked a lot about why we loved to cook. You can hear things like people walking their dogs pass by, you can probably heard a siren or two in the background, and a lot of “likes” peppered through our conversation because, well, that’s just how we talk! And clearly, we can talk quite a bit about food, because this conversation went on for a lot longer than this podcast episode is.

Kidding aside, I asked Jenn when she started competing in these local cooking throwdowns, because I wanted to know - what was the vibe like? What were the people like? How did it lead to the “Showdown: Comfort Food” cookbook, which I now had?

20:40 8 years of throwdowns

JV: This was maybe a cumulative 8 years.

NA: Wow.

JV: Yeah! I look back and I didn’t realize that that much time had passed, because I just mechanically would just be entering these things, going when’s the next one, when’s the next one? And it changes when you actually do win things. The dynamic changes. Because, like, once I won the bacon takedown…

NA: I was gonna ask about that.

21:05 Winning a bacon challenge

JV: So [for] this specific competition, they gave us 15 pounds of bacon to use. It was sponsored.

NA: Wait, so 15 pounds split between…

JV: No no no. It’s per person.

NA: 15 pounds of bacon per person?

JV: Well, we had to make like 200 or 300 bites of something. And so, I really really wanted to make kare-kare. I don’t know why, I got really stuck on it. Like, I’ve just been working on this kare-kare for a long time, I just really want to make it happen, for bacon. And eventually, what happened is…to the audience, what I made was a bacon curry peanut nacho, using the lumpia chips. But, you know, a Filipino would walk by and go, “psst…that’s kare-kare, right?” You want some? It was interesting that, previously, if I had just put this over rice, and showed it to this room full of people…they probably would have passed it by. So that recipe won. And I was supposedly was going to get a year’s supply of bacon. I got gift certificates for bacon afterwards, and it was really tough because not every grocery store in my area would accept them…

NA: So no pallet of bacon on your front door?

JV: That’s what I really wanted! I really wanted it, cause, how glorious would that have been? My eyes would have been starts poking out of my head. I would like, FaceTime my mom, and be like, look at me now! I have made it. I have made it once. So what I’m getting at, is that once you win, you actually can’t come back for the next year, it’s kinda just not fair. So I had to take a little bit of a break from competing, which transitioned into judging. Which is so fun. I had no idea I had a knack for it. Holding a clipboard is one of my favourite things to do.

NA: I declare this to be better than yours.

JV: No, [but] that’s the thing though. The thing that I love about a competition, coming from the judges’ side now, is we cannot compare against other days or other experiences. You only judge against the 30 people who are here and now.

NA: What’s the word I’m thinking of….like a jury, deliberating.

JV: With our clipboards, yeah. But also, I really love it because, for those of you who happened to have a Costco near your house…

23:55 Childhoods at Costco and seeing yourself in others

JV: Part of my childhood was free sample at Costco. And it is like that, with the little plastic cups. It’s also wonderful, getting to know other chefs, and hearing where they come from, how did this dish inspire you. And I see a lot of my story there too, which is so great. And I keep encouraging people, at the end of every competition, before we announce any winners, I say you all are amazing. You have spent money out of your pocket, you are doing this unpaid, you are doing it because you love it, and that’s amazing. Please keep doing it. Write your recipes down, because I did not, for the first four years. So when it came time to write the book, it was really difficult to round up the first half of the recipes. I really had to dig into my email.

24:45 Put A Egg On It

NA: On that note, I’d like to ask if we can talk a bit about “Put A Egg On It”.

JV: I would love to! So “Put A Egg On It”…a lot of people ask us, is it “Put A” or “Put An” [Egg On It]? We know, we know what the correct sentence structure is. We know that written down, it’s “put an” egg on it, yes, okay. But the founders, Sarah and Ralph, the way that they approach it is, if you were arguing with your friend about who is gonna take the leftovers…[we might hear] “I want it”, “no I want it”, “no I want it, I wanna put a egg on it”. That’s exactly the argument that they had. And that is the communal, like casual, approach we take to food and art. So we’re not just a food zine.

We also try to tie in the art world, and how food sort of plays its role there. And so from some issues, we have portraits of Andy Warhol, we have historical pieces about Cafe Florent, which was a hub for a lot of artists, and it didn’t matter if you were poor or made tons of money, all of you could eat at Cafe Florent, that sort of thing. We loved telling those stories. I joined, oh I don’t even know, how many years I’ve been with them…three or four? But Put A Egg On It is celebrating its tenth year in 2018.

26:15 Zine themes

JV: We love to have a theme every issue. Previous themes were like…[on] canned food, so we were exploring a lot of oily fish. Then another one was [on] shame. For that one, I submitted a recipe for munggo - mung beans.

26:30 On shame and mung beans

NA: What was the shame association?

JV: When I was growing up, I was embarrassed when my parents would serve it. And I was afraid, when my friends came over. I was one, afraid of it, and two, embarrassed if anyone saw it in my lunchbox. So I was very very ashamed. So the recipe I’ve added to Put A Egg On It, I’ve added bacon - like big chunks. It became more of a comfort, [rather] than shame, after that.

27:10 Dinner conversations

Those are sort of the themes and prompts that we work with. We have one feature called “Dinner Conversation”, where we invite three different artists, from different backgrounds, and we record their conversation at dinner, and they are purposefully from different generations. So it’s really interesting to give them a bunch of food, and then either the food will inspire their conversation, or just because of their experiences, they will have something interesting to talk about. That’s something fun that we do.

Put A Egg On It is a green zine, we are print only, [and] we print on green paper. You’ll see us at most independent bookstores, I believe Barnes and Noble, and we’re available online at putaeggonit.com.

28:25 The allure of an egg yolk

NA: Now onto the fun, random stuff. First off, I ask Jenn about her penchant for the kinda thing that, to me, is also incredibly sexy - something we’re gonna call “yolk porn”. As in, bursting the runny yolk of a fried egg, with a yellow as deep as the sun.

JV: I love me a silog porn. I love popping an egg yolk on camera. Yes, I’m obsessed.

NA: It’s very sensual.

JV: It’s interesting, that’s a feeling that we sort of suppress, I think, or that I was taught to suppress when I was growing up.

NA: Sensousness to food, specifically?

JV: Yeah, just cause like, growing up it’s like, I have my rice, my egg, and my spam. And I’m eating it, you know because I need it to live, and that’s it. You know, there’s no meditation, or sitting upon it, or digesting it, mentally. Now, I sort of spend time, with my eggs. And I really enjoy it. It’s not just eating, the way that I enjoy food. [I like] the way it looks, the way it feels, when I poke it with a fork.

NA: It totally lures you in. I love having fried eggs with rice and a smear of bagoong, because it’s my “I’m broke as hell but I can eat well” dinner, with a little atchara from the jar I keep in my fridge. Last week, I put up a bookshelf in my new apartment, and so now, all I gotta do is look to my right and see my lovely little trilogy of Lucky Peach single subject cookbooks - Power Vegetables, The Wurst of Lucky Peach and All About Eggs. Eggs are essential.

Next I asked Jenn if she’d heard about the study of “foodways”, which is this structured, academic way of understanding how the history, the traditions, and the culture of a place, basically create its food.

30:25 Foodways of Iloilo

JV: I like that you said that. I did that, for a month. I was in Iloilo for a month to learn. I found out that there’s a side of my dad’s family that all own restaurants. And I was shocked because I had never heard of that at all.

NA: They didn’t really talk about it?

JV: No. My dad’s an engineer and my mom is a nurse. Like, that’s it, that’s all I was supposed to be. And when both my brother and I ended up being in creative fields, they were like, well, we may as well tell you…it blew my mind. We went to Bacolod, too, took a ferry over, and I found I had a Tita Mely who owns a Spanish-style ranch house restaurant, turo-turo style, beautiful. I picked her brain for like, two hours. How do you run this place? What do you do, you know, when you want to retire? And so I learned so much from that trip. Even going to the farmers’ market, you know, is such a big social affair. I loved it. And I highly encourage, you know, if you’ve never been back, to seek out your roots, both in city and in the provinces.

NA: And finally, I had to ask about the Filipino recipes, that made it into the book and the magazine. There’s this recipe I love from “Showdown: Comfort Food" called Adobo Wangs. It’s so good. But, what’s with the misspell?

32:10 Everyone loves adobo and chicken wings

JV: That was something I did with my roommates. I would creep around the corner, and say “does anybody want some waaangs?” And that’s the origin of that. That’s why I spelled it W-A-N-G-S. But that recipe uses the beginnings of just a traditional adobo recipe, which is simmering the gastrique - the vinegar and the soy sauce - together. And we use a hot marinade, because it renders off some of the chicken fat, from the skin. So that when you smoke it, or grill it, or bake it, or fry it later, it is crispier. Less drippage, and it’s crispier. And it soaks up more of the marinade.

NA: So basically proof that adobo really is the best thing ever - specially if we’re talking chicken wings.

WRAP-UP

My warmest thanks to Jenn de la Vega, who I met last year in New York City. Follow her online @randwiches - like sandwiches with an R - on Instagram, and pick up a copy of “Showdown Comfort Food”. I’m a fan of Jenn’s recipes and think you would be too!

Our opening theme is by David Szeztay, segment music is by Eric and Magill and Blue Dot Sessions.

Follow the show @exploringfilipinokitchens on Facebook and Instagram, and if you know someone else who might like it - please tell them about it! I’m already super thankful.

Maraming salamat and until next time - thank you for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 18: For The Love Of Cooking With Jenn De La Vega”.

Community Supported Agriculture - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Charlene Tan below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

I know I’m a little late to the game, but one of the best books I read this year, hands down, was “The Third Plate” by Dan Barber. I loved it because it asks this really big question - “How do we save ourselves from what we’re doing to our food systems?”. And it triggers the kinds of conversations I love having. Basically, the idea behind “the third plate” is that we - meaning you, and me - can actually make a difference with how good food and good farming come together.

I also want to tell you about something amazing that happened this week. So a couple months ago I submitted an essay for the “Food Sustainability Media Award” given by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. They are incredibly well-known and respected name in journalism. I was so excited to hear they had this contest that basically recognizes the work of journalists and emerging talent from all over the world, for reporting on issues and stories around food security, sustainability, agriculture and nutrition. It was so up my alley.

02:05 Food sustainability in the media

Last month, they emailed me to say I was a finalist, and as you can imagine I was over the moon. And then just this week, at the end of November 2018, I had this “out-of-words” opportunity to fly to Milan - in Italy - to accept the award for my entry. My essay was called “Why the Philippines may run out of fish by 2048.” I know the title’s a little clickbait, but it is based on facts and figures around how the fishing industry in the Philippines is seeing an incredible decline, with no immediate signs of resurfacing. Anyway, I won. And you guys, I can’t even begin to describe it. I won an international journalism award writing about something I really really love: tuyo, or dried fish.

It blows my mind that Paolo Barilla - like, the heir of the Barilla pasta company, and head of the Center for Food and Nutrition - actually handed me something to say that he, and the world by extension, are eager to listen to stories about food security and sustainability in places like the Philippines.

So on this episode of Exploring Filipino Kitchens, we’re talking with Charlene Tan, who founded a community supported agriculture program called Good Food Community. They are, quite literally, planting the seeds for a new future - offering “a third plate” - for Filipinos ready to make a change.

We’ve got a lot to cover this episode. Let’s get to it!

INTERVIEW

04:00 About Good Food Community

CT: I’m Charlene Tan of Good Food Community. It’s a social enterprise that runs a community shared agriculture program. The big idea is to connect people to where food comes from, through a subscription type system - so kinda shifting people from a consumer mindset to a co-producer mindset. Believing that agriculture is a community affair, or should be supported by a community, we all put in our stake by paying upfront for a share of the harvest, and we get a share of whatever’s fresh and in-season, in order to support our farmers and farming properly. So that’s kinda the big idea that we’re trying to grow, in the Philippines, to work for smallholder farmers. That’s what Good Food Community does.

NA: So how many farming communities do they work with now, I asked?

CT: Communities, I’d say…we have Capas (in the province Tarlac), Benguet in Mountain Province, Rizal and (the Aetas)…so five communities. The farmers we work with, they range from like 10 to 20, or 60 to 100 (per community). It’s a range because we invite a lot of people, but not everyone participates, right. So we visit all their farms, and we can [help] accredit them, but it’s really up to them if they want to take the opportunity or not. So some benefit more, others less so.

NA: And how did they start?

05:35 Starting a community supported agriculture program

CT: I worked for an NGO years ago. I’ve always been kind of passionate about rural development, I like the outdoors, being close to nature, trying to find a way to be of service in that area. So I worked for an NGO that worked with these communities, on sustainable agriculture and small-scale renewable energy. What I saw is that…well, the way an NGO works, is that you’re grant-based, right. So sometimes, the people who are funding the project don’t know what’s happening on the ground, and you may need to change in the middle of a project - but because you’re beholden, you can’t really do that. So that’s one issue. The other issue is, say the proposal is about food security. But it’s not where the farmers are at. Maybe a better incentive would be a livelihood or something.

So when I heard about CSA - or community shared agriculture - I learned about it through a volunteer, who was really good at cooking. So when I asked him, “how’d you get this good?” - he was from the UK - he said, well we get a box of vegetables every week, and you kinda just have to make do with what you get. Also we know exactly where it’s from, [so] my creativity comes from that. When I heard about this idea, I thought it would be brilliant for our smallholder farmers. I really love the idea. So I was like, okay, sure! I thought we should try it, you know. Famous last words.

So that’s how we started. I was pitching it to different people before, when I was working at the NGO. Then finally, my prayer group - we’ve been meeting since after college - they were looking for an area of service to do together. And I said, oh. At that time, social enterprise was still kind of a new concept, and kind of exciting. So I was like, we can do this! How hard can it be, you know? That was back in 2010. There were 12 of us who started. And since I was working for an NGO, we were connected immediately to a community, where they had a demonstration farm in Tarlac. So we talked to the farmers and said, this is the basic idea. If we were to order in advance for these kinds of vegetables, would you be able to deliver? We started with 11 farmers in that area.

NA: And as we can hear from Char, selling local farmers on this idea - to plant vegetables according to what’s in season, basically trusting the idea that people would buy them, even if they knew it wasn’t the kind of stuff that their regular customers, say at the local palengke, or wet market, would buy - that was a challenge in itself. Because, let’s put it this way. If you lived in a farm, would you trust someone from the big city - this well-meaning, but total outsider - to KNOW what you could actually sell? I mean, few people would. And if you had your whole family’s earnings on the line - well, that’s another bridge to cross. So I asked Char to give us a little backstory on what the farmers they were working with, at the beginning, were actually growing at the time.

08:55 "It was something completely new"

CT: At that time they were growing rice and sugarcane. I mean, we didn’t know. We thought oh, farmers are farmers. When we offered them this, it was something completely new. I mean, not completely new in the sense that they don’t know how to grow it, but they never really had a commercial mindset for growing vegetables. Vegetables were like a backyard operation. Some of them would grow it for themselves, some of them not. But when we said, okay, if we were gonna order this much, and we need it at this time, they couldn’t imagine it, three months from now. They were very risk averse, it depends on if it rains the right time, if the flowers get pollinated, there were fruits…it was very interesting, because we just took it for granted and thought, you’re a farmer - you know what to do. It was interesting to begin working with them.

NA: That definitely seems like so much work cut out for 12 young people in a prayer group. Did anyone have some experience with farming or agriculture?

CT: No, none of us did. Not even business or whatever. We just thought, it’s a good idea, we’ll figure it out. But of course there were a lot of meetings, and each person had something to offer. We had someone who was good at graphics, good at media stuff. Another was a writer, someone who had a marketing background, I had the NGO background, another person wrote the business plan. So everyone had something to contribute, but not agriculture. So what we did was was hired an agriculturist at the beginning, to be at the farm and coordinate among the other farmers. That was part of it. But we didn’t cost ourselves into the business model or anything. We kinda just had to quickly change as we go along.

NA: That’s what interesting to me about Good Food Community. To give our listeners a little context, as to what community supported agriculture is like in the Philippines. In the US and Canada, to give a specific example, it’s pretty common now to get a CSA subscription and have it delivered to your door. And people are really open to that concept, because they are very much aware of supporting locally grown ingredients, to support smallholder farmers. But in the first year that you started Good Food Community, could you share one big challenge from the consumer side? What were the challenges of introducing this idea to consumers. And what was another challenge on the farmers’ side?

11:30 Consumer challenges

CT: One of the biggest challenges with the consumer side was the perception and knowledge of local vegetables. Remember we started with one community, in Capas, Tarlac. The kind of vegetables we would get are the “bahay kubo” vegetables, like ampalaya, squash, eggplant, mustasa, lowland spinach, alugbati, things that you don’t usually see in your supermarket. I mean, sometimes…

12:10 The "bahay kubo" vegetables

NA: And Char talks about this a couple times - the bahay kubo vegetables - which, to me, were such an interesting part of our conversation. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the bahay kubo nursery rhyme, it goes a little something like this: “bahay kubo, kahit munti, ang halaman doon ay sari-sari”…

I know, it’s hard to get out of your head. The bah kubo song is a Tagalog folk song about vegetables that grow around the “bahay kubo”, or nipa hut, in the Philippine countryside. It’s idyllic - calls back this totally different time and place, even from the Philippines I know in Manila. Someplace where people lived in huts raised on bamboo stilts with slatted floors and kids raised and chased their chickens around the yard. Maybe dad would chop off banana leaves from the tree and that would be your plates for dinner. In this particular setting, people would plant vegetables like jicamas, eggplants, winged beans, peanuts, long beans, hyacinth beans, lima beans, ash gourds, sponge gourds, bottle gourds, squash, radish, mustard, onions, tomatoes, garlic, ginger and sesame. Kinda feels like I’m doing a little rap thing there. But those are literally all the vegetables in the bahay kubo song. Like I said, idyllic - but totally something that a lot Filipino kids know by heart, thanks to the song.

In practice, though, growing and eating these vegetables have long been out of the picture. At least for most kids. Going back to some of those challenges that the Good Food Community CSA had, with convincing people to support community shared agriculture…

CT: I felt like sure, they’d try it once for the idea, like to try it. But they did not prefer it. Or they wouldn’t know what they were, you know. A lot of our local vegetables are not valued as much as, say, carrots or cauliflower and kale. So it was alright, but they wouldn’t subscribe. So it’s the perception and knowledge of vegetables. Um, a success…

NA: But I guess that’s not really a surprise - that people would pay more, even two or three times as much, for imported vegetables, like the trendy kales and cauliflowers of the world, that have become super popular in the Philippines as well, because western food marketing absolutely reaches them and totally impacts local food economies. Why would farmers grow indigenous Philippine vegetables that no one wants to buy, if they can grow kale and cauliflower that, even if they have to invest money to buy seeds for - has way more demand and is way more profitable, when they go about selling it to people in the city who pay.

Looking at these kinds of issues really forces you to think about the bigger picture. What was it like working with farmers, I asked?

15:45 Farmer challenges

CT: A big challenge was just planning. And it remained a challenge for a number of years. As I mentioned, there was no sense of like, okay, if I want to harvest this much at this time, when should I be planting? Apparently, with rice…

NA: This goes back to something we talked about a few episodes ago, with Cherrie Atilano - who runs another farming social enterprise in the Philippines called AGREA. And, well, simple as the concept might be - to plan for planting and harvesting different vegetables throughout the year - a lot of farmers in the Philippines today just haven’t learned any other way of farming. The average age of Filipino farmers is 65, with many having gone to school maybe only as far as the third or fourth grade. And the idea of upgrading skill sets - like, having government-sponsored programs to further educate farmers - that don’t really exist, and if they do, they’re very likely paid for by companies that sell modified strains of rice, for example, that farmers need to be trained for because they grow differently from traditional, local, indigenous rice varieties that their parents planted, and they learned how to plant.

CT: Apparently with like, rice, it’s very different the way they think about it. I mean, it’s very cyclical, [like] every three months. It all depends. You pay attention to the rain, to the environment. But with vegetables, there are times when [certain] vegetables are in season, [so they have to think about] when do I grow it, how much do I need to grow, so that I’ll be assured of at least this much harvest, and then how do you work with it…

NA: So for farmers who’ve grown rice most of their lives, the idea of just needing to grow certain things for this CSA, this delivery that needs to get done at the end of every week - it’s so different from what they’ve relied on for most of their lives. Which is this traditional three-month cycle of planting. As an aside, that also makes me think. Because, before most Filipino farmers get completely retrained, or, you know, they pass on - how do we make sure that the existing knowledge they actually have of these different indigenous rice varieties, that’ve been growing for forever - how do we make sure that isn’t lost? So many things to consider.

CT: And then, how do you work in a group, so that we’re all not planting the same thing? So planning was a big issue. Even just to get them to commit. You know, we needed [at least] one in that room. When we first proposed it, we were like, okay, if we’re gonna have 20 kilos of tomatoes at this time, can you do it? [We’d get] like oh, I don’t know. It took one farmer to be like “hindi, kaya yan!”. For sure, we can do this, to kinda believe [in] something they hadn’t done before, for them to take that risk.

NA: Honestly, I laugh every time I hear Char go “hindi, kaya yan!”. Because it’s so Filipino - that’s another thing Filipinos like to say. It’s that relentless optimism with everything that I’m kinda happy to carry myself as well.

19:25 Food accessibility in the Philippines

NA: I talk about all these details a lot - these mannerisms and behaviours ingrained in Filipino culture - because I find that it really helps give us context to these different issues surrounding food accessibility in the Philippines. Let’s jump back to Manila.

You mentioned earlier that vegetables, for example, they don’t think of it as something that can generate income for them. It’s just their backyard vegetable crop, the bahay kubo vegetables, that you wouldn’t necessarily grow a lot of to make money from. When you introduced this concept, or idea, to them, that we’re gonna order a set amount from you - did they have to build their own cooperatives, or was that already in place?

20:10 Building a cooperative

CT: We had to build a cooperative with them. Specially where we started, in Capas, Tarlac, there wasn’t much organization at all. We had to continue to meet with them, we had to register as an association or cooperative. You need to elect your leaders, you know, just have one voice, to talk amongst yourselves. It took like two or three years - even now, the story continues to unfold. As we met with other communities, we did see different examples. But for rice and sugarcane in Capas, there wasn’t that kind of organization.

The sense I got from NGO work was that associations are formed to get stuff from the government. Because unless you are organized, you can’t receive grants or support. So often times, they would organize for that. It’s not new, but…

NA: And early on, it become really important for them, at Good Food Community, that farmers owned their land - for a couple of reasons.

CT: So we chose to work with smallholder farmers, we wanted the farmers to all work on their own land. Each of them would have two hectares or less. They’d have their rice growing in it. What they would do is typically clear an area behind their house, to start growing vegetables. And it’s usually what, like 500 square meters.

NA: That is not a lot of space. 500 square meters is like, the size of a bachelor apartment in downtown Toronto. But, even with this amount of land…

21:45 On rice and food security

CT: What we found was, it really helped in terms of food security. Because apparently with rice, there’s a lean season. There’s a time when they’re actually hungry, or they don’t have enough. That’s usually around July, August. So with this cycle of rice, combined the the cycle of educational expenses, etc…they would have sold most of their rice from the first harvest, and then put in money for the second planting season, and then not have enough stored to just kind of tide them through. So there are periods of actual hunger. Which we didn’t know. With vegetables, at least there’s something to eat throughout the year.

NA: So in other words, by halfway through the year, by July and August, farmers have very little - if anything - to live on. Three big things basically stack up at this time. Like, they need to purchase seed and fertilizer for the year’s second rice harvest - which they need, because the first isn’t enough. And if they’ve got kids in school, which a lot of farming families do, they need to buy things like school supplies, books, uniforms. None of this is for free. And at this point, they’ve spent most of the money they’ve actually saved from the first part of the year, on everyday expenses like food and electricity, very big things. If they had set some of their rice aside for personal use, by this time, that’s gone too, Char says.

CT: With us, we have purchase agreements. So every week we’re like, what do we actually have, and what can we deliver? As long as they can grow vegetables to sell to us, they have a little bit of pocket money to feed themselves.

NA: Could you give us a sense of what the profile of some of these farmers are like? Like the community in Capas, for example?

CT: They’re generally in their 50s to 60s. There’s a main farmer representative who goes to the meetings, but usually it is a family affair. With many of them, their kids are already somewhere else. They’re either in the city, or studying somewhere, and they have no interest in farming. So the parents are the ones doing [farming], just as generations before, they continue to til the land.

24:10 Ate Lady - a young, model farmer

CT: In a few cases though, when we have younger farmers, their kids get involved. Actually I have only one farmer in mind for that area, she’s like the model farmer. Ate Lady has four kids, and they all have their respective duties. She was very entrepreneurial, she really has a sense of the opportunity with this. So when she joined, we were all really like, like yaaay! A younger farmer, someone who could, like, text, you know.

So what we saw, from a small garden, when we started with her, you could see that area expanding and cutting out less and less of the rice. So it’s more and more vegetables, less of the rice, because it simply makes economic sense to her. So she really saw the benefits. And her kids are involved, they all have their respective chores. When to water, when to harvest, stuff like that. It’s quite nice to see. And she’s become a community leader for their association.

NA: That’s awesome! So what kinds of vegetables did Ate Lady plant in her garden?

CT: It’s a mix. Like the “pakbet” vegetables, bahay kubo vegetables. So squash, eggplants. I remember we had a lot of saluyot (an edible, leafy vine), sitaw (string beans), sigarilyas (winged beans), tomatoes, what else…patola (spong gourd), upo (bottle gourd), lowland spinach, talbos ng kamote (sweet potato leaves), amaranth.

NA: So my big question was, have the farmers themselves actually started eating more of the “bahay kubo” vegetables, as well?

CT: I don’t think the kinds of vegetables in the bahay kubo were as alien to them, like to us living in the city. They always kind of knew they existed. But having them in their backyard changed their diet, in the sense that…you know, there were always vegetables, in the house or in the farm, but then it became more accessible. And I think just physically, knowing what it took to farm them, to grow them, and what they actually taste like…they’re like, I don’t trust what I would buy in the wet market, in the palengke anymore, because I’ve had fresh vegetables, I’ve had organic vegetables, I know what they taste like. So there’s that.

Another happy effect was when their kids would visit from the city. They would eat up all the vegetables. So it was a risk to us, who like, have an order, but at least, you know, they’re able to be fed quite well. But it’s interesting, because I have to admit, we did ask them to also plant salad greens, since people are willing to pay much more for that. They were like, what are these greens, you know? And then, [after] the first few meetings, they’d be like hey, I know how to eat this now, you just add like canned tuna or something and you have a salad. Or sardinas and you have a salad. So it was interesting just sharing like how to eat more vegetables, and what they do with it. Except with arugula. They’re like, take it, take it all! Not even our pigs would eat this stuff.

NA: Different flavour profile.

CT: Yeah. Cilantro, too!

27:55 Weekly "bayong" deliveries

NA: The Good Food Community CSA brings vegetables to their customers in something called a “bayong”. A bayong is a bag made of long, green leaves that are braided together, dried and woven into these beautiful, intricate styles. They’re like the OG farmers’ market bag, before it was cool, the one your Lola brought everywhere she went. These things are built to last. Sometimes, they’re made from panda leaves, like the same ones that people stick into a pot of rice to make this everyday food just a little more special. I love the smell of pandan leaves.

So, when people who sign up for the Good Food Community CSA get this “bayong” bag full of vegetables delivered to them every week…by doing that, it’s a direct way of establishing a connection with Filipino farmers - supporting the local economy - and enjoy these amazing produce that, honestly, people just need to eat a lot more of. I asked Char if she could tell us a little more about some of their customers at Good Food Community.

CT: They’re generally women, when I look at Facebook or Instagram, at our stats. They’re mostly between 30 to 50, young families, mothers who kind of understand the value of organic vegetables, not just in a health sense, but in a wider social sense. They’re also typically people who would at least try to compost, or who are just generally conscientious. Who would kind of take the inconvenience to source their food properly.

NA: So by now, we’re kinda circling back to a central theme in our conversation so far. At the heart of it, community supported agriculture model…this model is about creating a more just, a more fair, sustainable food system. But what does that really look like in the Philippines?

29:45 "There are many ways to talk about sustainability"

CT: I mean, there are many ways to talk about sustainability. But I guess the root of what we’re proposing is that we need to take care of each other. You know, I mean, that’s just it. So it’s a very real invitation to [that] relationship, to inconvenience, for the sake of something that is long term. I’m not sure if people can buy into it, if all they’re thinking about is their welfare. Because it is not very convenient to not be able to choose your vegetables. It will take you out of your comfort zone, to be beholden to what’s in season. But you’ll learn a lot about how things taste, the freshness of it, what we actually have locally. And I guess, knowing where it comes from. If you want to visit the farm, you’re also most welcome. That’s the value, it’s really kind of [showing] care, fair trade, health, you know. Not just personal health, also social and ecological health. It’s been fulfilling in that sense to get people’s feedback and go hey, those vegetables tasted amazing! Or it smelled wonderful, or like I’ve never tasted patola that’s like this! Just to see people buy into this whole kind of living differently, and like being creative.

NA: It creates a sense of community too, I guess.

CT: Yeah.

NA: With that vision, where do you see Good Food Community going in the next five years, for example?

31:50 Hopefully, a movement

CT: Well I’d like for this to be a movement. I mean, it does take a lot of awareness. But I guess the vision is for people to be connected with the rural areas and for us to kinda revitalize our agriculture, in our choice for a healthy ecological growing. But also, may that also sort of ‘heal’ the city. In our busyness and our consumerism, stuff to make us slow down and see what’s important and choose to really nourish ourselves with the food, with these relationships.

33:10 Choosing the riches we have

CT: I’d like to see models of these community shared agriculture all over the Philippines. In five years, it may not be exactly the same, like in Cebu, Davao, Cagayan de Oro. But the basic idea is to have a place where farmers and urban dwellers can work together, to kinda shift consumers’ attention to looking back at what we do have, you know. And the second thing would be, to choose it. What grows well in the Philippines? What should we be growing in the Philippines? What’s the point in growing things that don’t grow well [here], you know? It’s first, like shifting the attention to what riches we do have, and then also…

NA: But as anyone with some experience in marketing - or I mean even social media today, knows - people don’t just “care” about something overnight, unless you’re like royalty or a celebrity. It takes a lot to spread the word on ideas, especially if it’s about changing systems that have been in place for a really long time. We all just need to learn why we need to change, and how. For Char and her team, Good Food Community, what did some of those educational parts or components look like, I asked?

34:00 Working with agriculturists

CT: Well we had an NGO partner. The NGO I used to work for had agriculturists, so there was that sort of support, in sourcing the seeds, and teaching them how to compost, to build their own soil health, how to program crops and stuff like that. Alternative pest management, what to do if you don’t want to spray chemicals. There would be refresher courses, because we don’t ever learn everything the first time. And it’s a continuing thing, like for farmers to learn how to grow in their craft. Like if you’re planting this, what should I be planting, and how do we work together to fulfill an order. There are so many other things that go into community organization.

On the consumer side, we would often put a recipe into the baskets, specially in the first few years. There’d be a new recipe, that actually we would just find. Also we would do community kitchens, invite people to come over, and let’s play with these vegetables and see what comes up! And it’s really like, you don’t have to conform to a particular recipe, long as it tastes good. And when you’re with a group, it’s kinda like safer, and fun. Our markets too, in a way, are somewhat educational, just by displaying our vegetables and other sustainably sourced products. To have a conversation with you, as a consumer, I think is an interaction that you don’t have in the supermarket, or even the palengke sometimes, with middlemen.

35:45 Building relationships and presence

CT: So I’m learning that a lot of it is really, relationships, you know. And relationship building takes time. And the best kind of education is when you can interact one on one, by like, just talking. Or doing things together. Like when I talked to my team after seven years of working, I said, what do you think is the single success factor in like working with the farmers? And they’re like, [it was] presence. You just have to be present. If they don’t see you, you know, you don’t know what’s happening, they don’t know what’s happening. But the more that you talk to them, the more that you’re there to kind of troubleshoot and listen. It’s all the relationship.

NA: I guess that physicality of being there is also reassurance for them, for the communities as well…that you’re in it for the long run.

CT: Oh yeah. That you’re there, you’re still interested, you know. That you’re with them.

36:40 A sense of place

NA: That’s what makes farmers’ markets really popular all over the world now, is that you really get that one on one sense of being able to connect with the people who grow your food, or at least as close as you can get to it as possible. From a consumer perspective, I love going to markets, local markets, in Canada, because it does kind of give me a better sense of place, I guess. Like for myself, and where I see myself in that area and in that community. I also would really, kind of, be interested in seeing where that goes in the future. Like how much that community of people in the Philippines grows, where they really want to make that connection, and be part of this kind of community.

CT: Also for the Philippines - you’ve seen the gap between the rich and the poor - to me, there are just these centres in the cities of incredible wealth. But [with] very little sense of place. You know, like I grew up third generation Chinese, born in the US, I’ve lived in Quezon City most of my life. I have no recollection of, you know, I couldn’t tell one vegetable from another. The cuisine I would eat was whatever was served. But, terroir, you know, seasons? I know cereals or whatever, you know. And that’s fine, but my life is just disconnected completely from the other 90% of Philippines. And meanwhile, people just want to flock to the city, looking for better chances at life. So there’s gotta be a better way than that, right. So it takes us to kind of ask, what’s going on in the rural areas, what grows here? That’s kind of the movement that we’re trying to drive. Like what do we have growing, what can we further together?

WRAP-UP

That’s like the best call to action as I can think of. What do we have growing, and what can we take further, together?

My sincerest thanks to Charlene Tan, who I met and interviewed on my last visit to the Philippines. Visit goodfoodcommunity.com to learn about their CSA, or community supported agriculture program. Find them on Instagram @goodfoodcommunity, and even if you don’t live in the Philippines, I still recommend you follow. You’ll totally learn a lot about local vegetables, I know I did.

Head over to my website to read the article I talked about at the top of this episode. Because, when you love “tuyo” - that dried, salted fish - as much as I do, it can lead to pretty great things, like winning an award for journalism.

Our theme music is by David Szeztay, segment music is by Eric and Magill and Blue Dot Sessions. Follow the show on Facebook and Instagram @exploringfilipinokitchens, then head over to exploringfilipinokitchens.com for past episodes.

If you know someone who’d enjoy this show - word of mouth means everything! Tell them about this podcast. It really means the world to me.

Maraming salamat, and until next month - thank you for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 17: Community Supported Agriculture with Charlene Tan”.

Making Ulam: The Movie - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Alexandra Cuerdo below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

Welcome to a new season - and thank you for downloading this episode! It means a lot to know people are interested in the kinds of quirky but also thought-provoking stuff that I’m interested in - because these are honestly some of the best stories from the world of Filipino food that I think are a little under-represented.

As for me, the last couple months have been amazing. I spent some time in Europe - for those of you who follow me online, I’m sorry but not sorry for all the travel pictures! I joined this travel group, from G Adventures, called the “European Trail” - and, honestly the beauty of seeing so much else of our world, places I’ve never been to before, was incredibly inspiring and I came back from my trip just wanting to talk a little more about that because it’s something I know I’ve always wanted to do. The travel part is something that I know a lot of people feel is a very big part of them. As someone who grew up in the Philippines, not really expecting to be able to do all this, it’s really just something that gets to you in a very personal way.

When I was a kid, I remember my mom chatting away with my dad on MSN messenger. This was in the dial up days. She was a pro at this, I could never type as fast as her. We had this large computer that needed its own electric fan, squeezed in beside these tall filing cabinets and my grandma’s old desk. All of this was crammed into this house, that was really one of the first concrete structures in the neighbourhood. Kind of funny because that area now is quickly gentrifying, like a lot of major cities in the world.

02:40 A story about avocados

My mom and my sisters and I lived with my aunt and my grandma. My grandma loved to eat this dessert - ripe avocados mashed with milk and sugar. I know it’s a little weird to think of avocados as a dessert, but Filipinos totally consider it as such and I’m pretty sure other cultures do too. I remember eating bowls of this stuff. Like, I couldn’t get enough of these chunky, sweet, milky avocados. Somehow, they were always perfectly ripe, never like the ones I end up having in Canada. With my bowl of avocados, I’d curl up on this faded beige couch, eating them by the spoonful, waiting for my mom to finish on the computer so I could call my best friend and talk about Harry Potter.

Anyway, my folks always chatted after dinner. That would early morning in Vancouver, where my dad was at the time, working to get our Canadian visa and immigration papers going. As they talked, my mom, in particular, had this way of just finding the bright side to whatever came along.

There was this one summer that I guess stuck with me. It was the summer of 12th grade, or 4th year of high school in the Philippines. I honestly didn’t know if I was going to graduate because of something that happened then. And so one night, I was sitting in the living room eating this bowl of avocados - the only thing that made me feel better - and I remember my mom saying, “well, once you get to Canada - and you get your Canadian passport - you could travel to Europe! Oh, you know those trains? I’d like to ride those one day. And go to Paris, and Rome, and Venice…”

So believe me when I say this trip meant a lot - for a number of reasons. Not only did I get to visit Paris, Rome and Venice, but also the beautiful, gorgeous alps in Switzerland, where I went paragliding down the slopes of a mountain overlooking this crystal blue, clear lake. I walked through the medieval city of Florence, in Italy, where I tasted this olive oil that I still dream about. I went to Budapest and Prague, two cities along the Danube river that have so much history behind them. To Vienna, Krakow, and Berlin - places that surprised me at every turn, and along the cobblestone streets of Bruges in Belgium. And Amsterdam - oh my god, I loved Amsterdam. And I got to visit platform 9 3/4 in London, so that ticks off more than a few things on my bucket list.

Life has a way of turning things around, and the point of me telling you all this is because today we’re talking to someone who made a film all about people finding, learning and sharing their truths. The kinds of truths that I was looking for on my trip, and the kinds of truths that people really spend a big chunk of their lives still doing. And because you’re listening to a food culture podcast - are of course, basically about food.

Our guest for this episode is Alexandra Cuerdo, a California-raised and now New York-based filmmaker, who directed a documentary called “Ulam: Main Dish”. I am so excited that it’s finally getting ready to screen here in Toronto, this November, for the Reel Asian film festival - they’ve had sold out shows in San Francisco, New York, Chicago and more and we finally get to see it! I can’t wait.

Visit ulamthemovie.com to check out the full list of cities where you can catch Ulam this fall.

Let’s get to it.

INTERVIEW

06:45 About Allie

AC: I’m Alexandra Cuerdo, also known as Allie Cuerdo. I’m the director and filmmaker behind “Ulam: Main Dish”, which is a labour of love and a feature documentary on Filipino food crossing over to the mainstream, in both L.A. and New York. And that’s been going on now for the last three years.

I grew up in southern California. My parents are from the Philippines, they were protesters during the Marcos era. My mom specifically, so she kinda had to leave, at a certain point - which makes sense, as a lot of people did. So they came to the States. They both met at UP (the University of the Philippines). They were both the same batch. My dad was a DJ, and my mom was an actor. So you can tell, that’s where my love of film and music kinda came together. So they met in the Philippines, came to the States, and then had me, in southern California. I went to UCLA (the University of California - Los Angeles) for film school, and that’s kind of where it all started. But initially, I wanted to be a journalist. So that’s also where my love of documentaries came in.

You know, I never thought I was going to be making a food documentary. For a really long time, I hadn’t connected to my Filipino roots. I grew up very Fil-Am, so I would go back to the Philippines to visit lola, all the family. But I grew up, you know, speaking okay Tagalog. I understand but I don’t speak. It’s the Fil-Am conundrum.

NA: It’s a very common thing to happen, absolutely.

AC: Exactly. And so, it was a long process for me, sort of, figuring out what it means to be Filipino. Growing up in mostly white, Catholic schools. You don’t see yourself anywhere. And I grew up not having any Filipino restaurants to go to. We would always have church socials. My parents ran the Filipino food booth, which was really the asian food booth, for 10 years, but it became the Filipino food booth. So it was asian food, but it was pancit, you know what I mean?

So that was my experience of Filipino food. Very [much like] home, community, in that sense. But it was never like, oh, let’s go on a special occasion to this Filipino restaurant - which is more what I’m seeing today. Which is what led me, actually, to want to document this amazing movement that’s been happening, in both my hometown of L.A. and New York, which is becoming my new home.

NA: As I was watching the trailer for Ulam, you really walk away with the sense that the people you speak with…it’s a marker of their identity. These are the restaurants they run, the kitchens they work in, the food they produce. It’s very much an extension of trying to…I don’t know if define is the right word, but really just explore it, and see what that means for them. So I was wondering if you could share - how did you pose that particular question to people? When you wanted to interview them, how did you ask, “how would you define Filipino food?” or “how does this relate to you?”

10:30 A longing for home

AC: It’s an interesting question, because it’s hard for people to pinpoint, you know. Where did it all start, right? That’s always the question. Where did you start finding your love for cooking, where did you start finding your love for Filipino food? Or being a business person? Because restaurants are a business. I think the interesting thing that everyone came back to was this idea of memory. What do you remember growing up? A lot of these chefs came up through French training, or cooking in Italian restaurants, cooking great food, but it wasn’t Filipino food. And something that I remember Charles Olalia said, and I’m gonna paraphrase it now, he was saying: you know, I’d talk to these chefs and [they’d] say, this is what I remember from my summers in France, or this is what I remember from my grandmother growing up in Italy. And [Charles] would make that food, and he was excellent at it. But he never lived those summers in France. He lived summers in the Philippines. So that kind of memory, that longing for what I guess we consider home - is really what drove a lot of people, and what I think continues to inspire people, to open these restaurants in a climate that is very unforgiving.

The New York and L.A. restaurant scene is very difficult. As you know, a lot of Filipino restaurants open and close within six months. That’s been this sort of terrible thing that we’ve seen over and over and over again. But these are the ones that are making it.

So long story short - memory. [I asked about] memory, what is home? And that question is different for each person.

NA: It plays into your identity, really.

AC: Exactly. It’s part of who you are.

NA: What’s interesting as well, with different people I’ve spoken to, is that it really does mean something different, slightly, for each person. But the really cool thing about it, and the lovely thing about documenting how this plays out for different people, is that it really shows their character, and their individuality because they just like…I don’t know, people are just able to put their unique stamp on it.

13:00 The question of authenticity

AC: Yeah, it’s brave, you know. Because you kind of get it from all sides right. You get [the question of] is this authentic? Is this traditional? And then the idea is, well what is authentic? What is traditional, in this new space? Can we push Filipino food forward, and still be authentic to our core values and our core beliefs? That’s something, again to paraphrase, something that Chase Valencia from LASA said. It’s what’s authentic to you, and your experiences and memories, your influences? That’s gonna be something different for each person. And that’s good. That’s great, actually. We want that diversity.

I feel like I’ve heard this from people who don’t understand a lot about Filipino food, and they ask, what is Filipino food? Is there one Filipino food? And I think at the end of the day, there isn’t one Filipino food. That’s a wonderful thing, to have that diversity, to have that breadth. There should be many kinds of Filipino restaurants, and we should eat at all of them.

NA: It’s those stories that you tell. What’s really great about having this variety now of different restaurants, pop-up venues, dinners that people do, is that it’s a way you can deliver that experience, in a new way.

14:25 Food as the gateway to culture

AC: I agree. I think it’s a little bittersweet in some way, right. There are a lot of articles written now about how Filipino food is this hot new trend, which people are obviously and rightfully upset about. Because this food has existed for us since the day we were born. It’s not a trend that can come and go. It’s who we are. And so to phrase it as such - to phrase it as a fad is, you know, pretty ridiculous. I think the thing is…that’s the negative side [of the idea]. The positive side is that now, people are interested. It is a gateway. The restaurants that are here now, are opening the doors for so many people who have never had Filipino food. That’s the exciting part. And that’s what I choose to focus on. At the end of the day, like, that’s just somebody being excited. That’s my personal interpretation of it. And I think that the more light we can shine on Filipino restaurateurs, and chefs and people that are interested in cooking the food and really learning.

15:50 Social dynamics around shared meals

NA: So I’ve been reading this book called “Eating Culture: An Anthropological Guide to Food” from the University of Toronto press. It’s really more a college textbook than casual reading, but if you’re anything like me, it’s still a great read. I was definitely reading this chapter about gastropolitics while I was on a train to Vienna - which, you know, I just found really funny.

In the book, the author talks about the shared patterns of meals, about the social dynamics that are at play when you sit down to eat with people, about the shared origins of everyone across the world cooks and prepares food a little differently, about how things like gender or economic and social status affect how cuisines, as a whole, develop. Amazing stuff, that really weaves together a lot of these concepts arout food and culture that I’ve been thinking about lately. About how we live with it, how it ties us together. It helped give a lot of context for me, for me especially - that there’s legitimacy to these perspectives about food, beyond the stuff that sustains us, beyond stuff that’s trendy, beyond stuff that only people in North America talk about. So I asked Allie about an experience she’s had, that sort of aligned with this idea.

17:15 "Amboy"

AC: One night that I think was particularly awesome was we had a pop-up dinner for Alvin’s Filipino concept, Amboy.

NA: That’s Alvin Cailan, who started off with Eggslut in California…

AC: …which I think is a great name, because that’s what we’re seen as - Filipino Americans. Hey. amboy! You know, that’s the way. And so we had a pop-up dinner and we invited all these people, friends mostly. The funny thing is, we thought it was just gonna be like four tables, maybe. We [ended up] having to book the entirety of Chef’s Counter. The whole restaurant was packed of people who’ve never had Filipino food before. Eating chicken inasal, mung beans, just like getting into it.

It was so cool because it was majority non-Filipinos experiencing it for the first time, and the people making the food were majority Filipinos, and so it was this really amazing sharing that was happening, and learning that was happening. And it was surreal. We were looking around like, we’re serving Filipino food in SoHo. This is amazing. This is so fantastic. Other people that are [also] doing amazing things, like the Filipino Food Movement, serving Filipino food at the James Beard House. Things like this can’t be taken lightly. They’re huge accomplishments, and it took years to get to this point.

19:00 A need to keep building

AC: So I feel like whether it’s my documentary, or the Filipino Food Movement [events], I think that the bottomline is that we all need to support each other, and we all need to bring each other up, because that’s the only way we will succeed, is if keep co-signing each other, and keep building the community.

NA: The reality is that crab mentality is definitely still a thing. Filipino people have tons of food-related sayings. One of the most popular ones is crab mentality. Basically, it describes the behaviour of live crabs in a basket, where crabs try to claw their way to the top, even if it means pushing other crabs down to the bottom, so they can get ahead. And, for better or worse, this has come to signify a large aspect of Filipino culture. And I mean, you can attribute it to this very hardscrabble, sort of fight-for-your-own life kind of world. Like in a lot of places. But, and this is something every person can act upon - changing that mindset you have to develop, if you live in someplace like the Philippines. But I like to believe that it’s something that can change, within a generation.

20:15 "Will Filipinos go to Filipino restaurants?"

AC: Ulam to me, you know that’s what it was really about. It’s figuring out, is there a community? Will we support each other? Some of those are questions still up in the air. Will Filipinos go to Filipino restaurants?

NA: It’s a matter of…I guess, almost coming to terms with it ourselves. Because it’s not gonna get to where it should be, or where we think Filipino food on the map of the world stage should be. Until Filipino communities as a whole, across the world, find a way to like, own it, and not be shy or “hiya” about it. Which also kinda leads into historical [reasons], all these bigger topics around colonialism and all that. But at the end of the day, it is about a personal story, and that’s the thing that really resonates with people. I’m so glad that you’re able to do that through the documentary.

21:15 The power of personal experience

AC: And we’re all learning, right. That’s the thing. I think, no one’s an expert, I certainly don’t consider myself an expert. I’m but a student in this situation. The reason why I wanted to do a documentary was because I wanted to ask people to tell their stories. I wanted it to be direct, to camera. This is what I live, this is what I experience, this is what I’m experiencing now. It’s really hard in this day and age to figure out what is true. There’s a lot of, I don’t know how to say this, ‘spin’ happening, mis-speaks happening. I think something that’s really hard to refute is personal experience, and I think it’s really powerful.

Something I didn’t want in the documentary from the beginning, is [that] I didn’t want a narrator, and I didn’t want anyone other than the chefs really talking about the food. Because I don’t think it’s necessary, personally. I think that the food stands out on its own, I think the chef’s words stand on their own.

NA: I like how you described that, where everything’s kind of just like melds together. Because it’s true. It’s a matter of the work of so many people and organizations kinda building upon each other. It’s this whole, kind of like, ecosystem.

AC: Exactly.

23:05 Letting people tell their stories

AC: That was always the goal, to let people tell their stories, to give them a platform upon which to let people be honest, and just say hey, this is what I went through. It’s not always easy, a lot of times it’s not. The thing that’s interesting is, when I first started I thought the documentary would be more about the Filipino food. In the end, it became about Filipino food and the community and the business of being a chef, you know, of having a restaurant. It’s tough, and all those things are wrapped up with each other. It helps explain I think, why there are so few Filipino restaurants.

NA: You gotta have that ballsiness to do it.

AC: Yeah, and it takes time. It takes passion, and a lot of sweat and tears. It’s like every restaurant I think that exists is like it’s own miracle.

NA: I like Alvin’s quote, where he was like, if I tried to explain to my mom like how much work exactly is going into this…that’s the thing with immigrant parents, I guess, is that they leave their homeland for the idea of this big, bright future, and wanting to provide more for their family. Obviously, that’s a very good driver for them, but when it comes to [the question of] what’s worth it, when you branch out on your own, or do your own thing, decide to go down this path that hasn’t been crossed before…

25:00 Supporting a new, creative generation

AC: It’s tough, you know. I think for me, I felt that listening to what all these chefs went through, made me feel, in a parallel industry, the film industry…it’s also not a mainstream thing to do. And it’s not a money thing to do. So it felt inspiring, honestly, to me, as a filmmaker. I’m not a chef, I cook at home but it’s nothing like what these guys do. It was so inspiring because it was like wow, not just one of us made it. All these people made it. How incredible is that. Like I wanted to just shout that to the world, because I was so excited. And I was like, man. If I think to myself, that night before I went to prom, where did I go? I barely even remember. Probably like the Cheesecake Factory, you know. Something you do when you’re in the suburbs. So I’m like, if I could have gone to LASA, you know. So I’m excited because there’s a whole new generation of people that are gonna be able to experience these amazing places, these miracles, these gifts. So you know, I can’t stop talking about how amazing everyone is, I’m like their biggest fan. Because I wanted these restaurants growing up.

26:25 "Food is a personal subject"

NA: It totally comes down to like…it’s very personal. Food is a very personal subject. It can be political, it can be a community connector, which it is. But totally, at the end of the day, like it matters to you. And if it makes enough of an impact on you, after visiting one of these restaurants, and being able to experience everything as a whole, then you always walk away with the stories more, you know, rather than [just] the actual food. It’s great, but at the end of the day, that’s what sticks with you more. Remembering the story, and what went on behind it.

27:05 An introduction to who we are

AC: I’ve filmed the documentary [now]…and when you’re watching the movie, it’s not like you can have the food. It’s a movie where you definitely get hungry after watching it. I think the big thing is that I just want to drive people to try these places. Because at the end, it’s an introduction, right. Filipino food is an introduction to Filipino people, to our culture, and family. To Filipinos as successful, bright individuals, which we are. It’s just a way to give people a handle, I guess, on who we are as a people.

And I think that’s the reason why I chose food, because I think it really is the great crossover. It’s the thing that everyone can understand. It’s sort of beyond language.

WRAP-UP

Thank you, thank you to Allie Cuerdo for this interview, that we did in New York City earlier this year. Please check out ulamthemovie.com for dates to November 2018 screenings in places like Vancouver, Denver, the Napa Valley, San Francisco, Philadelphia and in my home base, Toronto, as part of the Reel Asian International Film Festival. Trust me, you’re gonna want to see this if you can!

Our opening theme is by David Szestay, music is by Eric and Magil, Komiku and Blue Dot Sessions. Visit exploringfilipinokitchens.com to check out past episodes, and to the folks who’ve left reviews on Apple podcasts - thank you so much, I’m definitely back for season 2! Follow “Exploring Filipino Kitchens” on Facebook and Instagram and learn about some other really cool Filipino podcasts - there’s a number of us out there and you all should listen.

Until next, maraming salamat - thank you, for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 14: Making Ulam: The Movie With Alexandra Cuerdo”.

Growing the Carabao Dairy Industry - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Marie Cavosora below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

This episode, we’re talking with Marie Cavosora, who leads a team of dairy entrepreneurs in the Philippines, and who founded a company called Calaboo Dairy.

Here’s a question for you. Have you ever had carabao milk butter? Well, actually, let me start over. You SHOULD have carabao milk butter. This outrageously smooth, creamy butter is the best thing you could ever put on a split pandesal, fresh out of the oven, when you visit the Philippines. I swear you’ll wonder why no one talks about this more.

Well, today we’re gonna change that, and talk about carabao milk and the products you can make from it.

Calaboo makes three things, and they make them really well. They make yogurt, butter and cheese, with milk from naturally grass-fed carabaos - that’s the Philippine water buffalo - and you’ll see these carabaos dot the Philippine countryside. They include with additional variants as well, like yogurt sweetened with native honey or coconut sugar. Each of these products are so good. Honestly if you’ve never had carabao dairy, I recommend you make it a point to sample some on your next visit to the Philippines.

Every one of these foods are delicious because of the quality its main ingredient - carabao milk, which, compared to cow’s milk, contains almost double the calcium and phosphorus, over 30% more protein, and half the cholesterol of cow’s milk.

And the thing is, in the Philippines - 99% of its dairy consumed in the country, comes from outside the country. That’s basically all of it. That means that if you’re in the Philippines - or anywhere in the world, really, but eating something that was made in the Philippines and has some type of dairy product in it - like ube ice cream or powdered polvoron - that stuff has woven its way in and out of the country more times than you can count and more than any other type of food.

That’s basically what prompted this episode - because, frankly, I know nothing about carabao milk! But I’m familiar with it and I remember seeing it a lot, even driving an hour or two outside the city you can easily spot a few carabaos along the side of the highway. I remember eating kesong puti - which is basically a fresh cheese made with carabao milk and salt.

Kesong puti is really close to halloumi, another fresh cheese, in terms of taste and texture - but the stuff that’s prepared close to where you eat it, with that full-fat, lightly grassy and floral note to it - oh man, nothing compares.

So because it doesn’t have any other preservatives, it’s meant to be consumed the same day, it doesn’t have a long shelf life, and is really kind of the specialty product you have when you visit provinces like Laguna, where they’re quite known for kesong puti. Anyway, this stuff is delicious and creamy and rich. Typically, people fry slabs of it in butter, and use it as a sandwich filling, again with pandesal. Frankly, I love fried cheese, so that love for it is there, but after I head that you could make other products with carabao milk - especially the butter and yogurt - I just had to try them for myself.

Carabaos are ubiquitous across the Philippines, and that makes me wonder - why aren’t more carabaos raised for their milk, instead of being used as draft animals?

The answers to this are pretty complex, but with thanks to Marie, I think I’ve started to understand the problem a little bit better. I do have to apologize though, the audio quality for this interview isn’t great. But I’ll step in where we need it, and I hope you learn as much from this interview as I did.

We start off, with Marie Cavosora, at the Enchanted Farm in the province of Bulacan.

INTERVIEW

05:10 About Marie

MC: My name is Marie Cavosora, I’m a social entrepreneur for CalaBoo. I am currently a SEED teacher - SEED is the school here at GK Enchanted Farm. It stands for “School for Experiential Entrepreneurial Development”. I’m a teacher, I teach communications. I’m a mentor, and also a “dorm aunt” or “dorm tita”, which means that I live in the dorm with the students part time. The other half of the time I’m in Manila to tend to CalaBoo.

NA: Calaboo’s products include a fresh cheese called “keso carino” with mama boo and baby boo, for the carabao milk mozzarella and bocconcini-style cheeses. There’s the butter, called “boo-ter”, I know - and “yogi boo” for their greek-style yogurt line. Clearly I’m hooked. So I ask Marie to tell us a bit more about how Calaboo, as the brand, came to be.

MC: It’s a social enterprise, but we purvey naturally nutritious, healthy, premium carabao-based products. So dairy products from carabaos that have been grass fed. With the push on natural goodness - because as we know, milk, when you go back to the basics of it, is actually a very nutritious food. So we want to focus on that and create dairy products in the Philippines that should be more common.

When you think about carabaos in the Philippines, it’s our native animal, most commonly used as a draft animal. We’re an agricultural country, but also a developing country, so most farmers still use carabaos to plow their land. So while we have about 3 million carabaos in the Philippines, most of them owned by smallholder farmers, only 35,000 are used for dairy. Here, it’s an overworked, underrated, docile animal. I think what carabaos are, is very synonymous to the farmer. But, if you look at the carabao, which is a tropical animal - the milk that it produces is premium milk, compared to cow’s milk.

07:40 What's in carabao milk?

MC: Let’s just pretend both of them are grass fed, so it’s an even playing field. On a drop by drop comparison, carabao milk is healthier, in that it has…

NA: According to Marie, almost double the calcium and phosphorus, is high in vitamins A, B, K and E, all important to childhood development, and half the amount of cholesterol in cow’s milk. Carabao milk in itself is higher in fat, yes but it’s the good kind - with complex fatty acids, both saturated and unsaturated, in amounts that are beneficial to the body.

MC: The richness makes for better, creamier, more richly textured dairy products.

NA: With that higher fat content, farmers can actually make more dairy products per litre, compared to cow’s milk.

Since I wasn’t able to actually see the carabaos being milked, Marie adds that, usually, what really strikes people about fresh carabao milk is its colour. Carabao milk is a pearly white, compared to cow’s milk, which tends to be a little more cream-coloured.

That tinge of colour in cow’s milk comes from carotene - like the beta carotene in carrots. And Marie explains, what really makes carabao milk nutritionally superior to cow’s milk is that, with the carabao - it’s already done all the work for you in terms of processing carotene, which allows your body to absorb vitamin A efficiently, to keep things like your eyes, skin and bones in good condition.

Next I ask Marie, what exactly did she first focus on when they started CalaBoo?

A big part of why I was really interested in learning about CalaBoo was because I want to share with people that you’re absolutely right - people who visit rural areas of the Philippines do associate the carabao with farming land. And I agree with you too, they’re under utilized for dairy. In your early conception of CalaBoo, was that a big driver for what you focused on?

10:10 How Calaboo started

MC: Well, yes and no. Because really, the social enterprise exists to help the farmers. Despite the fact that the country is booming, farmers have been at the bottom of the economic class, for a very long time. They continue to be hungry, they continue to be in survival mode. It’s crazy, there’s a huge number of them.

NA: According to 2015 stats published by the Philippine government, nearly 35% of Filipinos who live below the poverty line work as farmers.

MC: I thought, if we really want to help them, what are the things we can do, to really improve their lives, that’s not so radical. And that isn’t about giving money, because it’s never just about giving money.

NA: So what happened is that, when Marie arrived at the Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm - and shortly after, decided to stay - she took over an existing carabao dairy enterprise that, unfortunately, was abandoned by its initial owner.

MC: I wasn’t necessarily thinking about dairy, but when it opened up then I started thinking about it. And at that time, they were only selling kesong puti, some cream cheese, flavoured milk. I thought, well I’m not going to do that. Why would I when everyone else and their mothers and fathers have done that, when you think about carabao milk.

NA: Many places in the Philippines have their own versions of kesong puti - that fresh cheese - and pastillas, a milk candy. But these foods aren’t really consumed on a regular basis - as Marie describes, they’re typically pasalubong, which is food that you bring home as a treat for loved ones when you come back from vacation or someplace you normally don’t visit. They’re a cottage industry in these towns, with sales that peak during the summer months and around Christmas time and holy week. The rest of the year, it’s hard for these farmers and dairy producers to make a constant living, so in that sense, Marie says she realized that…

MC: I want to make mine different. So…

NA: In the process of drawing up her business plans, one of the first questions she had was to answer - how do we get Filipinos to even eat cheese?

12:25 "It was a hard sell"

MC: I know in the Philippines, we’re not a cheese eating country. We eat Eden cheese, which isn’t really cheese but a cheese product. So for a lot of people, they don’t eat cheese on a regular basis. It was gonna be a hard sell. We actually started with aged cheese. We had a partner who was interested, so we said let’s talk about white labelling it for the time being. It helped me focus on what these products are, and really think things through, what the process would be like to sell it.

NA: But, at the end of the day, it’s just hard to make aged cheese in the Philippines - given the tropical climate, humidity, resources like machinery and temperature controlled aging rooms you need, refrigeration and other stuff that Marie would need to produce those cheeses on a profitable scale. They are a business, after all.

13:25 Carabao dairy as a premium product

MC: We tried it for a bit and had lots of positive responses, but it helped put CalaBoo on the map in terms of innovative carabao dairy products. So it started there, but I already had it in my head that I wanted it to be a premium product, because carabao milk as a raw material is premium. It is a superior product to cow’s milk, especially the commodity stuff that’s out there. I want to position it as the champagne of dairy, or the foie gras of dairy, or the wagyu beef of dairy. And people need to see it that way.

14:10 What the industry looks like

MC: Actually, supply is very low, of carabao milk, and milk in general. So let me just provide the business aspect of it. The Philippines imports 99% of our dairy. 99%. 80% of that is in milk powder form.

NA: So I want to let that sink in for a minute. An astounding 99% of the dairy in the Philippines, whether in cheese or milk form, is not produced in the country and has to be imported. 99%. I keep saying it because it’s a crazy number, and yes, totally in line with what I thought it would be! I think I may have tasted fresh cow’s milk once in my lifetime, before I came to Canada.

And looking at other southeast asian countries - like China, with the exception of Tibet and other mountainous northern regions - places near the equator don’t have a strong cheese making heritage because we just haven’t had a reason or really, the long-standing capacity to age and keep cheeses. They thrive in cold and can’t survive in hot weather.

This is also why the only kind of milk that most Filipinos know is the powdered kind - shelf stable, very widely consumed, relatively cheap, and taught to most that milk is the key, it’s good for our bodies, and we need milk for the calcium. Everyone in school from the 1920s onward knows this. But then again, Filipinos prior to that time survived just fine without milk. I just can’t get over how much we depend on this amount of imported milk. 80% in dried, powdered form. I would love to see that shift towards other, more sustainable sources of calcium. Which brings us back to carabao milk.

MC: You see an opportunity in supply and an opportunity in the market. I want to focus on quality, I want to focus on producing real good carabao milk.

NA: Marie explains that if we broke down these statistics further, we’d see that on average, people in the Philippines consume about 22 kilos of dairy a year - that’s like 22 one litre boxes of milk, not that much. But if we look at the actual amount of dairy that’s produced in the entire country - we could only make about 200 grams of dairy per person, for the year, if we relied on milk made in the Philippines. So, of course we need to import.

MC: It’s ridiculous. At least in my lifetime, or the next two or three generations, we wouldn’t be able to produce that much. And we don’t want to.

NA: So then the question for her, became…

MC: How do we now really honour and valourize carabao milk as a raw material. That’s really the positioning for us, for CalaBoo. How are we doing that? We want to demonstrate how delicious the end products are.

17:05 Partnering with the Philippine Carabao Centre

MC: Fortunately, we have a partnership with the Philippine Carabao Centre. It’s a government agency, but they restore your faith in government and the people who run things. I mean, rightly so that the Philippines has a reputation for corrupt government agencies. However, there are also amazing people there who have a true love for country. I’m so blessed to be working with them. Very innovative, professional, responsive. They just know their stuff.

NA: And so in the end..

MC: The farmers, when we train them, we can now train them to produce high-value milk that we will purchase at a higher price, because they’re able to produce high-quality milk on a regular basis. Our target is really smallholder farmers from different parts of the country.

NA: So how did the journey start for Marie?

18:20 Marie's journey

MC: From the beginning I said, okay we don’t have a lot of money. So how do we optimize this? And for me, I see the enterprise more like a potluck party. With everybody coming together bringing the best of what they have to offer. And together we create this really amazing experience.

Tito Tony - Tony Meloto - said when you dream for your country, it can’t be small. It has to be big. And I went, yes, I’m not just going to make a livelihood project. This is gonna be big. This is the reason why I stayed in the Philippines.

My background is, I’m a balikbayan, I lived in the States for 20 years. I lived in San Francisco before I moved back to the Philippines. It was because of the work of Gawad Kalinga that I decided to stay. I had an opportunity to do something like this, knowing that my efforts wouldn’t go to waste because of the network and platform of GK. It really gave me hope that I could bring about something as audacious as, you know, helping build the dairy industry in the Philippines. So I thought in that case, I’m not gonna build a little dairy farm where I could make these little products. There’s a lot of resources currently available to us.

NA: Resources like factories, that Marie wouldn’t have to put up capital funds to build, because of their partnerships with organizations like the Philippine Carabao Centre.

MC: They’re very well versed, they provide support and have relationships with the cooperatives. I thought, at this point, while we’re starting, there’s no need to start from the ground. So I identified partners who could work with us, and I would be frank with them. This is why we exist. We want to help the farmers, these are values of integrity and excellence and transparency. If you don’t want to be part of that, it’s okay, the right people will come. It’s having those kinds of frank conversations.

20:15 "Everything is about relationships"

MC: We talk about god and faith. I mean, try having that kind of conversation in the States. That kind of personal relationship evolves, you know, in the Philippines, where everything is about relationships. Even now, a lot of people are realizing that relationships are really what makes the world go round. I’m starting here, I’ve got nothing. I just have an idea and a big crazy dream. I have no money to invest. I have some to support myself, as I work on this, at least I can feed myself. This big dream was shared, without any money. So what could I do to make this stuff happen?

I know in the Philippines we tend to do things on our own. I gotta start my own thing, start my own project. But what’s the point, when we’re really not maximizing the resources we have available? It’s about the [idea of] bayanihan, right. As we say here, to borrow an African proverb, if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, do it together. It’s so much so like that. It was adjustment for me, having come from the States - and not just California, I lived in New York, Toronto, Hong Kong, fast paced cities. To actually slow down and nurture relationships, to really breathe, make that happen and work together. Otherwise, the whole mission, and the reason we exist, goes away. Those were our ground rules, the values we shared with everyone who wanted to work with us.

NA: And so CalaBoo launched in November 2016, at the Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm.

MC: We hadn’t taken on investors at this time. We had people who had expressed interest, but what we needed were people who could actually make stuff happen.

NA: And some of those things that have “happened” for Marie and her growing team include developing and market testing those products they made from carabao milk. The kesong puti, their version of the fresh cheese, this thick, greek-style yogurt, called Yogi Boo, and butter. Oh my god, the butter. I ask Marie to tell us more.

22:25 Starting with kesong puti

MC: We started with, already in my head, knowing it would be a premium product. It’s not gonna be pastillas or kesong puti. But I also wanted to work on what’s familiar. So let’s take kesong puti, for example. It’s really good cheese, but when you think about it, it’s really similar to mozzarella di bufala, almost the same animal. So what makes it different? Why are people willing to pay this much for that, versus this?

NA: Ok, so this is a familiar concept. People hesitate on spending money for something that holds a lower, somewhat “less” value for them, however they define it. Like for people who have no problem paying $30 a plate for dinner at a French restaurant, but won’t even consider that for a Chinese or Indian restaurant. In the Philippines, this means people spend upwards of a thousand pesos on Italian mozzarella that’s imported, which, you know, is good - but to not consider, or even try, local water buffalo cheese, and try to make room for those kinds of products on your menu, if you’re a chef, is just such a missed opportunity. And I know that you can’t make room for it if there’s no demand, but then there’s another opportunity. What would it take, for example, to convince a thousand people in Manila - like, everyone in an office building in Makati - if we could convince those people who pay a lot of money for gourmet pizza, to ask those restaurants to start using kesong puti - couldn’t that kickstart demand?

Marie, of course, says there’s a long way to go before they even get there. They’ve got a lot of challenges up ahead, for the industry itself, too. The main problem with kesong puti right now is that…

MC: [The problem with] most kesong puti, at the moment, is it doesn’t melt. They’re super soft and airy, but when you heat it, it doesn’t melt, it just dries up. Some people fry it, which kind of makes it unhealthy. So I said okay, let’s make something that combines both. I want a kesong puti that melts. We were at the Philippine Carabao Centre, I was there for three days with them and in those three days, we made lots of stuff, we came up with 8 products. It was so fun. The butter came out of that, the Mama Boo and Baby Boo came out of that three-day creative session.

Because I had the opportunity to live out in the west, and be in the forefront of a lot of things, I thought why don’t we make this cheese like that, so it has the features of kesong puti - it’s light when fresh, which mozzarella is not. But when you heat it, it melts. How could we get that? And we actually came up with it. We called it Keso Carino.

So our brand is CalaBoo, and our products - Mama Boo, shaped like a mozzarella ball, like a fist - and of course if there’s a Mama Boo, there has to be a Baby Boo, shaped like bocconcini. It had good reception, but the challenge is it has a two-week shelf life. So it’s short, and we can’t price it as cheaply as [regular] kesong puti, but it’s comparable to fresh mozzarella. But who are the people who buy fresh mozzarella? Usually, they’re restaurants who are very cost-conscious. Unfortunately, the chefs are still thinking, well it’s better to have imported products. But it’s growing, and actually Mama Boo is one of our best selling cheeses.

The thing is, because we pay more for the carabao milk, we’re adding a premium to it, because that’s what we want. What’s the fastest way to uplift farmers, is to pay more, to pay fair prices for their product. They have cost of goods [to worry about]. It’s not an easy job, taking care of carabaos. Why don’t we make it financially rewarding for them. That’s why the cost is higher than what’s common, since we have to factor in so many things. And if you can’t afford it, don’t buy it, it’s not a big deal, let’s not even talk about that.

NA: When Marie was in the US, she says, she often ate yogurt - the thick greek style ones, like Chobani and Fage (fa-yeh). So she thought, what about carabao milk yogurt? With it being really rich and creamy, that could work. However…

MC: Yogurt lasts only two, actually three weeks, even four…but we can’t print that, because if [customers] don’t handle them properly…but really, for people who know yogurt, they’re okay to eat it later, specially if it’s unopened. There’s a lot of education we still have to do here, but ultimately, it’s how good your product is. No amount of marketing can lift up a product that’s not good. You don’t need a lot of marketing if your product’s really good, and you get the right people to talk about it. Fortunately, chef Miko Aspiras…

NA: Who’s an acclaimed pastry chef in the Philippines, and someone I actually went to school with…

27:55 Partnering with chefs

MC: In fact, if it weren’t for him - honestly, he was one of the first chefs who supported us - it really gave us the courage to go forward. And chef Margarita Fores, she uses our butter. These are like chefs in top restaurants. You can imagine how premium it is. There’s also an added ‘premium’ because supply is dwindling, and we have to help more dairy farmers produce class A milk. That’s where our social impact is. If supply is low, that’s fine, because it forces us to really work with the farmers, which is really what the whole intention of the enterprise is. So it’s a lot more work, but it now becomes like a very finely tuned process, from the beginning to end.

At the farm, we’re very lucky because we’re able to taste test it, across many kinds of palates. Across socio-economic classes, cultural - we have French interns here, Germans, Egyptians, Malaysians, Singaporeans, Japanese, Korean - they get to taste it, and if they say it’s good, you know it’s good.

NA: And then, out comes the butter.

29:00 Out comes THE BUTTER

MC: I mean, who doesn’t love butter? So now we have these products, and we’re focusing on butter. After all that, [we realized] we had to have clear messaging. While a lot of people like the cheese and yogurt, as a business, we have to think long-term, scaling up….butter is our flagship product that we really want to spend our energy on, to talk about it at length. A butter consumer may not necessarily eat yogurt, so those are our indicators. Butter has a lot of uses. You can put it on pasts, on really good bread, on fish, to finish your steak. Right now, with the ketogenic diet everyone’s talking about, it’s the perfect candidate.

NA: For people listening, I’m eating….this is the butter, right? This is delicious. I want to eat the whole tub. It’s like…okay, this might not be the best analogy, but when I was really little, what I remember is that my parents would go to Subic Bay, for vacations and what not, and they would always bring back Queensland butter, the thing in the red tin. This is obviously not that, but back then, my parents associated that as a premium product.

30:30 How Filipino products are viewed

NA: Bringing back the conversation to how carabao products are viewed, too, it’s also a larger conversation of why western products are always viewed as superior to Philippine products. And that’s what I’d like to discover on my visit here, speaking with local entrepreneurs who are producing products that are proudly Filipino made. It’s quite exciting to me, because working with mostly second-generation Filipino chefs - even if they don’t remember much about the Philippines, maybe only go back once every 10 years to visit relatives and not much else - there’s that hunger in them to learn more about products here, because there’s a lot more awareness about Filipino culture and social issues in the Philippines. They grow up in western societies where there’s a lot of emphasis on sourcing local and supporting agriculture and all that. So those kinds of ideas, for them, are a big driver to learn about what’s here in the Philippines, and knowing these types of products exist is really encouraging to me. I’m excited to go to them, and say when you’re in the Philippines next, you HAVE to try these. Then learning about the social impact that supporting those types of products have, is a very big draw for them.

MC: It’s true. Because let’s face it, in the Philippines, we’ve never been known for excellent products, right. Especially the ones made to help people - the “pity purchase” that you buy because you feel bad. But now the conversation is, let’s create world class products that people want for its own merit. This whole drive for excellence is relatively new. “Philippine made” means something - not like shabby production, but when you think of something made in Italy, for example, you expect excellence, there’s the expectation of quality. What we want - though it’s gonna take time - there are some leading products out there already, specially based on our own natural resources, that makes it really compelling [to say they’re made in the Philippines].

We are a rich agricultural country, our biodiversity in the Philippines is extensive. We have a lot of species that aren’t available anywhere else in the world. But we haven’t been able to optimize it. We haven’t been able to really tap that. We haven’t given it the value it deserves.

NA: And one example that Marie gives us - to illustrate this kind of “value” that foods and other native products from the Philippines aren’t getting - is with my favourite animal. The pig.

MC: I was reading this article about the native pig. They’re really really good pigs…some have actually been known to be extinct. Here, we value it, not so much but we value it enough - we raise them for lechon. We see their value, but not their value with a capital V. Like, we’re actually sitting on a gold mine.

NA: And that value with a capital V, is so integral to shifting the perception that Marie talks about, when it comes to local Philippine products. She explains that the question, now, for carabao dairy, really becomes: how do we create a model that we can replicate and bring to farmers across the countryside?

34:10 Bringing farmers in

MC: We have this amazing product, how do we now bring it down to the level of the farmer, who’s living very far away, with hardly any access to the market. So the idea is, we organize farmers with the help of the Philippine Carabao Center, and Gawad Kalinga, farmers. Train them to produce class A milk consistently. There [will be] this facility nearby where they make the butter. Because of the brand, CalaBoo, which would now stand for premium and quality and just really good taste…then there’s a market for it. We can send it to Manila, we already have interest in Singapore and the US, even locally with Baguio and Davao. That’s what makes it a compelling and promising proposition. There’s demand already for this product. So now, we can just produce in all these places, and help satisfy the local market. It’s a well thought out, I guess, value chain, but it’s gonna take a little while, especially now that supply is dwindling. That’s a challenge, that makes it interesting. I’m not just selling stuff, I’m actually…I like to say we’re purveying a dream.

NA: Next, I asked Marie if she could share how they were planning to actually get farmers to raise carabaos that would produce top quality milk. Since the enterprise was created through Gawad Kalinga, were they hoping to tap into the network of those GK communities?

And she said that yes, absolutely. In fact, the overall plan is to get a number of students who were studying at the farm - kids who were under this thing called a SEED scholarship - to equip them with the training they needed to eventually run a whole network of little farms - like a collective or cooperative - or as Marie calls them, the “dairy yards”, kind of like a wine vineyard.

As clusters of these SEED students band together, and collectively work on improving and standardizing the quality of milk in their herds - that allows Marie, and by extension, all the farming collectives - to get that butter into the hands of more consumers and markets.

36:30 Working on products at the farm

MC: We’re starting up with a prototype here at the farm. So two kinds of education, and two kinds of training. Ultimately, these dairy yards will be run and owned by the SEED students, and also the GK communities that they serve. The vision is, they will be lead entrepreneurs, the GK communities and their surrounding areas would be their partners. A lot of it really is an internal change, where it’s really adjusting the poverty of the mind - which we do at Gawad Kalinga. The ability to dream, for them to claim their right to be rich, is how we call it. The right to the good things in life. Because if they’re going to be purveying something excellent, they should know what excellence is.

We’re now exploring a partnership with SGS, a multinational company. They want to come in and [help provide] training and certification for quality. Then with PCC, we have technical training, like a whole team of trainers to bring out the best, not just in the product but in people. Because then, people have ownership. Like I want everyone to have a sense of ownership.

37:45 On ownership and dignity

NA: That is your unique approach to it, from what I see, and what really excites me about sharing these kinds of stories with listeners is that, there are stories like these in the Philippines that are just incredibly humbling and heartwarming, because it’s such a different approach to building the business and your enterprise. It is going back to people who don’t have much right now, and giving them that sense of ownership, and the core of it being restoring the dignity of the people who work here. Even earlier, I was talking with Tita Tess, who does the peanut brittle. She was talking to me in Tagalog and we so had this casual conversation, and she was telling me about how some people approached her and said can we invest in you as the company. But she was saying that you know, I could have taken that…she said, “sa totoo lang, gusto ko na ako lang gagawa” (to tell the truth, I like that I do things myself) because she wants people to see that she can do it for herself, and that she can do that for her family, and build her business herself. Get her kids to help out, to show them, by example, that if you’re really dedicated to doing something, you can do it. And it really showed me that there’s a lot built into people that we kind of want to just tap into. I get the sense that that’s a big driver to what you’re doing.

39:10 Living with SEED students

MC: I’m so lucky to have this opportunity to live with them, and really get to know them on an intimate basis. I live with the SEED kids. I hear their dreams, and their fears. But their generosity of spirit, the love for their family, it’s like mind blowing. It’s heartbreaking. I mean, heartbreaking in a really good way, you know, because your heart is so full of love with the way they express it, and it just breaks because it can’t contain that love any more. For me, they’re so heroic in a lot of ways. That drives me. Like I want CalaBoo to succeed for them. This is theirs. I’m building it for them. It’s an honour to really see and be inspired by these kids who are so without malice. They’re not greedy, at all. If anything they will just give you what they have.

NA: And if you’ve listened to episode 9 of this podcast - you know, because I’ve talked about this at length - that these kids in this SEED program, are genuinely people who I look up to, myself. This next bit is my favourite part of the interview, and easily the thing that stayed with me long after I talked with Marie.

40:20 The most expensive thing they bought

MC: In one of my classes, I asked, what’s the most expensive thing you bought for yourself? They had to clarify it, because a lot of them would say, oh I bought this for my family, so I said no, for yourself. Two [students] stood up. One, because she said that she’s far from the library, and she really wanted to read this book. She even explained, I earned the money from tutoring, and I bought a calculus book.

The other one was, you know, most of my money goes to supporting my family, so paying for electricity, paying for water, paying for food. And the most expensive thing she bought was this pair of jeans, for 280 pesos. That’s what, like $4 or $5. I was like, it blew my mind. Both of them are actually part of the dairy team.

NA: A calculus book and a pair of jeans. Those are two of the most expensive things that these young, very bright and talented students bought for themselves. Like, a calculus book, that so many kids, including myself, totally took for granted, and you know, $5 for a pair of jeans - after paying her household’s electricity, rent, and food. I would have spent $5 for a coffee, not even thinking about it. These are the young people pushing boundaries in the Philippines.

42:10 "It grounds you"

NA: I’m tearing up right now, this has happened already so many times being here at the farm. It’s because…you don’t even have to live in the west, just in the city, like many of my friends who still live in Manila…you can grow up in this bubble, and it’s not until you get a chance to even just talk with people, it doesn’t even have to be long. Like yesterday, I was stuffing the Plush and Play animals [with a lola] and we were just sitting there, watching telenovelas. I guess because it’s sem(ester) break now, all the kids were at home, and they were making pancit, cooking lunch. And they offered me a plate, and I said “no, sige po, okay lang”, but they were very insistent so I accepted and said thank you po very much. Little things like that, those are things that really make an impact on you, when you visit these types of communities…that you take the time to listen and kinda like hang out with them, and just hear what they want to do, how life is like for them, because it really grounds you. And I guess, to kind of bring that back full circle - how grounding has this been for you, on a personal level? Coming from [your background] - were you in an executive marketing background, in the US?

43:45 Finding purpose

MC: I mean, it keeps it so real. It gives me the courage to ask, like you guys, you gotta buy this because it’s really good. And I don’t play that card, right - the “kawawa” card - but it gives me the courage to just go, because it’s not for me. And it’s a real thing. It’s so empowering, for me, to be able to help in real ways, not just by giving them money. I can actually help end poverty for a few people, in a very real way. But that’s why I get impatient, I want to things to be fast, let’s do it now. But to come up with a really amazing product, that chefs and restaurants and ideally, that Filipinos abroad can support and patronize, to really show the world. It’s grounding but it’s also at the same time, makes you want to dream, right? To reach for the heavens. You wanna just shoot for the stars. When I’m in Manila, I spend time with [chefs and restaurateurs] and talk to them, ask how can we bridge that and actually make something happen? It’s pretty cool.

My background is that, right, I worked on Pepsi and Disney and IKEA [campaigns] as a copywriter, in client services, and in product management. So it’s like wow, it all makes sense. All these years of toiling and climbing the corporate ladder and pursuing the American dream, is actually super beneficial here. So it’s grounding but at the same time, liberating and there’s a sense of freedom, and it’s almost like, yeah - I know why I’m here.

Talk about shooting for the stars, our butter now is actually being served at Amanpulo (Resorts). It’s so good that they serve it as butter pats. Not even as an ingredient. My dream is for the butter pat to mean something for all the places that produce it. To be like yeah, this is quality, this is what we have. When you go to a restaurant that has that, I’m in a world class restaurant.

WRAP-UP

My sincerest thanks to Marie Cavosora for meeting with me for this interview, which we recorded at the Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm. I am always floored by the people who take time to answer my questions, and in a general sense, with the energy, ability and realness they bring to the table Visit www.calaboo.com to find out more about their products, place an order, or find stockists in and around Manila. Pick up that butter when you can, I promise you’ll not regret it.

Music for the episode is by David Szestay, Eric and Magill, Podington Bear and Blue Dot Sessions. You can find their music on fma.org. Head over to exploringfilipinokitchens.com for past episodes, where you can check out the archives and listen to episodes by theme and topic discussed - would love to hear what you think! Please like the show on Facebook if you haven’t already, just search for Exploring Filipino Kitchens, and again, tell a fried - these stories are worth sharing.

Maraming salamat, and until next month - thank you for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 15: Growing The Carabao Dairy Industry With Marie Cavosora”.

Food Holidays In The Philippines - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Clang Garcia below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

I am so excited for this episode, though to be real, I’m always excited when I get to spend some time with you wonderful food loving listeners. Today we’re talking with Clang Garcia, who published a book called “Food Holidays Philippines” and runs a travel company called Jeepney Tours, based in the Philippines. We’re gonna be talking about food tourism this episode and I’m literally bouncing in place here. It’s about two of the great things I love - travel and food!

So I picked up “Food Holidays” last year - a year after it came out, in 2016. If you’re listening to this podcast, you legit need to order a copy of this book online because there’s nothing else right now that comes close to it. And I say that honestly, as someone who has a very big collection of both food and travel books - nothing’s been written about the Philippines in this particular way. It’s a travel compendium; a series of essays with some recipes and a travel itinerary packed into one book. You can’t afford to miss out on it if you’re planning a trip to the Philippines specifically for its food. As someone who’s worked in the hospitality and travel industry for over ten years - basically all my adult life, since I moved to Canada - it’s something I can relate to really well. Reading through the essays in this book, you really feel, hear, see and almost taste the different regional foods and specialties that people from those places are so proud of.

02:20 Food is inescapably a part of travel

One thing I know for sure is that food is inescapably a part of why people travel, because everyone needs to eat. And so many people, especially in the last ten years or so, make that act of going someplace to eat - to experience the tastes, ambiance, the whole environment surrounding food and travel experiences - it’s a really big driver to why people spend money. That also underlines the economic power in recognizing just how much we can tap into food itself as a reason for travelling.

As a concierge in downtown Toronto, my job was basically to recommend places to eat, drink and visit - both for visitors and locals, who wanted the full “staycation” experience, something I enjoy a lot too. Seeing how much people value experiences that are “book-ended” with a great meal or drink on a patio sets the tone for a trip, and I understand why people yearn for those kinds of experiences. Food is never just about food. It’s always a story about the people who make it, the place you’re eating it in, the history behind what brought that particular dish or ingredient from its origins to your place.

All of these things came together for me very recently. I’m happy to share that I am now a food tour guide, with a company called Savour Toronto. I know, right - dream job! What we basically do is take small groups of guests through different neighbourhoods of the city, eating our way through Toronto, while we learn about the history of that neighbourhood, the people who live there, and foods they produce. Nowhere else as diverse, I like to think! It’s a bit easier for restaurants to break into the “scene” here, I mean, compared to someplace like New York - and you can’t ask for a better audience of people whose palates are ready to try everything. Over half of the people who live in Toronto were born someplace else.

Anyway - I live and breathe food and travel, and naturally, I just needed to know what that intersection between food and tourism looks like in the Philippines.

We’re gonna cover quite a bit today, so let’s go to it!

INTERVIEW

05:40 About

CG: Thanks for inviting me on your podcast! I’m Clang Garcia. I’ve got multiple personalities. I’m a tour operator, publisher and wanderer. I continuously educate myself on learning about the rich culinary heritage of the Philippines. I had an opportunity to work with “Mabuhay,” the in-flight magazine of Philippine Airlines; after that I became a media representative for Emphasis - they’re one of the biggest media publishers who handle international airlines such as Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines and British Airways. I worked with them for ten years. Also through “Mabuhay,” I got to produce an in-flight video that featured Philippine destinations. So I’ve merged all the wonderful experiences I’ve had in what I do. I enjoy designing and crafting special tours around the Philippines.

NA: And for Clang, all of this comes together in “Food Holidays”, a book that won “Best in the World” at the 2017 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.

CG: “Food Holidays” was born out of passion. It’s a pioneering guide on culinary heritage tours around the Philippines. Because I’m a tour operator, I want to promote the country as a culinary destination. The books guides you around the Philippines - it’s already "itinerary-based” - to find regional dishes. I’ve filtered and curated it, did a dry run with everything. All you have to do is follow the trail, in one book.

NA: And because the story about writing this book really begins with her travel company, called Jeepney Tours, I ask Clang to tell us a little more about it.

08:00 What makes the jeepney so special?

CG: Jeepney Tours for me encapsulates a cultural icon of the Philippines - the jeepney. When people talk about the jeepney, there will always be stigma and a negative connotation to it.

NA: But, she says…

CG: If we study our history, the jeepney is more than that. Prior to the American colonial period Filipinos were used to seeing carabao-drawn carts or carriages.

NA: And when Americans brought over thousands of these utility jeeps - like, in the hundred thousands, shipped over from the continental US to the Philippines during World War II - Filipinos saw the jeepney as progress. As something that would help local farmers do things like quickly transport fruit and vegetables from faraway fields into town. Remember, horses aren’t native to the Philippines, so this kind of land transport was revolutionary for people who lived in rural areas.

CG: The first time that Filipinos saw these “four wheel drives” was during the war - where there were equally, thousands of casualties (along with the jeepneys).

NA: A war that, I have to note, required Filipinos to fight, and ultimately sacrifice their lives, for the Americans who maintained colonial rule over the country.

CG: It was devastating. But you can’t dampen the Filipino spirit. For me, the jeepney encapsulates that spirit of resiliency, entrepreneurship, artistry, ingenuity and finding humour, even in the midst of devastation.

We do a lot of creative tours around the Philippines. It’s easy to book a packaged tour to Boracay or Palawan; you can find that online. So what we specialize in is promoting cultural tourism.

NA: These character traits - of resiliency, entrepreneurship, artistry, ingenuity and humour - were things that Clang just knew had to be at the core of her travel company. Like guiding principles, to create the kinds of travel experiences that put the stories of Filipinos they met in those communities at the front and centre.

For me, as a balikbayan - as someone who, finally, is starting to see just how much my own identity is inextricably tied to my experiences growing up in the Philippines - this kind of travel has so much potential, and almost screams to be shared with other people looking for ways to connect with their culture and their roots.

10:35 The beauty of our food

CG: I grew up in the kitchen of my grandmother. I know the process of cooking from scratch, appreciating the integrity of ingredients, the whole “slow food” thing. Filipino dishes are never “fast food.” The beauty of our food changes depending on the season. You have meals for weekdays, special meals for Sundays, foods for Holy Week, Christmas and all that.

NA: And this beauty, for foods that are seasonal, that are consumed in the land they’re grown in, is something you can see and feel in “Food Holidays." And being that immersed - feeling like you’re there - is, for me, the hallmark of a great travel book.

In the province of Bulacan, an hour or two north of Manila, Clang shows us what to expect on a tricycle food tour of Malabon, a seaside port town famous for its pancit. And what centuries-old recipes from the town of Malolos can tell us about the First Philippine Republic of Emilio Aguinaldo - like, historically accurate stuff.

South of Manila, in the provinces of Laguna, Quezon and Batangas, you can listen to the storytellers of a town called San Pablo; explore a coconut plantation; and wander around Lucban - a REAL foodie’s city, I don’t even mind using that term. In Lucban, there’s this regional variant of pancit called “habhab,” wrapped in banana leaves, which become your de-facto plate while you walk around, maybe with a side of piquant longganisang lucban on a stick. I may actually done that before. All things you can do in one weekend!

13:00 Day trips, overnight food trips and 3 delicious days

CG: All the contents of “Food Holidays” are actually my tour packages, categorized into three sections: “Day trips from Manila,” “Overnight food trips,” and “3 delicious days.”

I’ll give you a rundown of my favourite destinations. The first is Bicol.

13:15 Bicol's terroir

CG: I love Bicol for its diversity of attractions and intensity of flavours. When we look at food, I try to dissect every ingredient and process. If you’re familiar with “terroir”…

NA: The term that’s often used to describe wine and the region that the grapes for that particular bottle of wine were grown in…

CG: When I went to Bicol, I realized that Philippine cuisine totally has its own terroir expression in food.

NA: And in her travels, Clang found an example of this terroir in Filipino food, in a dish called “pinangat” - something you can only find in Bicol.

CG: Usually, it’s fish cooked in freshly harvested taro leaves and “healing ingredients” such as lemongrass, garlic, ginger and chilies. You pound it all together and cook it with coconut milk, then wrap it up in those leaves. Going back to terroir, I talked to these “pinangat” makers…

NA: And basically asked..

CG: Where do you harvest these taro leaves? I’d love to see it. So we walked and it turns out they harvest them from the foot of Mayon Volcano. So for “pinangat,” its essence and flavours really are unique to the Bicol region, to the island of Albay in particular. That’s something to be proud of. Especially with the chilies, there’s that beautiful medley of flavours. For me, it’s terroir with a T. You can’t replicate the Mayon Volcano.

NA: Meaning that no place else in the world - literally - can have the same geographical features, the same climate, amount of rainfall or humidity. Few volcanos, in fact, are as active as Mayon. I remember seeing photos of the last time it erupted, a minor one, in January 2018! If you consider the minerals and salts present in that soil, volcanic as it gets, and in the streams that dot the foothills of Mayon…this stuff feeds the coconut trees and the chilies, the taro leaves and the lemongrass, and the fish that’s used to make this dish - you quickly realize it’s just how special it is. Each ingredient, to some degree, borrows its flavours and distinct taste - its terroir - from roots that run very, very deep in Bicol’s soil.

It reminds me of the Native American technique of growing squash, corn and beans together in the same garden plot, something called the “three sisters” technique - and of dishes like succotash, where those vegetables go into a stew and just harmonize, like they were always meant to be. Some things just fit perfectly.

16:50 Growing businesses around food

NA: Clang’s work in culinary tourism reaches far and wide. In the province of Sorsogon - technically still part of the Bicol region - Clang got the chance to work on a project that went beyond featuring the unique foods of Bicol.

CG: I was hired by the Canadian International Development Agency and the Asian Development Bank to work on projects that helped the country’s (economically) poorest provinces through tourism. I was a consultant, working on product development and marketing.

NA: Clang also reminds us that…

CG: Not all destinations in the Philippines are “culinary destinations.” But the province of Bicol is special - it’s really priceless. I chose to really anchor it as a culinary destination, focus on its culture, and create tour packages from there. One thing I did was tap into local communities. I wanted to help through the “grassroots.”

NA: This desire to tap into grassroots communities - that I’m so happy to see more and more people doing now - has effects that, like the roots of those vegetables that grow at the foot of the Mayon, run deep.

17:50 Redefining "luxury tourism" in the Philippines

CG: I want to connect people in these grassroots communities with the tourism supply chain. If you make that happen - if you make their life comfortable, while celebrating their local culture - that’s when you know that tourism works. In the Philippines, the only time you can really “know” the economy is growing is when you help the poorest of the poor, by giving them the dignity to earn a living.

NA: Here it is again - that concept of providing dignity for people who live at or close to the brink of poverty. People who, for a very long period of time, earned very little and whose skills and intimate knowledge of local farming, fishing and land stewardship has been, as I’ve now come to learn, vastly under utilized. 

CG: Going back to our tour packages, I asked them to prepare their heritage dishes and bring them out for us. When I asked tourism officers there, “What are your attractions here?” They’d say, “Nothing. We don’t have anything.” I said, “It’s impossible to have nothing. What do you have in your coastal areas?” Then the tourism officer said they had sea urchins, sea grapes. I said, “That’s it! I want to see how you get those.” Now, we’ve got a travel package which includes sea grape harvesting and something called “uni-all-you-can” (an eat-all-you-can sea urchin, or “uni,” feast). We ask local communities to prepare their heritage dishes with these ingredients on board a bamboo raft, in the middle of an azure sea. For me, that’s just priceless.

NA: I’d say so! Just think about it - you can now travel to Bicol, indulge in as many sea urchins as you can possibly handle, while you’re on a bamboo raft in this impossibly blue sea, lunching with other travellers who like to eat and whom the local villagers have prepared a few regional specialties for.

CG: Our definition of “luxury tourism” (in the Philippines) needs to change. It shouldn’t be limited to staying in opulent properties. It’s also all about enriching experiences - where, at the same time, you’re able to leave something with the communities you visit, just by having fun. We don’t just go there for the food. We want to make sure everybody’s involved.

NA: I wanna take a minute here to reflect on Clang’s perspective, and why it matters in the context of tourism in the Philippines. The thing is, for Filipinos in the upper-middle to higher income classes, meaning the people who have enough disposable income and aren’t worried about day to day living - for these folks, if you plan on splurging for a trip, that “splurge” for many people means something like a nice air-conditioned villa by the beach, or going to Hong Kong Disneyland. They wanna go someplace nice, but keep a certain level of comfort. And for many people, spending their hard-earned pesos and vacation days in what’s still typically seen as kinda “lowly” rural areas just doesn’t make sense - unless you make it matter to them in a whole new way that matters to them, and aligns with their lifestyle habits and choices.

In other words, if we can redefine “luxury” as the luxury of savouring and enjoying the indigenous foods that really are fast disappearing in the Philippine countryside - those “enriching experiences,” for Clang and other people who advocate for sustainable tourism - this approach works to benefit both sides equally.

That’s why I’m super excited by the fact that Berna Romulo Puyat - a much respected public service official and former head of the Department of Agriculture - was just this month (in May 2018) named the new head of the Philippine Department of Tourism. It really is exciting times!

23:00 Lessons from travelling the country

NA: Sometimes we, as Filipinos, don’t really know the bounty of what we have in our backyard. Since I moved to Canada, I’ve been working in tourism. I talk to guests, for examples, who want to visit nearby Niagara not just for the falls, but because it’s a wine region, known for its Canadian terroir. I got really curious about what food tourism looks like in the Philippines now because I’ve been exposed to people who go places because they want this whole experience around eating and drinking. Knowing that Filipinos are some of the most hospitable people around - I hope a lot more people are able to see that!

With your work as a tour operator, what were some of the biggest takeaways you’ve learned? For example, maybe working with people in Bicol who’d say “Ma’m, we don’t have any specialties po.” But after asking and prodding, you’d find out more…

CG: We have that “hiya” culture eh, and a social class hierarchy. If you talk to some people on that “level” (as someone from a “higher class” talking to a “lower class”) they’ll continue to have that kind of mentality. So what we can do is empower them; bring them up. Talk to them on “your level,” take them where you know they can go.

Everywhere you go, you have to humble yourself. Because you have to be a “nobody” when you talk to people who obviously know more about their culture (than outsiders ever could). We need to say, “You’re the master, you’re the expert. Show it to the world.” You have to find ways to establish a relationship. In the absence of that, you can’t truly “connect” and get something out of the experience.

NA: These are truths that look simple from the outset, but in the process of breaking free from old mindsets, something I know I’ve had to do - it’s a truth that bears repeating. It gets very personal - to the core of my being - to realize that the societal structure that I lived in for so long still has this one simple truth to learn and carry out. The truth is that we lack respect, in many ways, for our fellow Filipinos, and for the country we come from. Whether you live in the Philippines or outside the country. The only place for me, to start, is with a straight shot of humility. So I asked Clang - how do other people go about that?

25:15 "It's time to compete”

CG: We should start veering away from that “hiya” culture. It’s about time to compete, by celebrating our own culture. No one can promote it better than us. No one can speak about it better than we can. Wala eh - we don’t even have a budget for marketing, on a national level, to promote culinary tourism. We can’t blame the government forever for that. All you can do is carry out your share. 

NA: When did food tourism start becoming recognized as different thing from, say, beach vacations?

CG: I don’t know, really. But there’s curiosity.

26:05 Touring chefs for Madrid Fusion Manila

CG: Have you heard about Madrid Fusion? It’s one of the biggest gastronomy events in Europe. The Department of Tourism brought it two years ago to the Philippines and got the rights to make it “Madrid Fusion Manila,” and they asked different tour operators to come up with culinary tour packages for the visiting international gastronomy media, as well as for the visiting chefs. There were some tour operators who’ve been 30, some even close to 50 years in the business. No one had a product that promoted culinary tourism.

My name came about because they knew I’m a foodie and I was already putting together these kinds of tours for my company; even if the demand isn’t as high as, for example, beach holidays, there’s fulfillment and joy in it for me. Because nobody had a solid “food tour” product, when I submitted what I had, the Department of Tourism approved it (right away). Normally, you also need a specially accredited tour guide to lead official government tours. When they asked, “Who’s doing the tours?” (as a private sector guide) I said “I don’t know!” And it took them actually telling me, “Well, you’re the one who made these!” to do it.

I handled international gastronomy media from Europe, Asia and the Americas. But I was only given two days for the whole itinerary - two days! I had to figure out where to take them. We went to Pampanga, because budget-wise, we could only travel by land. The province of Pampanga, as well as Bulacan, are actually very rich in terms of food culture.

28:10 Recipes from cooks of Spanish friars in Bulacan

CG: Bulacan, in the 1970s, was the rice granary of the Philippines. They had rich farm land and a rich farm life. I brought them to Malolos (in Bulacan) and had an old ancestral house opened for our guests, built in the 1500s. Jose Rizal (the national hero of the Philippines) had a history of staying in this house. I asked local cooks to prepare their heritage dishes. They prepared foods eaten by the “hacienderos” or the landlords of the rice fields. Back then, “hacienderos” trained their cooks by hiring the “kusinero de kampanilya” of the “frayles” - meaning the cooks of Spanish friars, who previously worked in the walled city of Intramuros, in Manila (the capital of the Philippines during the Spanish era).

So their dishes here are quite different (from the rest of the Southern Tagalog region). For example, what they served was something called “lumpiang kastila.” It’s pretty similar to the regular pork lumpia that most people know, except the filling is made of ground beef with garbanzos (chickpeas) and eggs.

They also had this dish called “kinilaw na bangus na inipit sa kesong puti.”

NA: That loosely translates to “milkfish ceviche stuffed with cheese.” But was it milkfish wrapped around fresh cheese, or was it milkfish covered in fresh cheese? Either way, definitely unconventional…and a tongue twister. Kinilaw na bangus na inipit sa kesong puti! Try saying that five times!

CG: The milkfish wraps the kesong puti. The fish is made “kinilaw” - cooked in liquid fire with vinegar and spices. I blown away with the flavours. Then we did a cooking demo of “hamon Bulakenya” (ham from Bulacan).

“Hamon Bulakenya” is basically made in the process of “inasnan” - through salting. Our way of preserving food before refrigeration. You’d put the “hamon” in an earthen jar for three days then cook it from there. It’s similar to “buro” (a dish of salted fish or meat, fermented in a crock with cooked rice, widely eaten in the neighbouring province of Pampanga). But this “hamon Bulakenya” was sweetened with sugar; they were ahead of Bacolod and Iloilo by a hundred years, in terms of growing sugarcane. So they’d put sugar on top and then “torch” it (when it was served).

NA: Amazing! I didn’t even know this style of wet-cured ham, or hamon, existed!

CG: That’s a very old process; the dish itself is a part of our pre-colonial cuisine. But when the Spanish friars arrived, they found they liked it, because there was familiarity with their version of “hamon.” Some versions, we were told, had wine in it.

NA: So this hamon - in its original version - was basically chunks of pork put into a clay pot with some salt and cooked rice, left out overnight. With temperatures that easily reach up to 30 degress, natural fermentation kicks in, and pretty quickly starts “preserving” the meat. 

CG: After the revolution (from the Spanish), people from Malolos celebrated their liberation by removing all the Spanish ingredients in that dish. There are so many stories like this!

NA: I loved chatting with Clang. Of course I wanted to hear the stories. Next, in the province of Pampanga…

32:00 The culinary champions of Pampanga

CG: We spent the night in Pampanga, then I took guests to “Bale Dutung,” the restaurant of Chef Claude Tayag.

NA: “Bale Dutung,” for those who don’t know, is one of those very special places in the Philippines where regional cooking really, really shines.   

CG: Claude Tayag has long been a culinary champion of Pampanga. He really presents the integrity of dishes from his home province. He created a degustation menu, filled with traditional Kapampangan dishes.

I brought guests to Atching Lillian, the keeper of heirloom recipes of Pampanga; she used to have a cooking show on TV. I asked Atching Lillian to do a cooking demo of “panecillos de San Nicolas,” which we also shared the recipe for in “Food Holidays.” “Panecillos de San Nicolas” is a 16th century recipe - it’s the oldest cookie recipe we have documented, taught by the Spanish to Filipino bakers.

NA: So when these Spanish guests - the folks who were organizing Madrid Fusion Manila -tasted this cookie, Clang says they got super excited about how closely it tasted and resembled their version of St. Nicolas cookies. By the way, it’s called that because of the St. Nicolas inspired pattern, imprinted onto the cookie with a wooden mold. Those molds are beautiful. 

CG: But the taste is different from the original Spanish version, because in the Philippines, we use arrowroot flour. We’ve customized it to what we have. Then we did a cooking demo of “plantanillas.”

33:20 Plantanillas: A native Philippine dessert

NA: This is something I had to look up. “Plantanillas” is an old Kapampangan dessert that visually, looks like this smooth, shiny little hardshell taco with a colourful filling. I’m not kidding, they’re really cute. They’re small enough that you can fit two in the palm of your hand, and the pastry - which is really more like a thick crepe - is this super sunny yellow from all the egg yolks in it.

It’s worth remembering that in the Philippines and other Spanish colonies, it’s almost a sure sign that when you see a lot of churches, that co-relates to the number of egg yolk-based sweets produced in those regions. When those churches were built, people needed egg whites to create mortar, to hold the stones of the church structures together. “Plantanillas” is an example of these distinctly Filipino desserts rich in egg yolks. The filling is often made with coconut - either “bukayo," which is grated coconut fried in syrup, or just straight up coconut syrup called “latik." To make “plantanillas”…

CG: You have this big wok where you boil down water and sugar - but not until it gets thick like a syrup.

NA: And basically you drop the egg yolk pastry in this thin syrup, just enough to let the sweetness seep in, and then you take it out and cup it in the palm of your hand to shape into a half moon, and then stuff it with the coconut filling.

CG: You would add “pastillas” in the middle, fold it, then eat it. So there’s this lovely burst of flavour, sweetness, and texture, in layers. In all our tours, we integrate this sense of history and culture with the food we eat and the place we’re in. I always say it’s like a fun academic tour. We make sure there’s lots of interaction and make it the best way to “eat your history.”

NA: I love learning about old dishes and recipes. Like I’ve said before, I would totally travel for that!

35:50 What else is there?

NA: It’s a personal journey for me, and I hope for listeners too. This kind of history isn’t really taught in schools here. A lot of these food discoveries - for example, those cooks who trained in Intramuros then transferred to Bulacan, or Atching Lillian’s heirloom recipes - are such a good demonstration of how Filipino food adapts over time. Not just because we’re adapting ingredients to use what grows here, but also customizing the flavours to “match” with the Filipino palate. It’s exciting, because if we think about how huge the country really is - I wonder, what else is there?

CG: There’s so much to explore! We have over 7,000 islands. We’re just at the tip right now.

NA: If you could describe in three phrases, what it is that drives you to do this - what encourages you to find these stories and bring these foods to more travellers?

CG: I want to rise from the ignorance of not fully knowing my heritage. I want every Filipino to be proud of who they are. We’re more than what we think we are; we’re a very rich people. I want to bring back traditional Filipino culture through food.

NA: Going back to “Food Holidays” - when you were putting that together, you worked with so many talented writers in the Philippines. What was the process like of getting those writers to contribute? What was it like to learn about all those different regional specialties?

38:10 Making "Food Holidays Philippines”

CG: It was crazy. In the beginning I asked for a lot of help. Not everyone said yes; sometimes, when you talk to people with so much passion, they think you’re a little mad. Like, “Who’s this mad woman asking so many questions about food?” Not everyone understood what I wanted to do, but some did. I decided to capitalize on that. There’s something about it, when you have a lot of passion and you share it with the world; I think the universe conspires to give you what you want. I met kindred spirits along the way who shared that passion; they were the champions of culinary heritage in their localities. We bonded over food and stories.

“Food Holidays” for me is a collector’s edition because it brings together local culinary historians in every province we featured. It’s not easy to “tap” these people, because this isn’t something they do professionally. You have to really research and find people who can lead you to the right person with a lot of knowledge on that topic; someone who can talk about it comfortably, with authority and integrity.

When I was doing the book, I was so exhausted. It entailed a larger budget (than I predicted). I was doing this on my own, I burned through all my money. But it was so fulfilling, and you just know and believe in it so much.

39:50 Winning the Gourmand World Cookbook Award

CG: I didn’t know there was such a thing as the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.

NA: So what happened is that in the lead up to Madrid Fusion Manila, Clang was super busy getting things like the itineraries for those organizers and chefs ready, in addition to putting the finishing touches on her book and just getting it printed and ready for the big event. It took a publisher from The Kitchen Bookstore, based in Manila, to tell her about this award.

CG: The publisher was so passionate about the book and I got hooked by his emotions. He sent me an email saying, “Clang, you have to apply for this.” I had no idea about what the award was and initially brushed it off. When I finally looked at it again, it was so close to the deadline (for entries). I said to myself, well, I’ll give it a shot. So I sent my application right on the cut-off date and didn’t expect anything.

After a few months, I got an email from the founder of the awards basically saying, “We’re pleased to announce your book is the national winner for culinary travel.” My god, I cried. I really cried! The book was reviewed by an international panel of judges in the gastronomy world and for me, it was an incredible recognition. At that point, we hadn’t even been recognized by the local government. Then suddenly, there was this internationally known, well-respected panel who recognized the value of the book. I cried because it took so much to put together.

After winning the national category, the email said I could still compete for the international category. “Food Holidays” competed with other culinary travel books from all over the world and I’m proud to say it was awarded as one of the “Best in the World.” I cried again. I couldn’t believe it! I had pure intentions of bringing together the best content that I could for that book.

That led to the TV show I started this year. I was tapped by a leading broadcast network here in the Philippines to host a food and travel show inspired by the book. It’s become an interesting landscape for the Philippines because it’s not just me who wants to get out there (and feature culinary destinations). There’s a growing number of networks and personalities looking to make this kind of travel show. We’re getting there. “Napapansin na nila,” people are noticing. I really believe the Philippines is the next big thing when it comes to culinary travel.

NA: I mean, this is clearly something that I believe in too. So I asked Clang - where does she see food tourism going in the Philippines?

42:45 "We're at the cusp of a gastronomy revolution"

CG: At this point, we’re on the cusp of a gastronomy revolution. There’s a growing consciousness; there’s already that “fire.” Now it’s all about activation. I like to think we’ll get there very soon. There are consolidated efforts, like the work by Amy Besa. There are lots of local champions and little competition; there’s good harmony in getting everyone together.

Even if you don’t get support in the beginning, if you really believe it’s for a good cause, just do it. If you really believe in the work you’re doing, you shouldn’t chase after the money. You can raise money if you have a good product with good intentions.

I’m now working on the second edition of “Food Holidays,” which I plan to release next year. I’m also hoping to take “Food Holidays” on a US road show, and invite chefs in places like San Francisco to collaborate on some pop-up dinners. We talked with the Department of Tourism about this and they’ve agreed to our plans. Sometimes, especially if they don’t have programs like this going yet - it pays to create the program you want yourself, then find partners. Even if it gets difficult, just do it if you believe in it, until it materializes.

NA: That’s really encouraging!

CG: There’s so much of our food culture to share. For that tour, my purpose is to create a channel to tell people about how the Philippines is such an exciting destination for food holidays.

44:30 The appeal of food tourism

NA: When I try to explain to my friends that the idea of going someplace for food is my idea of a vacation, people still go, “Really? That’s all you’re gonna do?” And I go, “Of course not!” The reason I want to go may be driven by eating - but if I know there’s a strong cultural component to it, that the places I’d visit give back to communities, for example - it’s a holistic thing, it’s not just about the food. When visitors directly contribute to the local economy, there’s this consciousness too around uplifting the livelihoods of people around you, in a sustainable way. People are really into that and it’s something that’s so attractive.

CG: I’m happy that you have this podcast dedicated to “Exploring Filipino Kitchens.” You’re a champion and voice for people, too.

NA: That’s where that “fire” is, for me. Sometimes I feel like a bit of a traitor because my family left the Philippines and I never really got to explore the country. I pretty much lived in Manila my whole life, until I was 19. Never even visited Bulacan, which is like an hour or two away. Now that there’s so much awareness around food, being able to tell stories about these “dying arts” are important. Like with how “plantanillas” are made. Hopefully we can keep that going.

WRAP-UP

NA: My sincerest thanks to Clang Garcia, who met with me in Manila for this interview. Earlier this year, she took a number of Filipino-American chefs on a culinary tour of the Philippines. From what I hear, and as I hoped, it was unforgettable.

Music for this episode is by David Szeztay, Eric and Magill, Podington Bear, Squire Tuck and Blue Dot Sessions.

Visit exploringfilipinokitchens.com for past episodes, and please subscribe and tell a friend if you enjoyed this! I hope the last hour has encouraged you to go on a “food holiday” to the Philippines.

Maraming salamat, and thank you for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 14: Food Holidays In The Philippines With Clang Garcia” (Click the episode link for the audio!)

A New Narrative For Agriculture - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Cherrie Atilano below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

Today we’re talking with Cherrie Atilano, a young Filipina farmer who started a social enterprise called AGREA - “AGREA” being a combination of the words “agriculture” and “gaea”, for earth. I first learned about them a couple years ago because of this hashtag floating around on Instagram called “#farmingiscoolsmartsexyandhumane”. Even Cherrie admits the hashtag’s a bit long, but it gets the point across - and gets you to notice that finally, the seeds of change in how agriculture is perceived in the Philippines, are being sowed by young farmers keen to make a difference for themselves.

01:10 Young Filipino farmers

That change starts with people like Cherrie, who’ve made it their mission - and business - to improve the lives of Filipino farmers, for too many who live below the poverty line. As someone who grew up in the Philippines, in a large urban capital - it’s easy to not really think about where the food you’re eating comes from.

This is one of those subjects that, frankly, seems way too big to tackle - where would you even start? With a country as large as the Philippines - with so much land that can still grow and nurture this diverse amount of fruit, vegetables and grains - farmers have just been under-appreciated and not given the rights and respect they deserve.

Admittedly, this interest grew for me because of this farming and agriculture “renaissance” here in North America, with farmers who appear in magazines and TV shows, who talk at industry events like the Terroir Symposium I recently attended in Toronto. I got to learn about Ontario wines and how they’re made, and taste an incredible variety. All of this helped me understand that with a little context and the right products, made of the best ingredients you can find around - you really can taste the terroir of a place through its food. What’s in the ground, what’s in the atmosphere, everything that exists around the animal or produce at the farm. Now that we have so much information at our fingertips - it’s so much easier to ask these kinds of questions.

As my personal interest in food and where it comes from, started to grow - I also started to wonder, that if I could ask where my food comes from here in Canada - would I have been able to ask that same question, if I still lived in the Philippines?

To be honest, I wasn’t sure. I just didn’t know what existed, and again, where to even start. Did farmers under 30 even exist? But of course, they do. These people who have put their life’s work into bringing those foods from the soil and seas, into the hands of consumers who appreciate and support them - they exist. This story we’ll hear today about someone who discovers what grows on the island of Marinduque is equal parts thrilling and educational. And yes, all of this is about farming.

Let’s get to it.

INTERVIEW

CA: I’m Cherrie Atilano. I’m based in the Philippines and a pure Filipina. I’m the founding farmer and CEO of AGREA, Agricultural Assistance International Inc. It’s an inclusive business - some people call it a social enterprise. Our company’s goal is to build the first sustainable island in the Philippines. The Philippines has over 7,000 islands - it’s not just about Manila. There are so many beautiful islands in the country and I’ve asked myself: why are none of these sustainable in terms of food? Many of these islands import food from other islands, even other countries.

04:50 Building a "one-island economy”

Our goal is to build the country’s first “one island economy” - starting from what we call “the heart of the country,” Marinduque Island. It’s about 100,000 hectares of land, shaped like a heart. There are 260,000 people on the island, with six towns. The “one island economy” means we want to tackle the development of the island through three major pillars.

05:50 3 pillars of AGREA

First, through zero hunger - not just about hunger from the stomach, but about the hunger for human beings to belong. It’s the hunger for living a decent life, having a home and being educated.

Second, through zero waste - basically about environmental sensitivity. How can we develop the island while respecting its environment? We work with a lot of farmers and fishermen; the environment is really their social and security system, more than anything else. When the environment is destroyed - everyone’s affected. Our food producers especially are affected.

The third is through zero insufficiency - that’s about economic development.

NA: As Cherrie describes, the main crops produced in Marinduque are rice and coconuts. The island, however, currently imports 91% of the rice consumed by the people who live there - despite the fact that there are over 4,000 arable plots of land on the island itself! It’s a crazy statistic, and unfortunately, all too common.

Copra - the island’s other main source of income - is basically dried coconut husks, that are used for building material and handicrafts. This reliance on copra - with so much of the remaining coconut under-utilized, I think - is a whole other topic. For now, Cherrie adds, farmers earn $2 a day on processing dried coconut husks.

CA: So we work on those economics. For us, “zero hunger,” “zero waste” and “zero insufficiency” translate to creating “social impact,” “environmental impact” and “economic impact.”

NA: A one-island, self-sustaining economy.

CA: Those are the 3 pillars we try to work on. We try to base and measure our work through the impact we makes on these 3 aspects. That’s what we’re doing. It’s a lot of work. We’re giving ourselves 20 years to work on the island. We’re on our third year now and actually expanding some of our best practices (to other islands). I’m flying to Siargao soon - an international surfing capital in Asia. Anywhere between 20,000-50,000 tourists arrive every month. But they don’t have a steady supply of food. Local farmers and fishermen are so disconnected. They have to fly food into the island to sustain tourists coming.

09:00 What agriculture looks like today

NA: Those are questions that a lot of Filipino-Americans and Canadians who have never lived in the Philippines have. They know the country’s surrounded by agricultural resources, by the ocean. But why is it that a lot of Filipino farmers live below the poverty line? It’s hard to explain the context behind why that’s the case. I wanted to ask these kinds of questions, to folks like yourself, to shed a little light. There are many factors contributing to this reality. What can we do about it, today, to change that narrative?

10:05 "I found my purpose"

CA: Everyone starts with an inspiration, there’s a reason why they do things. When people say, oh, you do what you do because you’re passionate about it, I say, “It’s not only my passion. I found purpose in doing it.” Agriculture is the hardest track to do, as a woman. It’s a male-dominated industry. If you’re just passionate about it, you will not last. For me, it was about purpose in doing it.

NA: So where did your story as a farmer begin, I asked?

10:55 Dad's wisdom in salt

CA: It started when I was young. My father was into farming sugarcane, in Negros. Before he died, he said: “The life of a farmer is equivalent to a period and comma.”

NA: Like a grammatical period, and an oxford comma.

CA: If you’re an author and you combine both - if the story’s too good to tell, you would never end it with a period. You would use a semicolon, to continue telling your story, because it’s worth telling.

NA: So the story is that Cherrie’s dad would get some rice, some salt and bagoong - that’s fermented shrimp or fish paste - when he wanted to talk about what it was like to work with the farmers on their sugarcane fields. Then…

11:30 Why a farmer's life is like a period and a comma

CA: He’d dip his finger in salt, to make a period. The salt would stick to his finger.

NA: And in between sugarcane harvests, when many local farmers had little to no income - this salt would be their dinner. Like a little clump of rock salt on a plate, with a bit of sticky rice. You’d scoop up the rice between your forefingers and thumb, and then dip the rice cake onto that little clump of salt. This, according to Cherrie’s dad, was like a period at the end of a sentence.

CA: In Filipino, there’s a saying called “Magdildil ka ng asin.” It’s very literal, but also very figurative. 

NA: This particular saying - and there many like it in the Philippines - stems from a truth. From this way of life that many people lived long ago, and still live today. When someone tells you “Magdildil ka ng asin,” that literally means you’re about to eat salt for dinner. But figuratively, it’s also something like advice that an older, wiser person would say - to remind you that you just have to deal with the way things are, just a little bit more. It’s old wisdom that reassures you, in the end, that even challenges which seem insurmountable at the time you’re experiencing, inevitably shape you into the person you become.

Then, there’s bagoong - the comma, the thing that allows the story to continue.

CA: On the other hand, if farmers have a little bit of money, they’ll cook bagoong - which sticks on your finger, when you make it into a comma.

NA: So compared to salt, which sits in one spot on your plate - bagoong, with its slightly larger “granules,” those little bits of fish or shrimp that make eating fish or shrimp paste so pleasurable, this stuff that makes the almost syrupy byproduct of natural fermentation akin to liquid gold - becomes the kind of food that sustains people. An “ulam” or viand that families can rely on.

As Cherrie’s dad recalls, if you smear some bagoong on a plate, even the simplest bagoong has texture, a consistency that allows you to swipe your finger through it. Like finger painting. If you had bagoong, you could make a comma. Bagoong allowed your story, and life, as a farmer to continue.

Hearing this kinda story amazes me, I think because, even though I grew up in the Philippines - my childhood in Manila was nothing like the childhood of someone like Cherrie, who grew up in a rural area, near a farm. My life, big as it felt at the time, was simply one of millions, that much I understand now. In the city, it’s easy to feel isolated from the rest of your surroundings, and my Manila was a place where you needed a special sticker on your car to drive through a gated subdivision. Talk about building bridges! My experiences, I now realize, were simply one of millions that we could now tell - and tell through our love of food.

I asked Cherrie to tell us a little bit more of what her childhood was like.

14:20 Growing up on a sugarcane farm

CA: We lived on a hacienda, a sugarcane farm. My parents were very generous. Our house was always open for people to eat in. I remember, at 6:00 in the morning, we’d have this thing called an “arima,” like an assembly of sugarcane workers. They’d come to our house and have coffee and pandesal (salted bread rolls). My dad had a bakery put up to make the bread.

NA: As Cherrie shares, one of the biggest questions she had as a kid, was really: why did we have enough while some people - like the farmers she grew up around and saw everyday at 6:00 am for coffee and pandesal - have barely enough to get by? What really made her different from the other kids around her who also lived on the farm?

CA: Other kids my age didn’t notice it. My mom says I was observant, that I asked so many questions.

NA: This curiosity basically led to discovering what became one of Cherrie’s real lifelong loves - gardening.

16:30 How a book on gardening changed everything

CA: When I was 11, I read a book about bio-intensive gardening. It’s basically planting vegetables around your house. The book said that if you’re poor, up to 100% of your income goes to food. 70% to rice. Filipinos have this saying: “Hindi yan kain kung walang kanin.” (It’s not a meal without rice.) If you’re Filipino, you always look for rice. The remaining 30% goes to your viand, your “ulam” to partner with rice.

The book said that if you plant vegetables around your house, you can save that 30%. You could go out to your garden, pick some tomatoes, eggplants, kangkong (water spinach). You could partner that with rice. And it’s healthy.

NA: Now, I know this sounds like basic stuff - that growing vegetables in your backyard is basically free food, which you can grow and care for and get your kids involved with preparing. But hearing Cherrie say this paints the picture so vividly. Over time, what started as a rich tradition of making the most around what grew in fields in the Philippines - around a nipa hut in a rice field, for example - making things like cooking snails in coconut cream, or quick pickles with ferns and wild plants that grow around - this stuff went away as farming regulations in the country forced many farmers to produce “x” amount of grain to sell to a middleman with an outrageous cut. That means, at best, breaking even with the time and work that each farmer invests in growing crops on their field.

And on top of not earning profit from the work they put in - many Filipino farmers, who grew up during the American occupation - grew up with a dependence, and preference, for canned food as ulam, which they had to spend money to buy. What Cherrie wanted to know was, where did the vegetables go? In a nutshell, that’s what drove her to gardening. At 11!

CA: I asked my mom, for my 12th birthday, to get me a bike.

NA: And Cherrie wanted a bike so she could bike around the farm and tell their farmers about this way of basically growing free food. About growing vegetables - something everyone used to do.

CA: My sister and I were showing them how to compost. We were teaching them from this book. At the time, it was clear to me that I loved what I do.

NA: Even if her mom wanted her to be a doctor. It would take day and night to earn a scholarship for medical school. Cherrie has four other siblings, and when her dad got sick and had to be taken to the hospital, they lost everything - the sugarcane hacienda, the workers, their capital.

19:55 "I did not want to be a doctor”

CA: We paid everything to the hospital. At that point, I didn’t want to be a doctor.

NA: So Cherrie forged her own path, and applied to Visayas State University, two islands over in the province of Leyte.

CA: Leyte’s far. It’s 24 hours of travel from Bacolod (where Cherrie lived). We’d have to take a “ro-ro” or ferry to Cebu, then take an 8 hour bus from Cebu City proper to the other end of Cebu. Then another “ro-ro” to Leyte. For a 16 year old girl, that’s a lot of travel - with a lot of safety issues. But my mom allowed me to go.

20:30 Learning agriculture

CA: At Visayas State University I learned about agriculture. I also intentionally chose that school because I wanted to learn the different dialects in the Philippines. There, I learned Bisaya, which a lot of people in the regions of Visayas and Mindanao speak. I spoke Illongo already, so I knew almost 2/3 of what the majority of people speak in the Philippines. I immersed myself in school.

NA: In university, Cherrie specialized in learning horticulture and landscape design. Things that really allowed her to dive into a love for the natural world.

CA: But in my head, I kept telling myself, “Someday, I want to have a company to help farmers.” Because that’s what my parents did, that’s what my dad did when he was alive.

21:30 Moving to Manila

CA: Eventually, I moved to Manila and worked with the Ayala Land Company, as a landscape designer for their real estate development. I volunteered with Gawad Kalinga and worked with on the food security component of their program. We called it “Bayan Anihan.”

NA: The idea behind this “Bayan Anihan” program - which literally translates to “harvest for a nation” - is basically that each participating family gets a small garden plot, around 10 square meters, to plant seeds that ideally would turn into 10 kilos of vegetables every month. That’s roughly two large sacks of potatoes in a North American grocery store. According to Gawad Kalinga, that amount would provide up to 30 meals per family. Basically, one whole month of “free” dinners from vegetables you can grow in a garden.

Sound like a familiar concept? I tell Cherrie that it’s like a throwback to biking around her family’s hacienda as a 12 year old, talking about how amazing it was that you could grow vegetables in a backyard garden. Like the families that Gawad Kalinga assists today, the sugarcane workers Cherrie knew lived on the fringes of poverty.

CA: After three years, I was supposed to go on a Fulbright scholarship to the US. I got admitted to this beautiful ivy league school. I was torn, because we just started the Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm in Angat, Bulacan.

23:00 Starting the Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm

CA: I was so inspired with starting it. I’d worked with Gawad Kalinga before and understood their vision of uplifting lives of the poor and their goal to eradicate poverty. But these were all bold words to work towards. I lived at the farm for four years; I could write books about it. It was beautiful. After that, I needed to start my own thing - and that was AGREA.

24:05 Inspiration behind AGREA

CA: The inspiration for AGREA came because of my experience with agriculture. You can’t take me out of it. I breathe it every single day. I wake up and sleep with it. While I was working with Gawad Kalinga, I also worked as a consultant with the Department of Agrarian Reform. My job was to help consolidate farmers into cooperatives and associations, and help with business development. It gave me a chance to travel all over the Philippines. That’s how I realized that I needed to start on an island to develop (my ideas).

NA: It was this insight - after travelling across the country and working with individual families - that led to AGREA’s “one island economy” model. This next part of the story goes that Cherrie meets a couple who pretty much become both mentors and second parents to her.

CA: I met Yong Villanueva, who’s from Marinduque, and his wife Ivy Almario - people who became my second parents. They really supported me with starting AGREA. I was crying because I didn’t want to leave the Enchanted Farm. But I needed to start my own life, because it was all volunteer work.

25:30 Life on an island

CA: Daddy Yong and mommy Ivy brought me to Marinduque in November 2014. From the moment we left Manila at 9:00 pm and arrived there early in the morning, it was sunrise - it was so beautiful by the bay, on an island so green. I fell in love with the island and kept exploring it. I didn’t know anyone there, but felt that people on that island would become my family.

NA: Over time, as Cherrie returned to the island - on weekends, after leaving her day job in the city and travelling for 8 hours by bus, car and ferry…

CA: I got stuck in the middle of the sea three times! I’d travel in the evenings. I got stuck on a boat three times, they weren’t always reliable. I’d ask myself, what am I doing here? It’s not even the province I’m from.

NA: But as with anything that’s worth doing, you kinda just learn to get past the challenges and constant questions that swirl around in your head.

CA: So I kept coming back. I remember once, I was there for a few weeks getting to know the farmers and fishermen. I love the fact that it’s very Filipino, that every time I went, we’d drink tuba, the coconut wine. We’d sing karaoke. The fishermen would arrive with their catch of tuna, they’d just grill it then we’d eat it. I was like, “this is life,” in a simple way. I said, okay, this is a good dose of inspiration. So there was no backing out. I needed to make sure AGREA would work.

NA: This last bit reminded me of something else that piqued my interest in AGREA. Something they call “the ecology of dignity”. For Cherrie and her team, this means looking at the bigger picture, in terms of farming.

28:00 Creating an "ecology of dignity"

CA: We have this entire ideal sustainable food value chain. If you wanted to dissect it, it’s driven by producers, but mostly consumers. In Marinduque, we worked with so many producers. It’s a crime to humanity that our producers are the poorest and the hungriest. In the Philippines, if you’re a rice farmer, for example - you only earn about $400 a year. That’s if you plant rice once a year. How could you survive on that? We needed to give dignity back to the people producing our food. To me, if we couldn’t dignify them, it wouldn’t be enticing for their children, in the future, to become a food producer.

NA: In short, if the farmers themselves feel like there no dignity in the work they do - if, at the end of the day, between getting up before dawn and labouring in a field all day, literal back-breaking work - if that still isn’t enough to meet even the most basic needs for your family -  that person’s dignity for themselves, at the most basic level, is broken. Then, that farmer with knowledge of the fields, weather conditions, crop rotation and what it’s like to farm in this particular region, will think, “Why should I pass this onto my children?” And like any parent, they’ll want their kids to do better - which means leaving the farm, and the generations of tradition that comes with growing, harvesting and preparing their own food.

And I get it - technological change will come, has come in Western countries - but there must be a way for us to save and preserve the knowledge we have left, of those foods that grow and speak distinctly of the Philippines.

I agree with Cherrie in that it starts with providing rural farmers the respect and, frankly, patronage they deserve. Going back to the beginning of this interview - if the people of Marinduque, this one island, import 91% of the rice they consume, all the way from Vietnam - just take a second to think, how would that make local farmers feel? Would you want your children to continue farming? How many times does this scenario play across the country?

CA: Knowing that the Philippines is an agricultural country, I believe our farmers have suffered so long. I know that the idea to stop their suffering is bold, but I’ll do my fair share. It’s so easy to exploit farmers, because most of them don’t know how to read and write. The average age of Filipino farmers is 58 years old. Their average educational attainment is grade four - the same as a ten year old. So we created a program to equip them and help bring back dignity for themselves.

NA: And like all good programs, implementing AGREA’s goals starts with understanding HOW to go about doing things. For them, this starts with a “capacity building framework.” Like in programming or project management, having this kind of framework really helps with guiding your team to make sure everyone’s aligned with the right methods to use, the goals you’re shooting for, and how to measure success.

At AGREA, their goal was to enable farmers by making them three things: “grounded” through values formation; “skilled” through technical training; and “empowered” through financial literacy. 

32:45 Developing values, technical skills and financial literacy

CA: We have capacity building programs that the AGREA foundation runs to support our business. We start with values formation, and teach the value of dreaming. When we go to farming communities, I always remind my team that when we train our farmer partners, we’re not here to be “messianic,” to solve their problems. I tell farmers, “Hindi ako naaawa sa inyo. I don’t pity you.” But of course, deep inside, there is “awa” because we’re all human beings. I don’t pity you because you have potential. I believe in you and that you can be the solution to the problems you’re complaining about. So let’s work together on that solution, and cultivate it. Agriculture isn’t just about the cultivation of land and crops; it’s about the cultivation of people. “The ecology of dignity” is about cultivating peoples’ dreams, for themselves, their families, communities and the island as a whole.

After values formation, we teach “hard” skills development and continue with training. For example, with rice farmers, we equip them to be climate change adaptive. Knowing that our country is visited by an average of 21 typhoons every year. We teach the latest “technologies,” things like planting certain types of rice that are “short.” Normally, when a typhoon hits - if you had traditional varieties of “tall” rice, the undeveloped grains would just fall out. You’d lose your rice harvest. We teach things like while you’re waiting for your crop of rice to mature - you could grow vegetables. You could take care of organic chickens and pigs, to diversify your source of income.

After skills development, we equip them with financial training. We train farmers on financial literacy; basic things like how to budget and keep balance sheets. For example, if you plant rice, how much would you need to budget for land preparation? When would you apply fertilizer? How much would that cost? How much would your family need to live until the harvest comes? Things that would help give a better understanding of their financial resources. That allows them to see they’re becoming entrepreneurs, because they now know how to compute budgets and project how much they’ll have at the end of the harvest, because their crops can yield this much. So now, when traders come in, they can haggle with traders (who have been known to take advantage of farmers with little education).

NA: This is why I’m such a fan of this particular model - because it starts from the ground up. We could talk about the beautiful parallels between training farmers and seeing them grow, like the plants that feed us - or wax poetic about life in the countryside - but, I’m equal parts a realist and a dreamer, and the reality is that there’s just a long way to go. None of these ideas are new, but what does make them unique is that what it largely takes is a mindset change. I have so much respect for everyone involved here - for the farmers who work to educate themselves, and the people who work to make that happen.

36:50 AGREA in action

NA: I wanted to learn more about how exactly AGREA puts these ideas into action, so I asked Cherrie to explain a bit more.

CA: At AGREA we also provide things like processing, packaging and marketing support. If farmers plant something, we buy from them. If a rice farmer had one hectare of land that produces five tonnes of rice, we’d ask things like, “How many families in your household do you need to feed?” They’d say, eight people. We’d compute that and see they’d need two tonnes to feed them for the full year. So if they only harvest once a year, we’d give them those two tonnes immediately, to ensure food on the table. So it wouldn’t be like it is today, where they’d grow rice, and then still have to buy rice from the town market to feed their family. The remaining three tonnes, they’d sell to AGREA, which we buy at a fair trade market price.

NA: And this is key, although it may not seem like it. This single step in the process - in partnering with AGREA to ensure that what you actually plant at the start of the season is guaranteed to meet your family’s needs - is huge. Because again, the reality is that most farmers just haven’t been equipped with the capacity to plan ahead, because they’ve dropped out of school at age 10. This single step makes a difference.

CA: We buy what’s equitable for them. Actually most of the time, we pay more than what others traders would pay, because this is about trust and building family with each other. In our training, dignifying farmers isn’t about “doling out.” Many people are used to the government “dole out” mentality, where they just “receive.” 

When farmers apply to work with AGREA, we also give them an opportunity to apply for “fellowship training programs.” Thirty of our “top” rice farmers, for example, have become trainers for other farmers. These farmers have the capacity to train - and really, are the people our “new” farmer partners really listen to. That’s our strategy.

So imagine: a farmer who thinks he has “no hope” would now have the capacity to build and dream. It’s finding ways to translate their dreams into tangible goals with actionable steps. Eventually, they could be consultants and trainers. They can be farmer-entrepreneurs in the future. It’s a long way to go, but this is the process we take.

NA: I am all for this. I can only imagine how that feeling of empowerment affects those farmers, who’ve gone through the training themselves. To become someone that your contemporaries look up to, psychologically, can do incredible things for the way that you see yourself.

40:15 "We're all in this together”

CA: This is unique to AGREA. Of course, a lot of organizations train farmers, but they kinda just end there - with training. We really work with farmers. We don’t even call them “suppliers” or “producers.” We call them “partners” in our business. If AGREA flies, all of us will fly. Basically, we’re all in this together. Those are our principles, and people feel it.

During training, if you’re absent, we mark that in your assessment; you can’t become a trainer if you’re absent a lot. You need to aspire and work for it. Aspiration is something we try to inculcate, that life isn’t about simply waiting for the government to give you something. That kind of support is crippling. Here, if you aspire to become a trainer - to have a uniform, a kit and 25 farmers under you that need to be trained - people feel pride towards that.

NA: That brings a really holistic approach to mind. One aspect I find really interesting is how it affects their kids, who grow up and see the returns of what their parents learn. I know there’s a growing number of young people now in the Philippines becoming more interested in agriculture…what kinds of feedback have you heard so far?

43:25 Training agri-preneurs

CA: We have AGREA’s foundation, where we’ve started programs with young farmers on leadership and how to build an “agri-business,” specifically, to increase awareness that there’s money in farming. That farming isn’t just a hobby, it can be your profession. We’re lucky because most of our youth “agri-preneur” programs have been funded by the US Embassy. We just finished a really successful one, with 36 youth leaders from Mindanao. A third of them come from Marawi - they survived the (recent) war there. Others are from indigenous communities in Mindanao. We’ve formed them into six groups and they’re now implementing projects we’ve helped provide a “seed fund” for.

Education really is the best place to start with changing mindsets. Imagine, here in Marinduque; if we work on the island for 20 years, that means we can influence a generation of primary school students.

44:50 The garden classroom

NA: Next, I learn about a program called “the garden classroom.”

CA: Right now, we have 19 “garden classrooms” on the island. We teach kids about basic backyard gardening, and then anything that’s harvested from these gardens go towards the feeding program at each school.

NA: And Cherrie says that for one school…

CA: Students started bringing vegetables home and their parents were shocked. They’d say, why aren’t you coming home with assignments, but with sitaw, eggplants, tomatoes and okra? And kids would say, well, we have this garden at school. We recently trained 60 parents to help set up these garden classrooms and now, even in their households, they’ve started planting. I thought wow, we started with the school, and now it’s spreading to the community. Even the barangay captain and local councillors joined.

NA: And it’s gotten to the point that…

CA: Seven “puroks” - the smaller unit in a barangay - submitted something like 60 additional names for training.

NA: Another school on the island, Cherrie shares, despite being heavily damaged by a typhoon last year….

CA: Their school sold over 400 kilos of pechay (napa cabbage) at the market. Another school produced a lot of seeds for replanting. It’s pretty amazing. We still need a lot of improvements to that program, since it’s the first time we’re doing it, but we’re working with the Department of Education in Marinduque. This year, we’ll be working with the Department of Agriculture as well to promote it in more schools.

NA: I guess, change really does start with one step after another.

46:35 Resilient kids

CA: We’re kind of “embedding” this vision of making the island sustainable. In 20 years, those kids are going to be our age. At point, hopefully, they’ll be equipped with the mindset that we plant for our food. We’ll be the most resilient kids. It’s beyond sustainability.

NA: And this, I think, is another one of those big ideas that kinda get buried underneath what seems like a minor detail. Teaching 7 to 12 year old kids how to farm - that planting seeds that you save from the last harvest, can turn into food to sustain your family, and additionally, income in the form of vegetables to sell at the market - these things make a world of difference in these communities. It’s a real, physical way of showing that you can be the master of your domain. That being a caretaker of a garden plot puts food on the table. And important, it breaks that chain - of older generations of farmers whose entire lives revolved around feeling this despair, this lack of hope, where all the work they did never amounted to much, where simply waiting to be given a small amount of money from the government was it.

CA: We teach kids how to produce organic fertilizer; they do “vermi-composting” in their schools. It’s wonderful to see. In the Philippines, vegetables have always been regarded as “the poor man’s crop” - that when you eat vegetables, you’re poor because you can’t afford meat or fish. But now, people are actually eating it. School feeding programs serve a lot of malunggay (moringa) and okra - and people love it!

48:45 Lessons from a 10 year old

CA: There’s this ten year old boy from one of our communities called Bayak-bakin - like, far up in the mountains. We went there and met this kid who grew up with his dad, who couldn’t read and write. His dad only knew how to plant corn. Now, his dad knows how to plant eggplants, tomatoes, squash and other vegetables. I asked him, “How did your dad learn?” And he said, “I taught him.” His dad has since joined our training program and now grows a complete set of cereals.

WRAP-UP

NA: I learned so much from this interview, about agriculture and what it’s like in the Philippines today, and more importantly, where it’s going, with the help of people and organizations who see the value of investing in youth and community-based learning. Because even if the world’s biggest problems seem way too big to tackle - like hunger, poverty, and restoring human dignity - sometimes, solutions can start with a backyard garden.

My sincerest thanks to Cherrie Atilano for meeting with me in Manila for this interview. Head over to the show notes for links to AGREA’s website and the various programs they run. And you can find Cherrie, aka @farmerpinay, on Instagram. Between everything she does - I’m super thankful she took time from her day to share these stories with us.

Music for this episode is by David Szeztay, Eric and Magill, Podington Bear and Blue Dot Sessions.

Visit exploringfilipinokitchens.com for past episodes, and follow @exploringfilipinokitchens on Facebook and Instagram to say hello.

Maraming salamat - and thank you, for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 13: A New Narrative For Agriculture With Cherrie Atilano” (Click the episode link for the audio!)

American Influence On Filipino Food - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Alex Orquiza below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

This episode, we’re exploring the effects of American occupation on Filipino food culture. Because even though lots of people talk about Filipino food in America today - that’s not the angle I’m interested in. Instead, what I wanted to know was - how were the foods I grew up with, as a middle-class kid in 1990s Metro Manila, REALLY influenced by American culture?

And yes, this question totally matters today. Because this weekend - it’s April 2018 - Toronto’s very own Jollibee franchise is opening, and people are going nuts. Like, enough to line up overnight in a plaza on the outskirts of town, in what is still the tail end of winter in Canada. What can I say - people want their Chickenjoy! And they aren’t just nostalgic Filipinos. Some are genuinely curious to see what the fuss is all about from those super cheesy and totally delightful commercials on Youtube about people who fall in love at Jollibee.

But how, exactly, did so many Filipinos come to love this very American food? Even if most of us have no idea of the actual origins of fried chicken, it’s those same Filipinos who uprooted their lives and moved all the way to North America who, at the end of the day, will go out of their way for a couple deep-fried pieces of “chicken from home”.

And that connection that we establish and associate with certain foods totally piques my interest. Because before today’s young Filipino-Americans and Canadians started reinterpreting the fried chicken and SPAM of their childhood, I wanted to go one step further back and ask: Why did eating Western - and specifically, American food - mean so much to their parents (who grew up in the Philippines in the 50s and 60s) in the first place?

As I read more about food history, culture and how that evolved over time - I started to really “get” that food traditions don’t always have to be the things we’d normally consider “traditional.” In the Philippines, for example, lechon was an established food that many families had for Christmas - for over 300 years, during the Spanish occupation. That’s a long time for a particular food tradition to take hold, really become ingrained into society - and become loved by generations of people. But then sweet American ham and that fascination with perfectly round slices of pineapples and cherries also became the norm, much later - and that, for ME, is traditional Christmas food. I think it’s perfectly legit to call it that.

Our guest today is Rene Alexander Orquiza, a professor based in Rhode Island whose research and teaching interests focus on 20th century American history, Philippine-American history, and immigration history. Professor Orquiza has done A LOT of research in his field, and he’s got some fascinating stories to share with us today.

It’ll plant an entirely different perspective in your head (or at least it did, for me!) about the depth and breadth of American influence into the lives of everyday Filipinos, across multiple generations.

Hopefully, you’ll come out the other end with even more questions about why we eat what we eat. 

Let’s get into our interview with Professor Alex Orquiza.   

05:15 About

AO: I’m originally from the Bay Area. I grew up in San Jose, California. My mom and dad both immigrated in the early 1970s. My dad is from Nueva Ecija, my mom is from Ilocos Sur. They met here are part of the post-1965 immigration class of Filipinos; they were both physicians. I grew up in the third most populous Filipino region in the country. Statistics show the third largest number of Filipinos in the US live in the Bay Area. Though I didn’t go back to the Philippines as much as I wanted, in fact it was three times when I was a kid, my parents said that the one thing they were gonna instill in us was a full knowledge, appreciation and understanding of Filipino food. That was the most tangible way of seeing culture in their eyes.

When I graduated from college, I went to UC Berkeley, basically stayed in the Bay Area. Then I left to do work at the master’s level in the UK. There was no Filipino food there. Almost as a visceral reaction, I just had to learn how to cook Filipino food. I’d email my mom for the recipes and she’d send them. After I got back to San Francisco and worked for a bit in the food world, I started to wonder why there weren’t any Filipino restaurants in large numbers considering we were the second largest immigrant group, behind the Chinese, in greater San Francisco. Because I was a nerd and a budding historian, I figured that the answer was actually in history, and that led me to the research interests I have now - which is the Americanization of Filipino cuisine between 1898 and 1946. And the change in mentality about how Filipinos, for the better part of two or three generations, were discouraged from cooking Filipino food.

NA: Wow. What a way to set up the story! As I was reviewing some of the papers and publications you’ve contributed to, how I thought of it was, it’s a way for us to understand Filipino food. I grew up in the Philippines and didn’t migrate to Canada until I was 19, so my childhood was full of hotdogs, macaroni salad and all that. But similarly, I find that one of the most effective ways of trying to better understand my relationship and connection with food is to understand what happened prior to my generation. From UC Berkeley, did you pursue a history degree from there?

08:05 Finding an area of study

AO: While I was in college, I double-majored. I was in History of American Studies, which is basically a hodgepodge of sociology, anthropology and history. I wrote my senior thesis then on immigrant entrepreneurship, post 1986, after the refugee acts that specifically targeted Southeast Asians such as Cambodians, Laotians, Vietnamese. From that I started to realize that there’s a very similar story about migration, the start of businesses and the commodification of identity for Southeast Asian immigrants (in the US after World War II). So even through I wasn’t specifically focused on Filipino studies in undergrad, the skills were there - and the curiosity was there. When I came back from my master’s degree in the UK, I realized the big historical question I wanted to ask had to do with the American period in the Philippines. Because there wasn’t a lot of scholarship that I found very convincing, which dealt with cultural studies in the Philippines. There was a lot of stuff on economics, on democratization and citizenship, but nothing on like the ground-level stuff, which is food. Everyone had to this push to “eat like Americans” during this time period. So I wrote my application for grad school on that project and then by my second year I was able to get funding to live in the Philippines for two years.

I got a Fulbright scholarship from the US and was based in Manila, in Quezon City, at UP (the University of the Philippines). I went to all the UP campuses, going to their research libraries, just asking them to read the old stuff from 1898-1946 that had anything to do with food. It was really fascinating looking through the college syllabi. Seeing that by the 1920s and 30s there’s a whole bunch of classes that are just on the purchase of American appliances. Nutritional sciences and home economics textbooks were from New York and Boston. The first Filipino textbook on Filipino cuisine, that actually looks at its nutritional value, doesn’t come out until after Philippine independence in 1946; it came out in 1953. It was clear to me that there was an intention to get Filipinos to eat differently.

NA: Absolutely. It really falls into that period of time where nutrition studies was also starting to become a thing in the Western world, and that obviously trickled down to the Philippines where a lot of Americans were based at the time. I’m just imagining you going through the libraries in all these places and being able to see first-hand those documents. What were some of the things that stuck with you over that period?

11:15 Old menus in libraries

AO: It came down to five different groups of sources or old documents that were telling this story. The first thing was menus. Oddly enough, the largest menu collection I found that was helpful with this, came out of the New York Public Library system. There’s a large menu collection called “The Menu Collection” which had a lot of stuff from old banquets and business transaction events, like the Manila Merchants’ Association would hold a gala. Inside those menus you’d get a list of all the industrialists who were coming for this from the US. All the “ilustrado” who have now switched their allegiances to the Americans alongside them. And because they recognized that the traditional power structure (in Philippine society) still spoke Spanish, the menu was often printed in English and Spanish - but never in Tagalog. Those were the kinds of things that stuck out to me; there was a “pitch” that targeted the upper class.

12:20 What I found in school syllabi

Then when you go into the school syllabi, you see this other pitch towards Filipino non-elites. It was inside these school grammar textbooks that everyone had to study in the fourth grade that I found a lot of stuff. Back then, everyone had to go through an American public school until the sixth grade. For three of those years they were studying nutritional sciences, home economics or agricultural science. Food was the way of either introducing Filipino commodities into the “global” trade, or getting Filipinos to start to think like Americans, about the nutritional value of what they put into their bodies.

13:10 American missionaries arrive

AO: There’s also a set of documents that were “early impressions of the Philippines.” For example, from American missionaries who arrived in the Philippines in the early 1900s. Like the Thomasites…

NA: Who, as Alex describes, because they were teachers, also ended up documenting what life was like in the Philippines in the early 1900s. And if you aren’t sure who the Thomasites are, it’s totally fine - even I didn’t know much about them, despite the fact that I spent most of my childhood living with two aunts who were high school and college educators.

The Thomasites were a group of around 500 teachers who were sent to the Philippines by the US government, on a ship called the USAT Thomas - hence, the name. These folks were basically the pioneers who shaped the Philippine education system into what it is today. Although formal schools had long existed in the Philippines, it was the Thomasites who made public schooling accessible to everyday Filipinos by the turn of the century. Because remember that while the University of Santo Tomas had been teaching Filipino and Spanish elite since 1600s - most Filipinos had no way or financial means to receive that kind of education. Of course, the Thomasites taught in English, setting the stage to make Filipinos the largest English-speaking population in Asia. Truthfully, they were quite progressive for their time.

15:00 The Fannie Farmer effect

AO: And because they arrived during this period - as you alluded, to the time when nutritional sciences were also taking root in the Western world - there was this push toward home economics. A lot of them were trained in places like Cornell or UC Berkeley and they all took the same classes and trained using the same textbooks….

NA:  And Alex shares, even the same cookbooks - like “The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book” written by Fannie Farmer, which became the bible for all American home economists of the time, because of the way it approached diet and nutrition alongside standardized measurements. So by the time the Thomasites, who all learned how to cook from Fannie Farmer, came to the Philippines, Alex says that we see those recipes…

AO: Made in the early 1890s, maybe 1900s, translated and then reproduced through the American cookbooks coming out of Manila, from missionary societies, Catholic charities, that sort of thing. Those exact same recipes that were made here, in New England, were being reproduced in the Philippines, as the apogee of American consumerism, or the “new” Filipino consumerism. It was stuff like that. When you see the hard evidence of like 50 years of this steady stream of stuff from the Bureau of Printing, that was run by Americans, you really see the extent to which this was planned, to reach all levels of society in the Philippines. You can see it anywhere you go in the Philippines, in any of the UP campuses, like in Baguio (though that’s obvious because it was the Americans’ “winter resort” or UP Iloilo, in the central Visayas. Other universities, too, had the same curriculum.

It was mostly the extent to which this was spreading, not just in schools, but also in menus, hotels, pitches about the Philippines in travel guides that aimed to draw investors to the Philippines, basically saying “It’s fine, you’ll find Western food here.”

17:05 A trickle down of knowledge

NA: It paints such a vivid picture of how people learned to cook from that time. In the US, for example, there’s a lot of documentation about published cookbooks, of housewives who were learning to expand their culinary skill set and vocabulary from Fannie Farmer. It was the confluence of things coming together; where printed materials were becoming easier to distribute through the school system, or through product advertisements. I imagine you came across those as well. That distribution of knowledge as it trickles down to the majority of the population was probably one of the biggest things that made an impact then.

18:15 Del Monte ads

AO: Ad men were definitely a part of this. Pitches through advertisements were huge. There was this one Del Monte ad in “Liwayway” magazine, which was basically the Philippines’ “Time” magazine, for canned peaches. It targeted a distinctly Filipino audience because it was in Tagalog. It had all the markers people knew for “pasko,” or Christmas. The ad wasn’t set in the middle of industrialized, modern Manila, but inside a “bahay kubo” - so you knew they were trying to reach not just this broad “reading” audience. They wanted to appeal to this rural mentality, sort of idolize it; an agricultural romanticism of what the Philippine countryside looked like. That’s just one of multiple companies that advertised in the Philippines.

Another large industry, and probably the earliest one to do this, was the canned milk industry. These companies were from places like Switzerland, the UK, New York City. All of them were pitching western canned milk as cleaner, safer and more nutritious, versus carabao milk or coconut milk, or any of the native sources.

NA: That’s such a deep topic to learn. I feel like I’d go down a rabbit hole pretty quickly.

19:45 “The perfect drink for new mothers”

AO: I spent the better part of three weeks trying to trace the history of San Miguel. Their advertising campaigns were fascinating as well. It’s a Filipino company founded by a world charter from the Spanish government, who were doing their own advertising, modelled on Pepsi and Coca-Cola. You see these ads from the 20s and 30s that presents someone who looks like they came straight out of casting for “The Great Gatsby,” but she’s got black hair. And the pitch wasn’t just that San Miguel beer was glamorous. It was also nutritious. The most interesting one I found that reflected that was something that described how it’s a perfect drink for new mothers because not only would you be replenished, but through breastfeeding your child after you drink beer, they would be replenished too.

NA: Just imagine trying to pitch that today! I love old ads. They’re like a time capsule. With your love of research and interest in understanding the extent to which this all affected how Filipinos eat today - how did locals react to your work?

21:40 Hotdogs, ketchup and coca-cola

AO: The first thing I noticed was that anytime I said I was studying the history of Filipino food, people always assumed I was talking about something between 1521 to 1896. They expect it’s about the Spanish period and the Hispanization of Filipino cuisine. So when I tell them I’m researching American food, they’re like, “Oh, so hotdogs, ketchup and Coca-Cola?” And I’d have to tell them, “Well, partly.” It’s a fun way of describing it. But then I’d tell them the other ideas I was engaging with.

Then the full-on critical social history of the 1970s, that came out of the UP, would come up as a topic. Which was wonderful, because Americans don’t learn that at all. If you asked an average American about the Philippines, they might tell you something like “my grandfather served in the war there.” They don’t realize the Philippines was actually an American colony for 1898-1946. That’s been really invigorating because it’s a huge hole in my own knowledge, despite the fact that I grew up in the United States and I had Fil-Am parents. It’s something I bring into my own work now that I’m teaching as a professor. This is an untold story in American history, and the easiest way to tell it is through food. Everyone’s affected by food; not just people who already know that English is a common language, or people interested in the history of the “ilustrados” and how they collaborated with Americans to build the political structure of the Philippines.

23:25 Giving context to our food culture

NA: Absolutely. Talking about food allows you to reach such a wider audience. We’ve got food blogs and social media to expand that group of people interested in this. Food’s an accessible topic. One interesting approach I’ve found is how food studies really allows you to give context to what’s happening in a particular place and time - socially, economically and culturally. You can derive all this information from the foods prepared and served during that period.

24:50 Why is American influence so important?

NA: In the Philippines, you can see just how widespread it was. Those ideas about nutrition and cleanliness especially. I found these scanned PDF documents online of stuff that was published by the Bureau of Plant Industry in Manila from 1902. I was like, “It’s great that this is publicly accessible, but where’s the other stuff?” I wanted to find out more. Because if I’m talking to someone and explaining why they should care about this stuff - like, why this recent history affects how Filipinos eat now - the answers change. Based on the generation you’re in, “Filipino food” means something different.

26:00 “That colonial mentality”

AO: You can ask something like “How is this history applicable to present day?” and there are a couple different ways to address this. The first is through mentality. If our parents and grandparents were of a generation that was told that the most effective way to eat and cook wasn’t necessarily stuff from their home province, then that automatically shifts the way people think. It would make you go, “Oh, so not only is our food ‘not good enough’ but maybe the everyday ways of life, our etiquette and behaviours, or the ways that we clean and organize an kitchen aren’t good enough.” Like maybe we should be shifting to this “better” way of thinking - which is the definition of a colonial mentality. It’s the expression of a colonial mentality from the bottom up, from everyday life.

27:00 Another missing piece

AO: The other thing which I think is important to connect the past with the present is the awareness of just how thorough this was. It’s missing from the telling of the American period in the Philippines. We know about the push to create schools that were an expansion to the schools established by the Spanish. But we don’t know exactly what classes they were teaching. Were they different? The curriculum taught then was based on something created in the US, as opposed to something that was thought of specifically for the Philippines. For the first 20 years of Philippine independence, until the 1960s, we didn’t really have a Filipino curriculum. So there was a period of time where misinformation spread, and that stuff became “standard” ways of thinking.

28:05 “Filipino food was from five provinces”

The third thing, and this is one that really hit me after living in the Philippines, was that what’s considered Filipino food outside the Philippines is basically stuff that’s from the northern part of the country. Like if you’re from Luzon, and you had means, after the 1960s, you immigrated. Not as many people immigrated from the south, and there were certainly not many who immigrated from Mindanao. So if we’re discussing the definition of “Filipino cuisine,” it’s helpful to remember that the Filipino cuisine which largely spread throughout the world (with its migrants) come from basically five provinces.

Also, the realization that you could be proud of regional cuisine in the Philippines doesn’t happen during the American period at all. There was a mentality (in place) that precluded that from happening. In the US, there’s mid-western cooking and southern cooking. Those cuisines were embraced in the definition of American regional cuisine during the 20s and 30s. But that same idea, of embracing these “regional” cuisines from different provinces in the Philippines (beyond where Americans were stationed), it wasn’t happening.

29:20 On regionality

NA: I’ve had the pleasure of talking to Amy Besa for the podcast and she shared something that stuck with me, from a conversation she had with Sidney Mintz (who wrote this amazing book called “Sweetness and Power”). They talked about “regionality” and how, according to Mintz, national cuisines are basically a western construct. In places like Southeast Asia or the Caribbean, for example, there are so many regions that historically haven’t been bound together by national borders. The notion of a country’s cuisine - like Filipino cuisine - being a single thing that can easily be summarized under this one “national” umbrella doesn’t make sense, since those geographical boundaries haven’t always existed.

Understanding that early Filipino migrants to the US were basically from northern Luzon, did you ever see something like that played out during your time in the Philippines? Did you get an opportunity to travel to Mindanao?

30:45 A visit to Marawi State University

AO: I was lucky enough to be a guest at Marawi State University. I met some people in Manila from the Fulbright office who were professors there. I told them that I’d only been to Cagayan de Oro and they’re like, “You haven’t been far south enough.” So they met me in Cagayan de Oro and we drove all the way in there. I’ve never seen Filipino food like that - because there was never a large group of people from this region who have immigrated to the US or other countries. It’s got so much turmeric and galangal. It’s closer to Indonesian cuisine than “Filipino” as most people know it.

NA: I can only imagine the breadth and depth of flavours in that region’s foods - that punchy, layered, complex harmony of flavours that many people enjoy and often eat to this day.

AO: Another thing that’s important to studying the history of our food - not just during the American period - is that it contextualizes the changes that have happened within the Philippines as overseas foreign workers (OFWs) started coming back and bringing the foods they enjoyed abroad, back to their home country. The OFW population who lived in Dubai, the UAE, Canada and elsewhere, add to this larger matrix of what Filipino cuisine has become. Not only in the recent 20th century, but going back to the first interactions of Filipinos with the Chinese, for instance, in the 10th century.

NA: One other topic I’d like to explore are Filipino restaurants. Not the ones in North America, but how restaurants in the Philippines have evolved over time. Traditionally, the Philippines has a very home-based cuisine. The general communal gathering of people tends to be during fiestas, or birthdays, weddings, things like that. The idea of going to a restaurant to sit down for a meal - and pay - I imagine also became more popular during the American period. In your research, was there something about restaurants that stuck out? Were there menus from places like the Aristocrat or The Manila Hotel?

33:55 The restaurant reviewer

AO: There’s a lot of examples of this but the one that stands out is a restaurant review that came out from a magazine based in Manila. This restaurant reviewer himself was a “pensionado” who had lived in Wisconsin, earned a master’s degree in economics, then came back to the Philippines. He reviewed this Filipino restaurant, denigrating and marking it down because it didn’t live up to the expectations he formed of “restaurants” from his time in Wisconsin. So it was almost like he was giddy and ready to show off that he’d seen a “western” way of restaurant presentation, critiquing even people from the town he was from. It was almost like he was rubbing it in their faces. I was upset! You can’t fault people for not knowing these things. A textbook doesn’t convey the same experience as going to a place. He was lucky enough because he was from the right family, to have those experiences of what fine dining in Milwaukee was like. There’s other examples of this, where things like the transportation of western culinary techniques, the layout of a restaurant, and how dining spaces were designed became the “standard” of Filipino restaurants. The Manila Hotel, for example, was designed by American architects and staffed with American cooks at the beginning. Nowhere in the space or on their menu would you find a Filipino marker - except for the use of mangoes.

NA: So this isn’t news, but now we’ve got proof that back then, and up until today, restaurant reviews have a trickle down effect on food culture in a region develops. And then, there’s travel guides.

35:50 Travel guides

AO: I found this travel guide by Thomas Cook, from the publisher of the Cook Guides which you’ll still find today. They’d list the restaurants that were available to eat in, primarily in Manila and Baguio. Among the restaurants they listed, one of ten would be a traditional Filipino restaurant, and the others would be western or maybe a Chinese restaurant. It’s a pattern that’s not only in cookbooks, but also in menus from restaurants.

NA: One particular example that Alex comes back to, are the menus he came across from the restaurant at the Manila Hotel. It had, he says…

AO: A dinner that featured a bunch of stuff from classical French cuisine - and then a mango frappe, just to remind you that you were in the Philippines.

37:00 Dinner and a show

NA: Another thing he learned from the restaurant menus - which really, were printed copies of that evening’s “programme of events” - was how dinner at the hotel really meant “dinner and a show”. Remember this was the 1920s - and these Americans who travelled all the way to Manila, they pretty much expected some type of entertainment along with their meals, because journeying to the Philippines was still this exotic thing that some Americans could afford to do. Often, this involved Filipino folk singers hired by the Manila Hotel to perform things like the “kundiman,” a genre of traditional Tagalog love songs - but only once every night. So along with Western food served at the buffet, guests were serenaded with music meant to “set the mood” - but from a different tropical paradise.

AO: They imported a bunch of hula singers and dancers from Hawaii - and essentially placed Hawaii on a higher scale in the hierarchy of places that Americans controlled in the Pacific. Nevermind where they actually were; Hawaii was perceived as “better” than the Philippines, at that particular time period. You could see that through the way they performed the music in restaurants in Manila. That stuff really strikes me because then it wasn’t just about food, but the culture surrounding the etiquette, the ambiance and accoutrements to eating or dining out. They’re trying to remind you that you’re not in Manila, that you could be in Honolulu instead of Manila.

NA: Finally, one other thing Alex found a lot of were these travel memoirs, like some that were written by the Thomasites - and some pretty influential people from the American period.

39:40 The worldview of Mrs. Taft

AO: There was this genre of travel memoirs that became popular at the turn of the century, essentially written by ’the well-to-do American’ who was making his or her way from San Francisco to Yokohama. The Philippines was like stop numbers 5 and 7 on this early version of a Pacific cruise. They’d talk about Hawaii, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and the Philippines. Manila was always compared to Honolulu, just because it was the travellers’ last destination before arriving in Manila.

This came out in lots of different ways; not just from memoirs of schoolteachers, or rich Americans, but also from the wife of the governor general of the Philippines at the time. Helen Huron Taft - who was the wife of Governor William Howard Taft - wrote this like 300 pages book on what it was like to live in the Philippines for five years. Maybe about 15% of it is dedicated to the foods she encountered. They’re not comfortable accounts to read, because she’s telling us this through the lens of someone who believes in the racial hierarchy where Filipinos were below Americans, during that super racist time. Because of this, the descriptions she has of eating outside the “western bubble” of Manila make for really uncomfortable reading. She says things like Filipinos just aren’t civilized enough to understand that they’re not eating correctly, or that people outside of Manila were just mimicking - apparently we were good mimickers, she uses the word “mimic” a lot - because Filipinos just mimicked what they saw from the Spanish elites in Manila. But they could never do anything as well in the countryside.

NA: As a historian, when you see these types of resources, I imagine it’s like they’re presenting this value to you. As “skewed” as they may be, in the way they’re written…it’s almost like you have to put these glasses on to interpret what they’re saying from a more objective standpoint. How would you describe the value that these articles and resources provide?

AO: I wouldn’t say that they’re exceptional, or even representative of the large number of people who came to the Philippines during that time. William Howard Taft famously said that he only wanted guys from Yale and Harvard to administer the Philippines. He and his wife are of that class - this northeastern group of Americans who brought in people they knew to basically run the country. You can see this line of thinking in the memoirs left behind by people he recruited, including teachers who ended up teaching in schools outside of Manila.

One of the first pieces of evidence I found was a memoir of this guy who went to Stanford University, but then ended up as a teacher I believe in Cagayan. His writing was full of things like ‘these people can’t learn anything,’ or ‘this is so challenging because they just mimic everything they see, they have no original thought.’ He actually makes a list of Filipino traits versus western traits. This was the first wave of people who were coming in to teach Filipinos. And even if there was a switch - even if that switch happened after the Monroe commission of 1925, something that dictated how the Philippine educational system was carried out - for the better part of one generation, the policy makers who were shaping how people think and perceived themselves - the people who were writing these textbooks - were writing about Philippine society in general through this handed-down lens.

44:30 “My parents make more sense now”

AO: In the way we read and critique those texts today, it’s important to understand that the reinterpretation of western history, even here in North America, is a push-button issue. We don’t fully grasp the negative extent these kinds of texts had on Filipino readership in the 1900s. It affected the writing of Filipino history (in the Philippines, by Filipino authors) until the 1970s. “The History Of The Filipino People” by Teodoro Agoncillo, for example, faced a big backlash with its publication in the 70s. But he was only following the tradition established by American historical writers before him - the same people who wrote about Filipino people in such detrimental ways.

When I realized what the implications of this were - of getting people to stop eating mangoes and start eating canned peaches - it really started to fuck with my head. It was like “holy crap - my grandparents and parents make so much more sense now.”

NA: Going back to a North American context - if we look at chefs today who are becoming a lot more comfortable with techniques used in traditional Filipino cooking, who look to traditional food preservation and production with ingredients used by Filipinos prior to the modernization of the country’s food systems - it feels like that generation’s really keen on making change. You can kinda see that with people who keep trying to reinterpret SPAM - they want to pay tribute to the stuff they were served at home growing up, by their parents who grew up during the American period. As a closing thought, what do you think about this cyclical nature of our foodways? What illustrates that for you?

46:05 Regional cuisines are the future

AO: I’m gonna borrow from Amy Besa on this. Her response to this question is the best I’ve heard. We know we live with this culinary tradition and mentality of eating, especially in North America, which favours French classical cuisine. There’s no reason why, as Filipinos, we can’t hold our cuisine up to the same high standards, and introduce people to this cuisine that we know and love - something we like to consider a great secret in the culinary world. Filipino food is awesome! I’m really heartened that people in their 20s and 30s are showing the dining public what’s possible - even if it’s just through this fraction of their experiences. The Philippines is so huge, and Filipinos are so spread out across the world, that we can preach loudly about Filipino cuisine now in new ways. We could maybe even surpass how, in the 1960s, practically every region of France was represented in French restaurants across the US, and singular French regions were profiled in entire issues of food magazines.

I honestly believe that can’t happen for other Southeast Asian cuisines. Thailand, for example, has been gotten a lot of press for their regional foods - considering the size of the actual migrant Thai population across the world. If you really wanted to do a thematic restaurant on regional cuisines of the Philippines, there’s a market that wouldn’t be stepping on each others’ toes. That’s one of the ways our cuisine can grow. Just think about how many Italian restaurants feature cuisine from Umbria or Palermo. We could be doing the same with Filipino regional cuisines.

48:40 Building a collective 

NA: I’ve talked about this before, but honestly, I can’t wait for this! That’s where the role of media and well researched content allows us to study from the ground up, today, how “bahaniyan” comes in. I’ve long dreamt of something that would connect on-the-ground researchers in the Philippines - a “new school” of people with a deep interest in preserving food traditions - with people in the rest of the world. They’d have the ability to connect us with the knowledge they work hard to cull and preserve. There’s so much power in that and I really want to make that happen.

50:00 Tying narratives together

NA: I find it so interesting to examine food from all these perspectives. Food in itself is a big umbrella, but if you focus on a particular part of it, it’s helps build the story out.

AO: It’s important to get these stories collated and curated so that it’s a resource. It’s not just because Filipino food is becoming popular in the US now; it’ll be popular for a long time. To actually nail down and document the conversations at this point in time, doesn’t just give us a window to the past, but a reference point moving forward.

WRAP-UP

NA: What a conversation. My sincerest thanks to Professor Rene Alexander Orquiza, for chatting with us about the American influence on Filipino food. If you’d like to hear more of these types of interviews, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast. You can find Exploring Filipino Kitchens on Apple Podcasts and wherever you download your podcasts from. And if there’s a particular topic you’d like to learn more about - send me a message on Facebook!

Music for this episode is by David Szestay, Eric and Magill and Podington Bear. Find their music and support artists like them at FMA.org.

Visit exploringfilipinokitchens.com for past episodes, at maraming salamat, thank you for listening. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to the show!

This is a transcript of “Episode 12: American Influence On Filipino Food With Alex Orquiza” (Click the episode link for the audio!)

The Regional Cuisine of Cebu - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Louella Alix below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

This episode, we’re going to the province of Cebu, in the central Visayas region of the Philippines, to talk about a much-beloved way of cooking with Louella Alix - author of a book called “Hikay: The Culinary Heritage of Cebu”.

Cebu is largely regarded as the second major capital of the Philippines. It’s a vibrant, deliciously rich, and incredibly storied region with so much history I could literally spend an entire episode delving into how this little group of islands basically made the world go round. Hint: it’s gotta do with Magellan and the flourishing of world trade that followed those Spanish explorers and galleons. Even the name “Cebu”, I learned, comes from an old word for “trade”. Now If that isn’t a legitimate claim and window into the foodways of this region…I don’t know what is!

Cebuano cooking in itself - like many regional cuisines of the Philippines, is a reflection of its landscape - with a long mountain range that cuts through the main island north to south, dividing the region into yet smaller communities that each have their distinct ways of preparing meals and various traditional food products.

Cebu is known for a few of those - like the heart-shaped puso, or rice steamed in little packets made from expertly woven coconut leaves that somehow keep every single grain inside. At least 6 distinct regional styles have been identified for puso. And then there’s the famous sutukil - a combination of sugba, tuwa, and kinilaw - which refer to foods that are grilled, made into soup and “cooked” with vinegar.

I am so excited to dive into the regional cooking of Cebu. Let’s get to it!

INTERVIEW

02:30 About

LA: I’m Louella Eslao Alix. I’m 68 years old, a grandmother. I came to writing quite late; I started writing when I was 59. I started writing for magazines and the local papers. Later, the University of San Carlos - a local university here in Cebu, quite well known - commissioned me to write a book on old churches. I started writing about the history of towns, like the history of Bantayan Island and Mandaue City.

03:25 “I was commissioned to write about food”

After about four or five books, I was commissioned by the university to write about the culinary heritage of Cebu. I accepted that, of course, because finally I was asked to write about food! And I guess they thought about that because the people at University of San Carlos (USC) Press are so used to eating at home, that every time I’d prepare them a meal, they’d say “You should write a book - a recipe book! You should write that book now.” That’s how Hikay happened.

I had to choose 50 recipes from over 200 recipes that I’ve gathered from all over Cebu. Once I chose the 50 recipes to feature, then I had to test them! I had to cook every dish. But who would eat all of this? So I called the people at the university and told them, “Batch by batch you come over and eat what I have to cook, ha. Tell me if it’s tastes good!”

So I’ve written about churches, towns, and now I have Hikay. They’ve actually commissioned me to write a sequel to Hikay, so now I’m deep into research on another book about Cebuano cooking.

It’s all about delicacies - the bibingka, the otap, the budbud, the suman, as well as the savouries. That’s what I’m busy with now.

NA: So to circle back, what exactly does “Hikay” mean, I asked?

05:30 The meaning of “Hikay”

LA: I had to explain that to the people in charge at USC Press. When I was researching - and also from memory - when people say they want to prepare a meal, there was this one word that I heard from almost all the mothers and cooks I’ve encountered. They’d say, “Mag-hikay ko, ug pamahaw.” In Cebuano, that means “I’m going to prepare breakfast.” So the word really is a verb which means “to prepare food.” So “mag-hikay” means “to prepare food” - but then what kind of food? Then you’d say “pamahaw” for breakfast, “pani-udto” for lunch, or “pani-hapon” for dinner.

So the word itself is a verb - but then, it also becomes a noun when it’s used to describe a feast. For an ordinary lunch, for example - you can’t call it a “hikay”, you’d just call it “pani-udto”. But if you spread out several dishes and it looks like a feast or a banquet, then it can be called a “hikay.” The intricacies of the Cebuano language!

NA: I just find it so interesting to explore how food, in this specific example on the islands of Cebu, is like a snapshot of how people go about enjoying their everyday lives. There are cultures that love food, and then there are cultures that regard everything about sitting down to a meal - from growing food to harvesting and preparing and serving it - as something really special, beyond a physical necessity. It’s food that doesn’t simply allow you to function, but also manages to nourish you in different ways. It’s the kind that feeds your belly and your soul. For a lot of Cebuanos, it’s that very definition of self - about family ties and gathering to celebrate the little and big things in life.

08:05 How families eat

LA: It’s still a must for families here, even now, to be together for at least one meal everyday. There (in North America) people are already very busy. Here, most kids go to school, and most parents are able to have breakfast with them, but quickly. Lunch you’d normally eat in the office or school. For the evening meal, there’s an effort to make it a real meal. I see a lot of young families now who are very conscious about that, and that’s very good. I like it that they’re serious about providing at least one meal where everyone’s around.

NA: Now I admit that sounds pretty idyllic, but it’s still a very interesting way to learn about the significance of certain food traditions in Cebuano culture. There’s simply no way to exclude food from identity, because you grow up in an environment where fresh fruit, vegetables, and seafood are around. Where a trip to the local market rewards you with so many kinds of rice cakes, and that famous SUTUKIL - that killer combo of sinugba, tinuwa and kinilaw killer that’s so predominant in everyday Cebuano cooking.

So next I asked - what’s the real value of preserving these heritage recipes?

09:30 Writing to preserve culinary traditions

LA: That was one of the major reasons for writing the book - that’s why I accepted the commission. It was a chance to write down the original dishes. You see, a lot of dishes get bungled, because of the many variations people do to them. For example, I wanted to preserve our way of making escabeche, or diniguan, or adobo. Cebuano adobo is different from all the other adobos in the Philippines.

NA: And here again comes the adobo debate - my favourite part. What makes that adobo different? What’s in it, or excluded from it, that makes it different from the Tagalog version I love?

10:25 Cebuano adobo

LA: Cebuano adobo does not have soy sauce. It’s just vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper. You marinate it and it has no sauce. In many other places in the Philippines, adobo has a sauce - as we say, “May sarsa ang adobo”. But ours is dry. Once the meat absorbs all the marinade, people here add oil, then it’s fried over a slow fire until the meat caramelizes and develops and overall golden colour. That’s the Cebuano adobo. And the smell of that - it permeates through the whole house!

NA: As with life, I’ve mostly been rewarded with an openness to different kinds of adobo - different flavours, different textures. It’s a nice analogy to how we also grow in life, where you just gotta be open to ideas and beliefs that are different from yours. You have to believe that everything just comes together in the end, like a bubbling pot of adobo on the stove. When you hear the click of that rice cooker and get a whiff of freshly steamed rice through the little hole on the lid of the rice cooker…it makes you think, it’s fine - things will turn out just fine.

So, now that we’ve been introduced, I asked Mrs. Alix if she could tell us what kinds of flavours to expect with Cebuano cooking.

12:10 Flavours of Cebuano cooking

LA: Cebuanos are like purists. Cebuanos don’t like too much “sarsa,” or sauce. They prefer their food grilled, fried, and of course there’s kinilaw, which we love.

NA: And then there’s tinola, which as many Tagalogs are familiar with, usually means chicken tinola - a soupy, gingery chicken stew. But in Cebu…

LA: They like fish in their stew.

NA: And that stew is also called tinola, although most Cebuanos call it “tuwa” - that middle part of the term “sutukil”. Basically, their tuwa is a soup of ginger, garlic, fish in this case and a few other seasonal flavourings. In her book, Mrs. Alix adds a helpful note, like a fun little rhyme to help you remember what each of these things mean. “Su-tu-kil” is read as “shoot to kill”. That’s actually what people tell visitors when they ask what the local food is; they just go “sutukil” really fast. It’s Filipino humour and I just love it, as most visitors do. Anyway, going back to that fish stew…

13:30 The essence of tinolang/tuwang isda (fish soup)

LA: For a fish soup, Cebuanos like to see the fish. They don’t want to put other things in it, except of course ginger, onions and tomatoes. That’s all they put in a fish tinola. It’s important that all the other ingredients floating in it can be distinguished from the fish. They like their soup clear.

NA: And then there’s escabeche.

14:00 Cebuano escabeche

LA: We make our escabeche with ginger, garlic and onions. The sauce is not like the Chinese-style “sweet and sour” kind that most Filipinos are familiar with, which is thickened with cornstarch. The Cebuano escabeche has no cornstarch - it’s main flavours are from vinegar, sugar and salt. So you can still see the fish when it’s served!

NA: There again comes that defining characteristic of Cebuano cooking, that need to keep ingredients intact. I wonder, where did this preference for seeing ingredients whole - like for entire pieces of fish, or whole vegetables - begin? And then on top of that…

14:50 “There’s ginger in everything”

LA: Of course there’s the local preference to put ginger in everything. Cebuanos don’t like “lansa” - in the Philippines, that means the fishy or gamey taste in meats, for example, in beef. Cebuanos don’t like beef because it has that smell for them. Unlike pork, which for them, is the tastier meat. Those are the quirks of Cebuanos. They’ll even put ginger in their puto maya, which is glutinous rice steamed with coconut milk. I don’t know why, but they like that hint of ginger in their puto. There’s also ginger in “nilat-an” which is a pork or beef stew, or really any kind of meat stew, boiled in the same way as Tagalog people make bulalo. Almost everything we cook has ginger because Cebuanos don’t like “lansa!”

NA: That’s an interesting thing to note. So now I’m also wondering, on top of this preference for seeing ingredients cooked whole…is this really why ginger is so ubiquitous in Cebuano food? It’s amazing to think about how this penchant for cooking with ginger - for this particular flavour preference - just builds over time, with the cycle repeating itself every time someone teaches another person how to cook.

LA: That’s it. Because you can still taste the main ingredients.

NA: And another example of this understated simplicity that dishes from Cebu highlight really well is the utan bisaya.

16:50 Utan bisaya and the need to keep vegetables whole

LA: The “utan bisaya” is like the “bulanglang” of the Tagalogs. It’s really a Filipino vegetable dish. But the difference is that in the Ilocano and Pangasinan regions, they put bagoong (fermented fish or shrimp paste). In the Tagalog region, they put patis (fish sauce). In Cebu, we only put salt! But it’s the same group of vegetables. It’s still made with eggplants, squash, okra, string beans and lots of malunggay (moringa) called “kamunggay” here.

When you serve the Cebuano utan bisaya, you can see all the vegetables clearly, because the soup is clear. Nothing is added to “muddy” it because they like their soups clear. They’ll put salt, or sometimes a piece of dried fish - but that’s all they’ll put for flavouring. And they don’t mix or stir it too much because that makes the broth not clear.

NA: What a great example of the kind of country cooking that might look pretty simple on the outside, but really needs some serious mastery. Keeping individual vegetables whole and perfectly cooked through in a single dish, requires precision and skill - the kind that you can only learn by doing something again and again. You could do that by staging at a restaurant in Napa Valley, California, you could learn from a seasoned cook in the province of Cebu, by making a whole lot of braised vegetables.

LA: Maybe, intrinsically, it’s good for vegetables not to be stirred too much. That’s how we can explain it, I think. My father was from Pangasinan so I also learned how to cook pinakbet (another variant of this dish) his way. You put the vegetables into a pot and you don’t stir it. You arrange the vegetables according to the length of time it takes for each layer of vegetables to cook, so harder root vegetables go at the bottom and you work your way to the top. You put tomatoes and pour bagoong all over it then close the pot. It makes the dish so nice to look at when you can see all the vegetables distinctly!

20:00 Finding “Lagda Sa Pagpangluto”

NA: Next, we find out about an old culinary text, unique to Cebu. In the first few pages of Hikay, Mrs. Alix writes about a book called “Lagda sa Pagpangluto,” written by a local named Maria Rallos.

LA: “Lagda sa Pagpangluto” is a recipe book written in the Cebuano language in 1924. That’s barely a few years after Filipina women were given the right to vote. Since Hikay was a project of the University of San Carlos, they opened up all of the library’s resources for me. That included the Cebuano Studies Center. They’ve collected so many publications, books and magazines about Cebuano culture and history; it’s a specific part of the library.

One day, a university professor, who was also a manager at USC Press, told me that someone just donated an old recipe book from 1924. The great-grandson (of the author) found a copy and thought it would be best preserved if it was in the university library. So they lent me the book. I was honoured - it was such a privilege to hold a book that old!

NA: Wow. I can only imagine!

LA: It was written by Maria Rallos, who was an amazing woman. She was the widow of the first mayor of Cebu City, at the turn of the century, during the American era. She ran a theatre, she had apartments built and had them rented, she was very enterprising. And she raised all of her children alone because her husband died early on. In the meantime, she was collecting recipes. She wrote “Lagda sa Pagpangluto” when she already had grandchildren.

When I read through the book, I could see that all the foods I grew up with were there…in the 1920s, they cooked the same things! My grandmother was a home economics teacher around the time the book was published. All the foods described in the book were the ones that my grandmother served us later, in the 50s and 60s. It was really an amazing find.

NA: So I totally can’t help but get swept away by these stories of old cookbooks and regional cuisines of yore. I think it’s fair to say that for those of us who look to the past to better understand our present and future - these kinds of cookbooks are a treasure trove.

LA: Then it happened to be the 90th year after the book was published…

NA: This was when Mrs. Alix was in the final stages of writing Hikay…

LA: So I decided to dedicate the book to Maria Rallos. She was a woman really far ahead of her time, when most women stayed home and their lives revolved around their family and their home. You get the feeling that she’s quite happy to be rediscovered!

NA: That’s such a strong testament to tradition - to food traditions that are passed from one generation to another. To be honest, I know that even for a lot of Filipinos who grow up in Manila, this kind of cooking can be unfamiliar, where the actual food served and ways they’re prepared are so inherently family-oriented. And that distance from family food traditions - you know, like when your parents talk about eating some kind of rice cake they had when they were little - it’s multiplied, if your parents left the Philippines and eventually raised you, the person listening, someplace else. That connection isn’t always there, even if your parents love it.

But these old recipes, like the ones from Cebu, they’re time tested - and they’ve got this air of mystery around them. Just think about how certain foods have been prepared the same way time and time again! I have trouble thinking about myself in those shoes, since I’m a product of my time and I like to tinker and innovate on everything. But people did them the same way, through generations, because those ways of cooking worked - and they knew they were good.

Going back to Mrs. Alix, as she was reading this book and thought “This is exactly how I remember my grandmother making them!” - these kinds of notes, those preparations, have to be preserved. It’s a testament to how different families across different towns stick so strongly to a regional preference, for how their soups and vegetables and grains are prepared.

25:30 Recipes from the book

LA: I noticed, for example, that her recipe for leche flan (custard) - a very common dessert all over the Philippines - when I read her recipe, it was exactly how my grandmother did it and how she taught me to make it. The ingredients, amounts and procedures were exactly the same. That alone is too much of a coincidence for me. Then her adobo, as well, is exactly how “adobong pina-uga” is cooked in Cebu. She must have gathered all these things from so many people, because I still see those dishes cooked the same way until now. It’s a wonder how these dishes and recipes have been handed down nearly intact. Even her recipe for bibingka and budbud, a kind of suman.

She must have tested all these recipes, because when you follow them from the book, they’re a breeze to make. She tells you the exact thing to do, but also funnily doesn’t give too much instruction. She presumes you already know the rudiments of cooking and she’s just telling you “this is how you do it” if you want to cook this dish (the Cebuano way). She presumes you know how to slice ginger, onions and tomatoes; how much of it to include. But the thing is that all this was written in the Cebuano language.

NA: Wow. I love learning about these kinds of food traditions, especially how they’ve become shaped over time! There’s such as strong history in every single dish, and it takes a bit of detective work to uncover it - like Mrs. Alix finding this book - but it feels worth it.

LA: What’s amazing again is that one of her daughters wrote a cookbook in the 50s, but this time it was in English. When I was given a copy of that, I had to look through everything. She wrote all of her mother’s recipes in English. Maria Rallos’ recipes were validated (again) through a new recipe book. It’s too bad that no one in the later generations took after the mother and grandmother.

NA: And there goes the heavy-hitter - knowing that, unfortunately, later generations of the family haven’t taken up preserving those distinctly regional recipes. I feel strongly about this, because on the one hand, it’s easy to compare and bemoan many Filipinos’ experiences with these family recipes. It’s easy to say, oh well that’s too bad, that Italian or French families for example have such a strong tradition of passing it down from one generation to another…but I personally think that the reason that chain breaks - that younger people aren’t interested in keeping “the old ways” alive - is because they don’t have a way to relate to it.

And if one way that young Filipinos are finding their way back to those food traditions is by writing and talking about it online, making recipe videos on YouTube, or making a podcast dedicated solely to Filipino food - these acts and ways of showing we care, by attending events and fundraisers that introduce non-Filipinos to the richness of our food culture, all adds up and definitely paves the way.

29:30 All about torta

NA: Next, a story about torta - a rice cake, similar to the Tagalog bibingka, that’s a specialty in the province of Cebu.

LA: The town that’s really famous for torta in Cebu is the town of Argao. But many towns also has its own version; you’ll find people in the towns of Tuburan and Sugod cooking their version. Torta is basically a cake, a “torte” (in the European style). But in Cebu, the leavening agent is tuba. Tuba is coconut wine or toddy.

NA: So just a quick background on tuba - because I swear I got so into this, after I read a book called “Discovering Tuba” by an author named Arturo Pacho. This book is more than a description of tuba - a truly native Philippine liquor made not from coconut water, as you might initially think - but from the sap that flows out of something called the “inflorescence,” or the actual flower bud of a coconut tree. So basically, if you’re in the Philippine countryside and you see these long bamboo poles, kind of tied together up at the very top of coconut trees, and they bridge one tree to another - I love this, it’s so distinctly Filipino to see - these lightweight bridges allow people to collect the sap from these coconut flowers literally up in the air. This sap is turned into an incredibly tasty, powerful drink called tuba. It’s fermented with airborne yeasts, the very definition of something locally produced. And the traditions surrounding tuba are fascinating to learn about. Going back to torta…

LA: So instead of using yeast for this cake, they use tuba. They let the batter rise overnight, then make the cakes the next day. Also, torta uses pork lard - not butter. I once told this story about torta and the lard - do you know Ambeth Ocampo? The historian?

NA: And I do, actually. I binged on getting his series of 12 books compiled from years of writing a column on Philippine history. Such an interesting point of view.

LA: When he was the chair of the National Historical Institute, he came to Cebu once to place a marker on a local church. We were together at the church convent - a party at the kumbento - and he says, “Loy, what’s safer for me to eat here? The torta or the chicharron?” And I said, “You know Ambeth, for every kilo of pork rind, they only get 228 grams of chicharron. So what happens to the rest? Well, it becomes lard. Then it’s bought by the people in Argao to make into torta. With the torta you’re holding, there’s pork lard, egg yolks, sugar and flour. So I guess you’re better off eating the chicharron.” He gave a big laugh and said, “Thank you for saving my life.”

In the next book I’m writing, the torta is going to be featured big time. Nowadays, some bakers use yeast to make it rise. But I still found some torta makers in Argao; one who still uses lard and tuba to make her torta. And she bakes it in a clay oven. In this day and time, there’s someone who bakes with a clay oven!    

NA: Can you just imagine that light, spongy, coconut-yeasty dough, enriched with lard and egg yolks?

LA: That’s it. Then there’s the egg yolks. The egg yolks in all our recipes for desserts are attributed to the use of egg whites in making “palitada,” or the mortar for stones used in building churches. There was no cement back in the 16th and 17th century.

NA: Remembering that Mrs. Alix actually started by writing about churches in Cebu - this is an important thing to note.

LA: With the use of so much egg whites, you can imagine all the housewives looking at all the egg yolks not being used. They must have thought, we can use this and make dessert! Let’s think of dishes to make using egg yolks. And so we have the torta, the leche flan, the yemas, brazo de mercedes. Where there’s a big old church, you can be sure there’s a tradition of making desserts using egg yolks.

NA: And documenting these traditions is absolutely critical - and making this information accessible to more people, I’d say even more so! Because even if, you know, the Philippines is rich with pioneers and advocates for preserving these traditional foodways, like Mrs. Alix does for her hometown of Cebu…

35:30 “This is my life’s work”

LA: The other regions are just as interesting, I’m sure. It’s just that I have made it my life’s work now to talk and write about Cebuano history, Cebuano culture. Somebody has to do it.

NA: So I asked, how does Mrs. Alix see these efforts of preserving our culinary traditions played out? What does she see in the future of these folks who persist with preparing suman, budbud and torta, for example, traditionally? How do we get young people to see the real value of keeping regional food traditions alive? And re-engage them to uncover that sense of pride, a love for Filipino food, that spans not just the food itself but the culture and traditions surrounding how that food is prepared and served and shared?

36:30 “Reality makes you optimistic”

LA: This is something that I worry about. As I wrote in the book, there’s a proliferation of foreign dishes coming into our place. You know our malls…when another mall opens, I cringe because I know there’s going to be more Italian, Thai, Indonesian food being served in these places. More Japanese restaurants are opening. I don’t think the ordinary Cebuano can resist all that. And now, with the older generation, I’m comfortable that they still would prefer “real” Cebuano food. But with the younger generation, I don’t think we can stand the onslaught of foreign influences. I write about the culinary heritage of Cebu because it’s like my last stand in this fight. At least, if someone wants to cook the Cebuano way, there’s a book that can tell them how it’s done.

Most young people now, they’re quite adventurous, like anywhere else in the world - they like to taste new tastes. I just hope that if I’ve written everything I can down, and it’s there for people to go back to, then somewhere - even 20 or 50 years from now - if someone wants to cook humba or adobo (the Cebuano way) they’ll still be able to do it. It’ll be preserved in a book. Because I’m not so optimistic at all - that’s the sad part. People would rather eat something exotic, something French, something American, because it’s there and it’s so easy and accessible to consume. And it’s very affordable. With families now, you have the mothers and fathers working, so when they go home - in addition, with help being hard to find now - who’s there to cook at home? So they’ll heat up something they buy from outside. They’ll still keep the tradition of eating together. But whether it’s Cebuano food they’re cooking or eating, I’m not so sure. 

41:00 A little context on local food culture

NA: It really pierces through my heart, now, listening to this particular part of our interview. Pierces because this idea that reality makes you optimistic is real, because I understand that this is the reality of all regional foodways today - whether you’re in the American lowcountry or the island of Cebu. There’s no stopping the swell of progress, that brings work to the area and keeps people employed, no changing the fact that yes, we do want a variety of foods - this global plethora of foods I can literally eat anytime, itself, is so visible where I live in Toronto, I can’t blame the people of Cebu or anyplace else in the Philippines for wanting the same.

But what I think is really the takeaway here - is that alongside our growing penchant for buying and partaking of all these kinds of foods from all over the world, even if it’s just getting takeout from a shop at the mall - we need people like Mrs. Alix to remind us that regional Filipino cuisine does have to be recognized, and it deserves a place in the mall. I find it funny because this is a particularly Filipino thing, so I want to just take a minute to give some context around this.

I’ve long held a personal opinion that what these kinds of regional foods need is the right marketing strategy - something that can replicated over time, with the right amount “gloss” to make it fresh, make it something desirable. That means it needs the right people - people, for example, like JP Anglo, whose chain of restaurants called “Sarsa” is hugely popular in the Philippines. And yes, his restaurants are in the mall, because that’s where people go. There’s a lot that goes into that formula for success - like finding the right audience to become ambassadors for your product, and having this diligence with promoting and preserving Filipino recipes. Those are two big ones to remember.

Imagine, a food court filled with these well-executed regional Filipino specialties, created by people who took the time to research how these foods were traditionally made, perhaps tweaking them a little to standardize or modernize it, while keeping the soul of that cooking alive - man, I would go to that mall, and brag like crazy to everyone I knew about it. It needs the right people to drive it, and many, many collective efforts to bring the idea and those foods to life. And if the sourcing of those ingredients and food products sold at those establishments were done sustainably, with respect and a dedication to keep those traditional food producers going, it would come full circle so easily.

LA: There’s something I’m so happy about. When Hikay came out, there were a lot of local buyers. So I hope I’m really contributing to the preservation of this particular part of our culture. I hope that with Hikay I brought back interest to our local cooking, and I hope others will follow. 

43:15 What happens when you eat an “old” dish

LA: When you eat an “old” dish, it’s not just the food. The food brings out memories; you have this kind of warm feeling of eating something your grandmother cooked before, that was shared with the whole family before. So now even if we’re scattered all over the world, when we eat something from “home,” we’ll all remember, for example, “lola’s escabeche.” My cousins would say, “When we eat escabeche cooked like lola’s, we always think of her and the family meals we had when she was alive and was still cooking.” It’s not just the eating, but the remembering that makes it more flavourful.

44:10 “Filipinos are all about food”

That’s so Filipino, you know. We gather around food, we celebrate with food, we show our affection with food. With us Filipinos it’s all about food. And family and friends to share it with, of course.

WRAP-UP

NA: My warmest, special thanks to Mrs. Louella Alix for this interview. Though we recorded a few months ago, what we talked about is pretty timeless - and I hope that you’ll get a copy of her book, Hikay, because it really is a treasure trove of stories and information! It’s available online through thekitchenbookstore.com, or if you know someone visiting the Philippines - go ahead and ask them to bring you home a copy.

Our theme music for this episode is by David Szeztay, segment music by Eric and Magill, Podington Bear and Blue Dot Sessions. Visit exploringfilipinokitchens.com to find full transcripts of all the episodes thus far - special thanks to Anthony, based in the Philippines, for preparing these and getting them ready for you all to check out!

Come back next month for another episode of Exploring Filipino Kitchens, at maraming salamat - thank you, for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 11: The Regional Cuisine of Cebu With Louella Alix” (Click the episode link for the audio!)

Adventures In Philippine Cookery - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Bryan Koh below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

Today we’re talking with Bryan Koh, author of the book “Milk Pigs and Violet Gold,” a hardcover book from a Philippine university press, first published in 2013 and then re-issued three years later to the rest of Southeast Asia.

The illustrations, artwork and photos in Bryan’s books are BEAUTIFUL. I got to say that off the top. Turning the pages, I’m driven by the narrative, the structure, and the immediacy of his stories – like I feel like I’m there – and I constantly think, because I’m reading the recipes… I mean, “really, that’s all it takes to make that?”

But of course, it’s never just that! It isn’t just gathering ingredients in a bowl, and not even just knowing the right technique – whether you’re making handmade noodles or one of the dozens of kakanin, or rice cakes – that are in the book. What I really love about Milk Pigs is that there’s the sense of discovery, of excitement, like how the food he talks about sounds totally familiar, but at the same time, also really new.

Come along with us for this month’s adventures in Philippine cookery.

INTERVIEW

BK: My name’s Bryan Koh. I’m a food writer. I’m based in Singapore. I’ve written two books so far, well of course, there’s ‘Milk Pigs,’ and ‘Milkier Pigs’...

NA: That’s ‘Milk Pigs and Violet Gold,’ his ode Philippine cuisine, and its second edition, playfully titled ‘Milkier Pigs and Violet Gold,’ with a few more recipes, extended chapters, and a new layout…

BK: And there’s another one called ‘0451 Mornings Are For Mont Hin Gar,’ and that one is a book on Burmese food.

NA: Bryan completed his bachelors in mathematics at the University of Singapore, then went on to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York for his masters degree. After deciding that life as an academic wasn’t necessarily for him, Bryan went back to school for hospitality.

BK: And right now, when I’m not writing, I’m running a bakery in Singapore called ‘Chalk Farm.’

NA: So how did his book ‘Milk Pigs and Violet Gold’ come about, I asked?

02:46 How the book started

BK: Well, it kind of happened during the interim between my university days and my master’s program. I did a couple of things, Chalk Farm was one of them, that’s why I started it. What else I did? I was a freelance journalist. It was quite interesting because during that time, I’m a bit of a food book junkie, so I did collect quite a bit. I was reading excessively, and I realized there weren’t very many food books – Asian food books, I should qualify – that had this kind of narrative to them. Most of the books you get here anyway, usually are like an instruction manual, or it’s almost encyclopedic.

NA: That is totally true. Every time I go back to Southeast Asia, I always stop into as many bookstores as possible, to check out what kinds of cookbooks they have, and that I can add to my collection. There are definitely some notable books, but for the most part – as Bryan says – this stuff is pretty dry; it can be boring. Informative, but not like the long, winding travelogues of writers like Alan Davidson, who lived in Laos in the 1950s, or even Fuchsia Dunlop, whose memoir about Sichuan food is easily one of my favorites.

BK: So I was trying to have a book that engaged the reader in a really different way. Something I was looking for, from a very personal standpoint. So that’s how it happened. For some reason I thought back then to do Philippine cuisine because it was actually – back then anyway, this was nearly 10 years ago – there wasn’t really much literature about it. There is more now. There’s much more now, but back then that really wasn’t the case, it wasn’t this “hot” subject that it is now. Now we have so many articles, so many bloggers, so many food magazines talking about it as the next big Asian cuisine.

NA: So all this excitement surrounding Filipino food, it isn’t just tipping over in North America and the West, it’s happening in the actual region it’s from. With so much more publicity given to Philippine ingredients and flavor profiles, restaurants in the city that host visiting chefs from Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Spain, Filipino food is legitimately a hot commodity.

05:31 Why write about Philippine cuisine?

BK: The reason why that cuisine floated into my head to begin with was that I had a yaya, she was from La Union and she cooked exceedingly well. I realized very much later on that quite a few people didn't really has that similarly good experience as with Philippine cuisine, and that quite a few of my friends had pretty horrific ones. As I went along, I began telling people what I was doing. I got quite a few raised eyebrows. That didn't really discourage me. If anything, I think it kind of it fortified my stand that I really have to do this.

BK: Around 2009, I was briefly sent on a freelance assignment to the Philippines. This was my first time on Philippine soil. It was in Lipa, Batangas and it was ironic because it was a detox facility that I went to. After my writing stint, I was taken around to eat, and it was an amazing experience. Until then, there were a lot of things I hadn’t know about, and to me that entire trip was an eye-opener. That’s when I kind of realized that this was something I really wanted to do. The very seed was sown during that trip.

07:04 Getting by with a little help from friends

BK: Later that year, I went to Cornell where I did my masters and I met two wonderful friends, Bianca and Susanne. They were the ones who actually encouraged me and provided the network for the book to happen. I made it quite plain in the preface of the book that without their assistance, this would have not come to fruition.

NA: And this is an important thing to note; something Bryan and I, and many other people I’ve met while traveling, can confirm about the Philippines. While it’s relatively easy to get around, and really easy to talk to locals – because pretty much everyone speaks English – your chances of “stumbling” onto the best roadside restaurant, or having consistently good bowls of soups and stews, aren’t really guaranteed without someone’s recommendation. Granted, this is so much easier these days with everything being online, but with that comes another problem: how do you trust what’s good? And, you got to keep in mind that this doesn’t really apply out in the provinces where the best cooking often is. For that, for those really regional specialties that aren’t served in restaurants because people don’t even think of preparing it for anyone outside their homes – because it’s either an everyday dish or pegged as the lowly peasant fare that folks in the countryside wouldn’t even think of serving – you got to have the right connections to find that kind of food, the food that you travel for.

08:44 The reality of travel

BK: I think for me it’s more than just the recipes. I quite like the context, knowing a bit about their background – the recipes I mean. The first trip I made for Milk Pigs happened in May 2010. Way back then I thought I could probably complete this in around four trips. I really remember sitting down with my friend – Susanne – she was the one with whom I ventured to the Cordillera and Ilocos. That was the very, very first trip up. I was going to Manila, going to Baguio, going all the way up north to Laoag, and then flying back down. So at first we thought, okay it will be Luzon. Or it will be Luzon covered in two parts, and then Visayas, and then Mindanao. Three round trips around two to three weeks each. So that’s how it started. Very, very naive. Extremely ignorant, because I have never gone that far north. So I knew nothing about road conditions, I knew nothing about weather conditions, and the thing about Central and North Luzon is that some parts are inaccessible. Now it’s getting better, but definitely wasn’t that easy to make travel plans. Just traveling between two towns could take you three to four hours.

10:06 Why guides are crucial

BK: Susanne knew someone who could take care of us, so that’s how we arranged the trips. For the whole of the Philippines, I had a contact in every town that I went to, or at least I knew someone having gone to that town before, so I have some form of guidance, which I think is crucial, especially in the Philippines because I wouldn’t have known any better. Sometimes you need people to direct your attention to certain things. So for every trip, I cross out little towns, I list the regions I wanted to visit along with the local dishes or delicacies from each part of the region. So that was how we planned it out because there were certain things I had to cover.

BK: I still remember that breakfast/lunch meeting. We flew in to Manila and we met with our contact and he starts talking about a few things and I start taking notes, taking quite a lot of those. I was so preoccupied with my own little checklist that I now feel I probably didn’t pay as much attention as I should have. There were a lot of juicy morsels that I actually kind of ignored, I took for granted. I only realized this during my second and third trips.

11:24 “Research is ongoing”

BK: Many people say research is preliminary, but the thing is, research is ongoing. You don’t do research, go to a destination, and it’s as though what you see and what you have read before, it’s not as if they click so easily. You don’t travel to confirm and corroborate and go, “Okay, that’s it. Done!” Actually in this region it’s nothing like that. It’s quite an untidy process where, as you go along, the more you uncover, and the more you travel, the more you’re reading up as well. It’s almost like two tasks that run parallel to one another, and you got to make sure your eyes are on both.

NA: That’s totally right. So I asked Bryan if he could tell us more, give an example to show what he means...and we ended up talking about a place I had also recently visited, the provinces of Ilocos.

12:19 Foods of the Ilocos Region

BK: I do love the north quite a lot and people who ask me about what was my favorite time, it was actually that trip. I knew I wanted to cover pinikpikan in the Cordillera. I knew that I wanted to look at pinakbet in the Ilocos to see how it was done traditionally. Pinapaitan. If you ask any Ilocano what they miss from home, I think dinengdeng is probably one of the first few things they mention. For those who don’t know what dinengdeng is, it’s basically a very light, almost soupy vegetable braise with bagoong being the main source of umami, although sometimes grilled fish is slipped in to give it a little bit of lovely smokiness and savoriness. It has all kinds of vegetables. Very unique dish, it has no oil because everything is simply being simmered. It’s what many an Ilocano has come to love. It’s what many of them miss when they’re overseas, especially when prepared with bamboo shoots and saluyot.

13:31 “You never really know until you travel”

NA: Man, all that stuff just sounds AMAZING! And that’s why, as Bryan says…

BK: You never really know until you start traveling. The first time you set foot on a country – not for a holiday – but with the intention of writing about something in the country, in that place, for me the mood is completely different.

NA: Again, I totally agree.

13:57 On locals’ generosity

BK: I was actually very, very fortunate that people were so generous with their time. The first market I went to outside of Manila was Tarlac, and then we went to Cordillera. So that entire leg for me was a huge eye-opener, and I do recall coming away from it quite overwhelmed. There were so many things I had to take note of, I mean smells, tastes, sights, and in addition to everything that you are experiencing yourself in terms of the senses, you also have to bear in mind that you have to record information about the food and about the recipes of course.

BK: I did worry that people would be a bit thorny with me in giving their recipes away, but I was quite fortunate in the Philippines because I didn’t really have that. People were mostly very, very generous. There’s this joy, really, and it was overwhelming, peoples’ warm generosity. And of course the information they shared with me, to me that’s a gift.

15:05 A Filipino approach to cooking

BK: Sometimes you can kind of tell people’s personality based on how they cook. So to me it’s more of like a window into their psyche. There are some people who take up the pains of making something simple into quite something quite complex by giving you a whole list of steps and there’s some people who’ve taken that same recipe and they just put everything in the same pot and boil the thing up.

NA: I asked Bryan how, exactly, he went about writing recipes for the book. Were they strictly recreations of dishes that people shared with him? Or were they more of a springboard to create versions that most people – in Southeast Asia at least – could make at home with ingredients from a local grocery store?

BK: Well, I obtained a lot of them through very, very casual conversation. Just talking to people where I didn’t really expect to get recipes. But these cooks often insisted that I take note of how they did it. So, with that amount of pride, I felt that I had a lot to answer for, simply because I was a strange Singaporean boy that’s collecting recipes. At the end of it, these recipes do belong to other people, and I wanted to make sure I took good care of them. I guess that, for me, there was a sense of accountability that I wanted to explain myself and I wanted to tell people why I made some changes.

BK: Also, the ingredients here are quite different. For example, even the vinegar you get in the Philippines is so different. You’ve got nipa palm vinegar. In Ilocos, you got the beautiful mahogany colored vinegar from the sugarcane. We don’t have that here. If you go to Lucky Plaza, which is where most people get their Philippine ingredients, you’ll be met with the most basic, which is sugarcane vinegar, just a very clear solution, very clean solution. It’s very good to use but it lacks a lot of nuance that you get from a vinegar you probably would get in the Philippines in a market. You can even pick your bagoong and your fish sauce. So, while people have the luxury of saying, “I want this kind of vinegar for my adobo. I don’t want to use the run-off-the-mill sugarcane vinegar. I want to use something from beneath the palm.” To be able to make that choice is a luxury!

NA: Oh I know Bryan, pretty much everyone outside the Philippines has the same problem! It’s one of the things we totally miss about home.

17:49 How much rests on the quality of ingredients

BK: When you look at a cookbook on Philippine food, it doesn’t take a lot to realize that a lot of the dishes are very, very simple. I mean Philippine cooking on the whole is extremely simple. Very, very few things are complicated and for me, going to the market and seeing the variety, of course vinegar is just one of them. Bagoong, patis, rice. The variety of rice you have over there, and full of fresh produce, vegetables, is amazing! Amazing stuff. For me everything just clicked. You realize how the quality of these dishes, how much of that rests on the quality of the ingredients.

NA: This is one of the great things about Bryan, and one of the best parts of talking with him. Remembering that he is – as he calls himself – this strange Singaporean boy - as much as I cannot wait to explore Singapore’s hawker stalls, and much as many Filipinos would jump at the opportunity to visit, it’s worth remembering that for all the culinary delights of Singapore, we have so much to be proud of in the Philippines, for the rich history and variety of our foodways. As he describes, there’s so much to see and eat and sample here! Singapore may have flourished with so many food traditions from Southeast Asia mingling in the heat of their woks – contributing to an exquisite, greatly, greatly delicious cuisine that is uniquely Singaporean – but in the Philippines, with the variations in our topography and landscape – these dense, mountainous areas jutting out of endless fields; the seas with species of fish too many to count – we got a lot to be proud of.

NA: This is why I feel, kind of like a bit of a broken record saying that to TRULY appreciate Filipino food – stripped of any pretension or fusion or adaptiveness – to understand why our palates have developed in such a way, and evolved to accommodate all these shortcuts that many contemporary cooks turn to, you’ve got to go back to the source and taste what those different types of vinegar, those fresh vegetables from the market, and loads of live seafood taste like. I know, it can be a lot to plan a trip to the Philippines, but I assure you that for someone who is anywhere near interested in those nuances and the real flavors of Philippine cuisine? It’s totally worth it!

20:29 “No wonder people feel so strongly!”

BK: And so when you see things in such variety, for me it makes a lot of sense. How people can be so bubblingly enthusiastic about it, or how they could feel so strongly about it. Because – this is what I could perceive anyway – a lot about Philippine cuisine, even on the palate, it isn’t extraordinarily complicated. It’s not like Thai where you necessarily have sweet, sour, salty, at those volumes, because the thing about Thai food – glorious as it is – it’s also quite loud in that sense. I mean, some of it in the flavor profile, it’s quite loud. You have a taste of a papaya salad and you know what’s there, you know the sweet is there, everything hits you.

BK: In the Philippines, if we’re talking about a lot of soups, a lot of it comes down to nuance, and this delicateness is in quite a lot of the food. So something like vinegar, I couldn’t begin to understand why just simply changing the vinegar will result in a very different dish. I might not have understood it before, just reading a recipe book, or why changing an ingredient, just one or two ingredients in a dish, would produce something that deserves a different name. Just seeing how much variety there is over there. It really made me really quite appreciative of it. For me, it simply made more sense after seeing everything like that.

22:16 On food terminology

NA: On the subject of food terminology...

BK: The real bug me was having to explain it to people. I mean even something like suman, for example. God the sleepless nights, because we used to make a lot of nonya kueh at home, “kueh” being local rice cakes, if you like, or snacks. We would always have an excess of glutinous rice.

NA: And Bryan shares that their housekeeper – who was Filipina – would always find a use for this glutinous rice.

BK: I do know that this is not the traditional way of doing it, but what she would do is that she sort of resuscitates this cold rice in a bit of gata or in some coconut milk or coconut cream, and she would swaddle them up in a banana leaf, these tapering locks, and then she would steam them. That was my first encounter with suman. She called them suman anyway, I think most people would.

BK: Even something like that, how do you explain to people how suman is... on one hand, it’s the name of something very specific and something very, very generic, because suman is simply a rice cake. And to also explain to people that, “Well you know, in some ways the bibingka can also be called a similar rice cake.” So, for example, suman in the Visayas is budbud. If you spoke to any Visayan, they would do well to tell you that, “No! You don’t call it suman here!” and the difference is that budbud has got ginger inside, and maybe a bit of pandan. I find that quite fascinating, only because of where I come from in Singapore and of course, in Malaysia, how most times you won’t even bother with it with a different name. Of course people probably will say it’s a language difference, blah blah blah, and I get all of that. I completely get it. But for me it’s fascinating because I have to explain why this particular item wants a completely new name, and it’s just one small ingredient change.

NA: I love this and find it really interesting as well. Honestly, people can be FIERCE when it comes to what regional foods are named. And you don’t even have to wait until visiting the Philippines to see that. All you gotta do is lurk around a couple of Facebook groups, I’ll have some links in the show notes, about regional Philippine cuisine and you’ll see people argue – or at the very least – have some really animated discussions about what certain foods, ingredients or snacks from their respective hometowns are called. Like upwards of 83 comments worth.

24:58 Feedback from readers

BK: One thing a lot of people told me was, “Oh I did not know that it’s something in this region,” that there’s some delicacy in another town, in another region, on a different island, that’s quite similar to something they have at home. I mean, I don’t really see myself as an authority. I see myself as someone who’s learning as he goes along. Something else is that, people often say, “I did not know that there’s so much to explore, there’s so much to eat.” For people to say that after reading the book that’s written by a foreigner, I find it quite moving and I’m grateful.

NA: Well, we’re pretty thankful too that Filipino food has made such an impression and become such a significant part of Bryan’s life. Even if many of us never actually get to go to the towns he’s visited, or ask the empanada makers of Ilocos what exactly goes into that beyond-tasty sausage and papaya filling in the famous Vigan empanadas, reading about it gets my taste buds going, and piques my interest to find out more about those delicious foods that I can attempt to make at home. With the recipes, photographs and kitchen notes in Bryan’s book and many others, this definitely counts toward my own journey of Exploring Filipino Kitchens.

WRAP-UP

Many thanks to Bryan Koh for recording this interview with me last year, and if you find yourself in Singapore, head over to “Chalk Farm,” Bryan’s cake shop on Orchard Road. I’ve been drooling over this pandan and adzuki bean cake they make and wish I could have one shipped over to me!

Also coming up this year is Bryan’s third book called “Bekwoh: Stories and Recipes from Peninsula Malaysia’s East Coast.” That’s coming up in August and I can’t wait to get my copy.

Our theme music is by David Szesztay, segment music is by Eric and Magill and Squire Tuck, which you’ll find on fma.org.Visit exploringfilipinokitchens.com for past episodes, and if you’re listening to this through a podcast app, please go ahead and click that subscribe button, so we can continue Exploring Filipino Kitchens together!

Maraming salamat, and thank you for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 10: Adventures In Philippine Cookery With Bryan Koh” (Click the episode link for the audio!)

On Travel With Purpose To Manila, A Farm And Ancestral Lands - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript to my episode "On Travel With Purpose To Manila, A Farm And Ancestral Lands" below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

This episode, we’re going off the usual path - actually, quite a ways off from my studio in Toronto, back to where it all begins - the Philippines.

We can’t really explore Filipino kitchens, without going to the motherland, right?

So today, no interviews - just some raw thoughts from my trip, instead - and you’ll hear horns rise above the traffic of Manila, tricycles speeding by, the calm of the countryside and horses on the cobbled streets of Vigan, Ilocos Sur.

Let’s go!

ON TRAVEL WITH PURPOSE

Hello everyone! It is now Friday. I’ve been in Manila for about a week now. I landed on Sunday morning and, to be honest, everything is a bit of a whirlwind. It’s such a barrage on the senses to be back here amidst the traffic and noise you could probably hear just outside the window. I’m staying in Makati City which is the central business district of Manila.

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been meeting with people for interviews for the podcast and to reconnect with some friends I’m so glad to have been able to meet.

01:54 A walk through the old walled city

The city can swallow you up, and that’s the case for any big city, whether you grew up in it or moved there for school or for work. Yesterday, I went on a tour of Intramuros, which is the old walled city of Manila. I took a tour of Intramuros that’s run by a friend of mine, and it was really interesting because we talked about Philippine history in a completely different context than what we were taught in schools, from grade school all the way up to high school, and even college.

There’s such a big gap in all of this. How food, culture and traditions to be specific, is communicated to young people. I really hope that at some point, the educational curriculum in high schools and all the way through college, and especially if you go to a culinary institution like I did... it would just make such a big difference to have that type of content where you talk about the history of Philippine cuisines, providing context around the culture of how and why our food traditions have developed in this particular way. It’s something that just doesn’t exist right now.

It’s not to say the people aren’t doing something about it. They definitely are. And the big part of the reason I’m here is because I wanna talk to these people, and try in my little way, to bring these stories to life a bit more. To show people all over the world, whether you’re local or somebody who’s just visiting the Philippines - one of the many backpackers who are traveling through this area I’m in right now - that the Philippines has such a unique food culture and heritage and traditions that are kind of buried under the surface, they’re hidden. They’re there but they definitely need a bit of explanation. Telling those stories through a local’s perspective is necessary, because foreign food writers coming into the city and talking about the latest Filipino heritage restaurant that’s opened is important, but it doesn’t paint the right picture. Filipino people have such a deep story to tell. Their experiences are what you can’t really replicate, and telling those stories in our voices, I think, is something that’s really lacking.

05:12 Why “the middles” matter

How it affects me is that, growing up here I always think about why would I spend several thousand pesos on a meal, when I could go down the road and not have the same ambiance or the same quality of food, but... [it’s] still sinigang, still adobo, still lumpia, all that stuff that you want in a Filipino restaurant.

I really, really wanna be able to find a way to bridge that gap between what people see, what people understand of Philippine cuisine and culture because that story of “the middles,” they need to be told.

But what exactly do I mean by “the middles?” Well, from a food perspective - I mean, stories about what the hundred thousand people who work at night in call centers around the country, eat for “lunch” at four in the morning. Or the history of street food staples like fish balls, kikiam (made with tofu skins), “adidas” and “PAL” that are honestly my favorite examples of odd bits and ends transformed into truly Filipino foods by their taste, preparation, affordability and name. Who else shouts, “Adidas please!” when they want some grilled chicken feet?

Probably not the handful of tycoons who basically run the Philippines, but people like those call center workers, who spend hours in traffic on the way home during the morning rush.

Those are people who I grew up with. Many of my friends worked and have built their careers and their adult lives around that industry. It’s a big driver of the Philippine economy now to be sure. Walking around the city, driving through the major highways, I see these large condo towers that are very similar to the way the condo boom in Toronto is happening and in many centers around the world, where you have people who were coming in from the provinces...and finding that prosperity and financial stability they didn’t have. That means a lot to them.

This is why the story of the middles matter. Because we now have the technology and the ability to reach so many people with stories of the food the sustains us – like, a fried chicken rice meal from the corner store, and the food that we celebrate with, like the sizzling sisig at spots like Manam or Sarsa in Manila that your Instagram-loving friend just has to have for their birthday.

This stuff is popular for a reason. It’s not just because we love fatty, salty foods. But, because it’s within reach and embedded in everyday Filipino’s definition of “comfort food,” and it’s been that way for decades, which is not a long time, actually. Coming from mass marketing that’s pushed American deep fried chicken into the cores of our hearts, and of economic conditions that turned chopped up pig’s cheeks, ears and skin, from leftovers into a restaurant specialty. That’s Filipino ingenuity.

But it’s not all rosy. If you look at things a little deeper - like I tend to do - you’ll notice class distinctions arise even when we talk about food. Like, for example, how certain kinds of food are so closely associated with the people who tend to make and eat them.

While I was in Manila, I stayed at this little bed and breakfast, a restored heritage house with a really cozy, kind of Spanish-era feel. The front desk got my request for a room with a balcony, adding that the neighbor next door made steamed rice cakes, called puto, every morning. “It might get a little loud,” she said, “when he starts grinding the rice.”

And then she goes, “Ma’am, you know they do that at four in the morning. We asked them if they could be quiet, but they said that they also have their business to run.” My first instinct was, I don’t want these people to have to change what they’re doing. That’s their way of life, that’s their living! That disparity is jarring sometimes.

It took me awhile to understand why this particular thing stuck with me. On a base level, it’s because I felt uneasy that as a guest at this boutique hotel - I’m awarded this kind of superiority, some kind of outward power over the puto maker. The guy who wakes up at three a.m. every morning to grind rice, make batches of batter, steam the cakes, wrap them in banana leaves, load them onto his cart, and then actually walk around the neighborhood for several hours in the hot sun hawking the rice cakes he’s made. That takes so much work, and an artisanship on the maker’s behalf. This guy doesn’t measure, and somehow the rice cakes turn out consistently fluffy even when the weather’s crazy humid and there’s a torrential downpour.

In place of apologies that a maker of native delicacies may possibly wake guests with the sound of their work, I hope that someday the front desk says something like, “By the way, you’re in the best part of town. There’s a native rice cake maker right next door, and if you want freshly steamed rice cakes with some butter or salted eggs for breakfast, all you have to do is ask.”

11:38 At the Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm

Next, we’re off to the farm, because I love going to farms.

I’m at the Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm. It is someplace in Angat, Bulacan which is about two hours or so outside Manila, give or take. This place is amazing. It’s got a working farm and there’s a couple of other buildings down the road where a lot of the students who are part of a program here called SEED, which is the School for Experiential [and Entrepreneurial] Development. They have been so overwhelmingly amazing, and I can’t even begin to describe how floored I am by a lot of these kids and what they’re doing.

12:35 Growing SEED (The School for Experiential and Entrepreneurial Development)

This is not a regular school. According to Gawad Kalinga - the non-profit that houses this school - it’s “an education based solution to rural development.” I highly encourage you to visit gk1world.com/seed for more information.

In short, it stands for “School for Experiential and Entrepreneurial Development.” It’s a two-year program developed by a range of innovators in the education, social enterprise and agriculture industries. The school is positioned as an alternative to community college. Basically, instead of taking generic courses, students apply for SEED and get housing, food, and an education for free, covered by a scholarship at the farm.

The program covers character and community development, business management, communications, financial literacy and courses on agriculture. While all of this seems pretty standard, the important thing to remember is who applies to be a SEED scholar. Those students are 18-20 year olds from some of the most poverty-stricken areas of the Philippines, from slums in big cities to parts of Mindanao where armed conflict is a part of everyday life.

The goal is to show these students how and why they are “world-class Filipinos,” an idea that Gawad Kalinga’s founder, Tony Meloto, stands proudly behind. To develop the countryside and uplift millions of farming families who live way below the poverty line, they say the focus needs to go back to farming sustainably and to growing crops that thrive in Philippine soil.

SEED follows a holistic approach to solving these kinds of issues. By providing young people from poor communities - the only ones who understand their problems best - what they need to succeed, they become more than a social entrepreneur or business owner. They become people who live with dignity and have an immense pride in their work. That was something I could see from the titas who served us meals and the people who manned the corner store. They become community builders who organize weekly volleyball matches and who, like a cog in the machine of empowering other people, think of themselves as more than just “a poor person.”

And so, back to the farm…

15:36 Why I love the countryside

The place where I’m sitting at right now is at the top level of a spot that faces this:

“I’m sitting in front of a tranquil rice field, with plots of land stretching as far as the eye can see, through the hills and into the horizon. It was late afternoon and the sun looked like a Sunkist orange, with carabaos and farmers dotting the field. I imagine, for a second, this is what it might have felt like for a plantation owner.”

Just to give you a better rundown of the people I’ve met here so far. I have been at the farm by taking a week-long tour with a company called MAD Travel, which stands for “Make A Difference” Travel. They are a social enterprise that also started at the farm. People who come here say that it’s life-changing and I understand and see why...because coming here throws you into the deep end of things.

But what exactly do I mean by that? Well, when you arrive at the farm, you start with a tour of the grounds. That includes the main assembly halls, the dorms, the cafeteria, the pool and basketball court, and further on something called “The Bamboo Palace” which I quickly fell in love with. Depending the kind of tour you get, you either spend an afternoon, several days or a full week with different entrepreneurs at the farm - preparing things like peanut brittle or carabao milk cheese, locally made iced teas, chocolate pastries or vegetables for community dinners.

You will meet so many different kinds of people at the farm. I get emotional thinking how, even in my short visit, I learned so much from the people I met. There was Christine - shout out! - our MAD travel guide and all around awesomest 18-year-old I know, well, after my sisters. She arranged our dinners, hung out with us and talked about her community at the farm, and had the prettiest pixie outfit hands down at the Halloween party - and yes, it was the best Halloween party I’ve been to in ages. There was tita Jenny and tito Jun, a bit of a power couple and host family for a number of French interns throughout the years. We saw beautiful pictures of their kids and the kids who’ve lived them, and on more than one occasion, was treated to jokes like this from tito Jun:

18:34 “What song does a centipede hate?”

“Are you familiar with the centipede? You know centipede?”

“Yes, yes.”

“What is the most hated song by that centipede or millipede? You want a clue?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a nursery rhyme, children’s song. Imagine the centipede singing, I have two hands, the left and the right, the left and the right, the left and the right…”

I legit cannot stop laughing every time I’ve listen to this clip. It’s just such a really good reflection of what our week was like there at the farm.

19:29 “Walang iwanan,” or no one is left behind

The two girls I’m living with here, both from the UK. They’re traveling throughout Southeast Asia and they booked the tour without much background about what Gawad Kalinga is, what the farm is about, and even I had a little bit of difficulty explaining to them at the beginning, know what’s to expect, because frankly I had no idea either. Everyone I’ve talk to so far from the dozens of French interns were here – there’s a lot of them – people who live in the community and the Gawad Kalinga communities, that very simple concept of “walang iwanan,” which in English means that ‘no one is left behind,’ is really the driving force to everything here. It allows people to approach problems and challenges and really different ways. Everyone who’ve we met, it just shows you on a really basic level how accommodating, warm-hearted, hospitable, and humbling it can be to live in the Philippines.

21:05 The stories that get to the heart of me

Many people go through tons of different challenges. This afternoon I was speaking with a student from that school I was talking about earlier. Many students have had started all these amazing businesses. Throughout the course of the week that I’ve been here, I’ve cried several times just listening to the passion and drive these people have. People who work in fancy startups in the big cities could learn more than a thing or two from them.

The person who I was talking with this afternoon developed a brand of flavored sweet potato chips and banana chips. She’s funny, she’s telling me that she dropped out of school for a couple of years due to a number of things going on at home. Really did not think that she would have the confidence at all to do much more than that.

I just have to stop here for a second, because there’s a reason I’m telling this story. This girl, who just so gamely agreed to sit down with me and tell me about this vegetable chip business they started - she later tells me, in Tagalog, that she was adopted and up until high school, didn’t really have any problems with the family who took her in. She did very well and got top honors in her class, and that allowed her to attend a private school on scholarship. But when her adoptive dad lost his job, things started to go south. Money became scarce to the point that – although she received another scholarship to go to college – the adoptive parents chose to send her sibling, their own child, to higher education. What you need to remember is that along with tuition, there are a lot of other costs that come out of pocket with attending college in the Philippines, like daily living expenses, books, supplies, money for transportation, etc. They couldn’t afford to give two kids that, so they chose one.

Depression set in, and in the two years she lived at home, she was abused by a relative.

Her story isn’t singular, as I learned many kids have similar reasons for coming here. I say that I’m floored by them, because beyond of all this – that sheer determination, that will to succeed and make a difference for themselves – it drives these students to do more with the help of others. Everything is done together here, and repeatedly, she tells me that without her family here at Gawad Kalinga, there’s no way her business and her life would have turned out the way it has. It’s a support group and for these young adults, it’s the strongest, strongest kind. People who have already faced insurmountable difficulties in their lives find a home and an environment for them to grow in.

She’s talking about putting all her products through prototyping, spending so much time on product development marketing, learning the financial end of things. She mentioned that they used to take tricycles just around town and now they are going to Manila and Makati, places in the city where big corporations and big companies are based. One of their co-founders has gone to France and Australia. I met her briefly the other day. She said that she used to be a street vendor and after two years of the program – through very hard work, perseverance, dedication – has managed to put up her business, speak on behalf of her fellow students, to go places in France and Australia that they’ve gone to. As I’ve spoken to people over time, you just see that, coming here, if you expect this beautiful orchard – with organic vegetables and farm-fresh meals everyday – it’s not necessarily the case, but that’s not the point.

The point is that you have to come with open mind and heart as you possibly can because that is what’s most rewarding. You get to meet people from so many different backgrounds. People who come here for very different reasons, but have found their purpose and place by immersing themselves in the communities. I think the biggest takeaway from this is that, if the students who come into that SEED program are faced with so many things that would make so many people just falter and fall...it’s never a barrier for them, and they don’t even think of it as a reason to not do things and not keep going. That determination to succeed is driven by the fact that they want to make a difference for their family, then for themselves, as a secondary thing. It’s always the family first.

The great thing about traveling is that, you get all these opportunities to be exposed to other people and ideas that hopefully provide enough food for thought for you to learn from. If the only thing that I can do for now is to share these stories with you, and if you’re willing to listen, I hope you are inspired to learn more about it and realize that the Philippines is so rich in products that are really good. I’ve had some carabao milk butter that’s bloody fantastic and is served in Amanpulo, in some of the top restaurants in Manila right now by one of the city’s top pastry chefs. I’ve also tasted ice cream made from carabao milk, flavoured with ube.

There’s so much untapped potential in the Philippines, in general, and I truly, truly believe that.

28:59 A journey to ancestral lands

Finally, we head to Zambales, a coastal province also within a few hours’ drive of Manila. I found out about this trip called Tribes and Treks online, and the idea behind the tour just seemed totally up my alley.

Going through the ancestral lands of the Yangil tribe was such an experience; it was just why I travel. We met an amazing group of people who were there for something called “Life Stories,” which is what MAD Travel organizes in coordination with ‘Where To Next’ – a online group of people who want to travel with purpose, who are curious about the Philippines. It’s a group of people in their 20s and 30s – young professionals – who wanted to participate in the kind tour that allowed to see things a little bit differently and share a little bit about their life story, any challenges they’re facing, what things are on their mind that mean something to them.

This whole process of learning about ancestral Philippine cultures, about indigenous tribes whose livelihoods are very close to the brink of disappearing, it just highlights the need for sustainable travel and supporting those types of communities. For the Yangil tribe, for example, their lands were nearly wiped off the map when Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991.

Lots of land was just covered in ash and sand. You have these pictures of churches where the only thing that’s left are tall belfries that are several stories off the ground. Trekking through that terrain where the sun is just punishingly hot, for the while you are walking though it...as a traveler from the city or even out of the country – you go, “who lives in these types of conditions?”

You trek through these rivers that just cut through the lands. You have the mountain ranges in your backdrop. You can see it if you look left or right, walking alongside carabaos and the chief of the tribe who has accompanied us from the drop-off point up to their village. The first thing we did when we got there was we planted seedlings. As they explained, much of this terrain really took a very long time to regenerate because, what once was fertile soil was just covered by sand and ash, and nothing grows there.

Just listening to their stories of how, after the first several years, life was very, very hard for them because it was a day-to-day struggle of surviving. What they were able to previously rely on – things as simple as root crops, fruit from trees – all gone. These ancestral lands are at the risk of losing their traditional food ways, their traditional ways of living. Younger people are more and more leaving their tribes and going off to the city.

One story that one of the elders shared was with regard to schooling. At the community they have a multi-purpose hall which serves as community center, a place where people gather to talk about any visitors who are coming to town, stuff that happens around. It also serves as the classroom for kids, basically up until first or second grade.

There’s about 30 kids there right now, and once you go past that, they basically have to make this 10-kilometer trek – the same trek we were on – up to the drop-off point where they would have to walk into town to attend school. Everybody does this. From when you’re eight or nine years old, in the second grade all the way up to high school if you make it there.

34:27 Planting black-eyed peas in a nursery in a valley

Going back to what we did, we planted some seedlings – black-eyed peas – called kadyos in the local dialect. We stuck them into little black bags where we had some potting soil. The goal is to just regenerate as much of it as possible. For some of the trees – mango trees, rattan trees – their eventual goal is to be able to plant these trees back into the slopes of the mountains, which, as beautiful as they were...you could totally see the contours of the mountain ranges, you realize they’re beautiful and you could see so much detail from them. But that’s because they’re completely empty of trees. It’s going to take many years and a lot of heroic effort on behalf of visitors and locals together, to begin that process of replanting. Being there just makes you realize how much of this is very much a big picture, but also very localized and concentrated.

35:49 The Yangil Tribe

After we planted the seedlings, we bathed in the river for a little while. By ‘bathe’, I mean, we just got in there with our trekking gear, little rocks everywhere in our clothing. And then we headed off into the village of the Yangil tribe. We were met by a small community of about 35-50 families. Lots of kids around with the biggest smiles on their faces. The elders of the tribe had prepared this beautiful feast for us with their version of tinola, a chicken soup with green papayas, chili leaves, ginger. And we had chicken adobo, which was very tasty, a salad with some locally grown tomatoes and onions – everything has to be locally grown because, again, really the only way to get into the village is through that trek and hauling stuff in, like actual groceries and whatnot, requires the use of a carabao and a cart.

They performed some traditional dances for us. We got to shoot bows and arrows. Just the openness of every person in that community that they shared with us, people in the city who were just coming in for an afternoon...to see a genuine appreciation from the kids who were there, is the kind of stuff that makes such an impression on you. It really does make for real travel with purpose. With MAD Travel, their mission is to promote sustainable social tourism, which means that, we go there to learn about traditional indigenous cultures and also to provide a form of income for the community where there previously was none.

37:46 The importance of a light switch

Just to give you a bit of the impact of this, one day before we got there, there was a group of guests who came with Globe Telecom, one of the two big mobile phone carriers in the Philippines. Someone from that team had visited or heard about the place and had a fundraiser to donate a solar panel to the community. The chief was proudly showing us that they now have electricity in their little town hall. Over time, people have donated books for kids, little sets of chairs and tables. Very simple stuff you need for a classroom.

And just that, bringing a solar panel to provide light and a charging station for their mobile phones, that in itself is a big thing for them because that’s their way of communicating with the outside world.

38:41 Tourism that gives back

In 2017, that is a very concrete example of the benefit that this type of income generation can sustain for communities because it’s the combination of being there and learning from other travelers that really, really gives me hope for the future of this type of tourism in the Philippines. Of tourism that gives back, bringing a livelihood into areas that have struggled through very long periods of time preserving the Aetas’ culture.

One way that made very much sense to me, as our guide from MAD Travel had put it, is that, in the past, with so much of the struggle of each person in the community put towards staying afloat, towards living, your focus gets shifted away from preserving the knowledge of what their ancestors have passed on to them through generations.

Another activity we did was just walking around the forest and having elders of the tribe point out different plants and how to use it. A lot of them only have native names. They’d pick something up, let us crush the leaves, and then they’d explain that “this is used if you have colds, if kids have a stomach ache, as a source of food, from different trees and root crops and plants.”

The important thing is that, we recognize at this point that this type of knowledge is something that has to be preserved. If we don’t provide communities a means of livelihood to take care of their basic necessities, they have no other choice but resort to instant noodle packets because that is what’s available to them, that’s what they can get from town. Doing that diminishes the knowledge and the pride that older folks in the community have, and it just doesn’t allow them to pass on that knowledge to younger people. Younger people then in turn, don’t see the value in preserving all this.

I think that’s a great effect of having visitors come into the community with a stated purpose. Not for us to bring in luxury facilities or whatnot...but to understand that all this is “for you” because, as much as we’re there to experience how people live there on a day-to-day basis, we go in with the knowledge that we want to do this to help preserve that heritage. It’s something that I would really like more people to experience, especially Filipinos who are living abroad or have not grown up in the Philippines.

If you travel any place with the mindset of just learning as much as you can from that area, I think you do walk away with so much more than that day’s experience.

WRAP-UP

Special thanks this episode to my friend Dustin of Manila for a Day Tours. Please check them out online at manilaforaday.com. I highly recommend his 3G or God, Gold and Glory tour, for an experience walking around the old city of Intramuros like no other.

Also my warmest thanks to the folks behind MAD Travel. You guys, you’ve got a place in my heart and I look forward to working with you on bringing more guests to experience what the Philippines has to offer! Visit madtravel.org for more information about upcoming trips and the amazing partners they work with, like the super chill Circle Hostel in Zambales where we stayed. Find them on Facebook and Instagram, where you can also follow Where to Next at wtn_wheretonext. You will love this feed.

Our theme music is by David Szestay, other music for this episode is by Eric and Magill, Komiku, JBlanked and Blue Dot Sessions. Visit fma.org to hear their music and more.

As always, you can find me online at exploringfilipinokitchens.com. We’ve got past episodes on this site and you can also find Exploring Filipino Kitchens on Facebook and Instagram. If you liked what you hear, I would really, really love it if you told a friend!

Maraming, maraming salamat, and thank you, for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 09: On Travel With Purpose To Manila, A Farm And Ancestral Lands” (Click the episode link for the audio!)

The Ancient Filipino Diet - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Dr. Ame Garong below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

I would like to start off this episode by saying that, there were a lots of times over the past couple months, where I’ve felt way in over my head. And that’s pretty common, right? I don’t always trust that I can figure stuff out, and when that happens, my confidence just tanks when things don’t go right.

But when they do, things can turn out really, really well. This summer I co-hosted a Filipino food tour in Toronto, where we visited three Filipino food spots in the city that were run by second-generation Filipino-Canadians. They’re really different from each other, and honestly, I loved getting to know this community!

It was fantastic getting to know these different business owners who were totally passionate about sharing Filipino food in ways they knew how to do best. The first place we visited was a fast-casual restaurant that used to be some place where you could buy groceries and send home a “Balikbayan Box.” The other was an artisan ice cream shop - you know, the kinds that sell those black ice cream cones - with lines out the door for creamy ube ice cream and polvoron pie. The third was a bar, and oh, I love bars! They make everything in-house, from noodles made with squid ink to longganisa sausages with this crazy good marbling, made with pasture-raised pigs just outside the city.

Talking to these really driven, super passionate people about the businesses that they’ve built their lives around made me realize a couple of things:

One, you really can’t take away this knack that Filipinos have for being hospitable people.

Another is that we really do want to cook this kind of food, the food we know best, for others because it is legitimately good and we want you to try it.

Third, we do what it takes to educate ourselves and our customers about the tastes and the food culture of the Philippines.

Those types of realizations, it’s pretty profound when you think about it - these guys are in their 20s and 30s, they’re people my age, and they’re doing what they can to bring that food culture forward.

All of this, in essence, drives the question that I want to answer this episode: Why do we need to know about the history of our foods, and going a little bit deeper into that, about the ancient Filipino diet?

That’s what we’re talking about this episode.

Thankfully, we’ve got the foremost authority on the subject as guest on our show today. Dr. Ame Garong, who’s a researcher of the Archeology Division at the National Museum of the Philippines, wrote a book in 2013 called “Ancient Filipino Diet.” It’s the first study of Filipino food in prehistory, before any colonizers or foreign influence arrived in the Philippines. It’s written to explore and understand the prehistoric diet of our ancestors.

Admittedly, the book itself is pretty technical, but its contents are outstanding. Today, we’re talking with Dr. Garong about her research and her experiences at the different places they visited, digging for clues to tell us what our ancestors ate. Also, kind of answering how much of this lines up with what we eat today as Filipinos both in the Philippines and outside the country.

I’ve been so excited to do this episode for some time now, so let’s get straight into it.

INTERVIEW

04:34 What it’s like to be a Philippine archeologist

NA: Dr. Ame Garong has worked at the National Museum of the Philippines for 21 years…

AG: So it’s quite a long time already that I’m working in the Archeology Division and eventually that became my career as an archaeologist. I’ve been doing lots of excavation, more on burials. My focus is more on zoological research that entails understanding food resources, subsistence of humans in general.

NA: She graduated with a zoology degree in one of the Philippines’ oldest universities, and…

AG: Originally, my intention is to be a doctor. However, I failed to achieve that ambition. Because of my frustration that I did not go to medical school, my father, who is a Methodist pastor, he suggested that why don’t I take a master course in anthropology. So I said, “why not?” Then my father said, “It’s about culture, it’s about humans, so you can know other people by studying them.” So I said, “Oh! That sounds interesting.”

05:55 How her career started

AG: And then along the way, I had a classmate who told me that the National Museum is in need of a zoologist. Since I had a zoology background, and I already had a year of anthropology courses, I decided to apply. However, at first I failed, because they only needed one, and they hired someone who had more experience.

So, again it’s another frustration. However, maybe I was destined to be an archaeologist. A month after, they called me back, informing me that there’s another position. They need a researcher, so I immediately did not think twice. I said, “Yes! I am available…”

NA: Even amongst the most accomplished people, frustration and failure can be pretty common. Despite being a subject that deals with a lot of ancient stuff, archeology in itself is a relatively new field in the Philippines.

AG: It’s like 20 years in the Philippines that we’ve had this. So, maybe not everybody knows that we are offering that course.

07:18 Early fieldwork

NA: I asked Dr. Garong about what some of her early experiences with field work was like. For example, her first excavation site was something called a “habitation site” where…

AG: What I first saw were old potteries, the remains of utensils…

NA: ...and then she got to work on a real burial site, in the province of Negros, where…

07:42 “An accident happened…”

AG: We were excavating this plaza, and they have these funerary goods, Chinese wares or ceramic goods together with the remains of the humans. Of course it’s my first time…

NA: ...and like many first times…

AG: An accident happened. There was this pebble on the ground…

NA: This is like on ground-level ground. So, technically above the actual pit where Dr. Garong and her team was busy cleaning up their latest find.

AG: ...and then there was a movement from the surface. That pebble fell on the skull of the individual and caused the skull to be broken.

NA: Oh no! I would have cried on the spot if that happened to me!

AG: My senior was shocked and I was scolded. But actually, it’s an accident. I was not really aware that there was a pebble there and something just made the movement. I don’t know because I was really engrossed in exposing the skulls, the bones. So I really felt bad after that. It was on my hand, it was under my responsibility. But that’s another lesson learned. From then on, I was so careful and always checking my square if there is something like that. I should remove it before I go down. After that, I’m a bit okay.

09:32 How do we find out what our ancestors ate?

NA: So, if we wanted to find out what our ancestors actually ate as a part of their paleo diet, where would we start? If you were someone like Dr. Garong…

AG: Since I am doing archeology, it’s far beyond the history. So, I’m focusing on diet. We use the paleo-diet analysis. NA: And far beyond the concept of a food trend even existing, this paleo diet was the real deal. That means early humans ate these foods because it’s what they knew how to prepare and consume.

AG: One of the best way to know the paleo diet of our ancestors is by using stable isotope analysis.

NA: But what exactly is stable isotope analysis? That’s pretty technical, I know. And, how does it help us identify what prehistoric Filipinos actually ate? In Dr. Garong’s book, she explains that for stuff that’s organic - think of flesh and blood and anything that goes into a green bin - the ratio of carbon and nitrogen isotopes in that organic matter tends to be stable enough, so that even thousands of years later, we can apply modern technology and scientific techniques to find out where the protein in that properly preserved sample of bones usually comes from.

AG: That’s the best way if you wanted absolute information on diet.

NA: I am totally getting flashbacks of playing “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego” and thinking about how awesome it would be, now, to join Dr. Garong on one of these digs.

11:20 What exactly was in their paleo diet?

NA: So, what exactly were some of those foods that ancient Filipinos ate? According to Dr. Garong, she says that, “Food sources in the Philippines, especially plants, haven’t differed much then as now.” She adds that, “Plants collected for this study served as staple food since prehistoric time.”

What that means is that, it includes indigenous varieties of sugarcane, rice and millet. Meaning, ancient Filipinos knew how to grow these crops, and if you momentarily blank on what the Banaue rice terraces are – that’s pretty close to one of the sites Dr. Garong worked in – I suggest you look this up right away.

At some “newer” burial sites, they found corn that came with the Spanish galleons - a much later part of our ancestors’ diet. There were also root crops that included native varieties of taro and yams, and lots of old world bananas. Sago palm was consumed in some regions.

There were gastropods, bivalves - snails, coconut crabs, oysters – shellfish of all kinds. Prehistoric Filipinos, like many people across the world who lived in coastal areas, knew that seaweed was a delicious and really nutritious source of food. There were fish of every size, shape and color. Early ancestors of things like catfish, tilapia, mudfish, dolphin fish and flying fish that you see in some Philippine markets today. Maybe the flying fish is a bit uncommon but in rural areas they might still be around.

Across the archipelago, and especially in mountainous areas as we expected, our ancestors hunted and killed a lot of wild game, including carabao, deer and wild boar. They trapped smaller creatures like bats, civet cats, low-flying birds and other kinds of local fowl like chickens. When they learned how to domesticate animals, a lot of them learned how to herd goats and keep pigs to add to the community’s food supply. Remember, in prehistoric times, barangays, or these communities with a leader usually called the datu, were common ways the communities in the Philippines arranged themselves.

13:53 Stuff they’ve found in archaeological sites

NA: So I asked Dr. Garong if she could give us a few examples of what they found in different areas of the Philippines.

AG: In archeology, once you have decided, you will have an idea of the food resources. If you have some animals that you recovered from your excavation, and then you identify it as a bovine or pig or goat, that will give you an idea. That’s a clue of the possible food sources of those individuals. But then, it’s just a clue…

NA: Which means that a scientifically-backed isotope analysis basically trumps what we simply used to presume, were the things people ate, because we found some gnawed-out bones buried with the ancients.

AG: What I did, I used the protein to get their sources of nutrients. I extracted the collagen from the bones. I took samples from many individuals. And then, in Japan where I finished my grading, they have a laboratory where you can do everything that you need for a stable isotope analysis. So, you have to extract the collagen from the bones of those individuals and once you get the values, I need also to establish the food resources from those municipalities or areas that I use.

15:32 Batanes and ancient fish

NA: Let’s go on a trip to the Philippines. Some of the sites we visited are: Batanes, Lal-Lo in the Cagayan Valley, Benguet Province, Sta. Ana in Manila, the city capital of Cebu province, and a couple of other places.

AG: One of them is Batanes. Both the National Museum and U.P. Anthropology have excavated in that area. So that means I can get more than five individuals. I also went to Batanes to get samples of their staple food. I can also use that to gauge the value that I can get from my analysis. I went to the fishing village. They have this fish that they said they’ve used as a staple food for a long time. I interviewed elders to ask what they remember as their old food.

NA: This particular fish from Batanes is known as the arayu. It’s a type of dolphin fish that’s line-caught and really a lifeline for many, many generations of local Ivatans. This fish, which is often slung two or three at a time – they’re huge, across fishermen’s backs when they haul them in from the sea – are split down the middle, scored into equal portions, then salted and dried for a week in what can only be called “unpredictable” Batanes weather. Remember, Batanes is at the very tip of the Philippines.

NA: In Batanes these fish are either hung in a dedicated smokehouse that’s made of bamboo and palm trees just outside the kitchen in people’s backyards, or over the hearth in the kitchen, slowly smoked as they go about with their daily cooking, to last for the rest of the year. What’s amazing is, how these local fishermen, called mataw, have perfected this preparation for arayu fish over centuries. It’s such a testament to the artisanship that’s needed to preserve this kind of fish, and it just lasted through time for the very same reasons that their ancestors had this fish for a staple food.

18:07 A giant heap of shell trash in Cagayan Valley

NA: In Lal-Lo, Cagayan Valley…

AG: Going down from Batanes, I worked in Lal-Lo, Cagayan Valley for 10 years from ’95 to 2005. Lal-Lo is very famous for its shell midden. It’s made of freshwater shells. The locals they call it kabibe. We found some burial sites in the shell midden…

NA: …and this shell midden, as Dr. Garong describes it, is basically a large trash heap of discarded shells from sea creatures. They were thrown into this huge pile by generations of prehistoric Filipinos in the Cagayan Valley. Over time, these prehistoric garbage dumps basically also became burial sites. The dead were laid to rest above this layer of shells, and then finally much later on, they were also buried under layers of fine, silty clay that flowed down the river from the mountain ranges up north.

AG: You can see how our ancestors relied on this Cagayan river by gathering and collecting the shells as their food - for the meat - and they just threw it in the riverbank, and it piled up.

NA: And here, Dr. Garong says, some of these shell deposits can get up to 10 feet deep. While some other sites are from the 16th century, and some have been dated to come from as far back as the neolithic period – that’s when people learned how to use metal tools like shovels and axes to domesticate crops and herd animals – this neolithic period in our global history is also widely considered the beginning of farming.

AG: So, that’s the shell midden along the Cagayan river. That is really very interesting.

NA: I’ll say! It’s easy to forget a lot of the history that literally lies under our feet.

One question that stumped Dr. Garong and her Japanese colleagues, though, has to do with what they found after examining those human bones that were at the top of this shell pile. Remember, there’s the 10-foot layer of discarded shells, and then above that were human bones from ancient grave sites. Those human bones must’ve had traces, in somewhat large quantities, of all the shellfish they ate, right? But...

AG: We found out that those who got the shells, they did not eat the shells. Instead, they make the salted kabibe - salted meat - and then it’s like preserved food. Then, they will sell it.

NA: So, all that work that our ancestors did to harvest the shells and extract the meat, turns out that wasn’t even for their own consumption. Instead, it was to make preserved oyster meat, that may have been traded with inland communities or early seafarers that traveled along the Philippine peninsula, possibly going all the way to China, possibly even in encouraging the development of oyster sauce. Mind blown!

21:29 “Tinapa” mummies in Benguet

NA: In Benguet province…

AG: They have this ritual that will last for a year. It’s removing all the muscles, the fat of the individual, like tinapa.

NA: Tinapa is a Tagalog term for smoked fish. Traditionally it’s made with scad or milkfish. It’s salted or brined, hung out to dry and finally, smoked. Tinapa taste intensely of the sea, and I kind of love them ’cos they look like little sun gods basking in their golden brown glow, especially when they’re all laid out in these neat circles on a woven tray called bilao.

AG: All you can see is the skin. It’s only in Cagayan where we can find the practice.

NA: So these mummies in Benguet province, the ones that are found in wooden boxes, have been dried and preserved in a process similar to smoked fish. I wonder if these practices are connected.

In Manila…

AG: If we go to Manila, we have this Sta. Ana site. It’s close to the Pasig river, actually, and based from my studies they utilized the Pasig river for their food.

22:50 Why Cebuanos love corn

NA: In Cebu...

AG: If you go to Visayas area, we have the Bolho-on.

NA: That’s in the province of Cebu. And here’s an interesting thing. If you ask native Cebuanos about some of their favorite foods, no doubt a large chunk of them will swear by corn. But have you ever wondered why is that so?

AG: They cannot grow rice. That’s why they like mais or corn, and millet.

NA: According to what Dr. Garong’s research uncovered, despite being so close to water, most of the human bones they found were actually not composed of sea creatures, but instead largely of plants that are called “C4 plants.” In the book she identifies these as rice, corn and millet. So what we can surmise is that in pre-colonial times, dating back to the same metal age of those shells up in the Cagayan valley, indigenous people in Cebu grew millet. Over time though, rice became a staple crop in other regions of the Philippines and never really took hold in Cebu because the soil was mostly made of limestone, and rice simply don’t grow well on limestone soil.

Later on, when the Spanish brought corn to the Philippines, that’s when locals realized that corn loved this kind of soil and growing environment. So, mais thrived and never left the Cebuanos’ diet.

Next, I wanted to know: what were some challenges that Dr. Garong and her team came across?

24:51 Challenge #1: Time and thieves

AG: If it’s already past 5:00 pm, we need to stop our digging, our excavation. Before you remove and recover all the materials, including the bones, you have to properly expose it. Our scientific illustrator needs to draw the whole structure or the whole skeleton, including the artifact, together with the human remains.

NA: So, as Dr. Garong tells us about her early digs, they’d go about their work and, at the end of the day, cover up the site they’d started digging, for the night.

AG: Actually we’re not really that cautious because we thought that the local people, who used to watch us during the day...would protect that. We’re doing archeology and we’re doing lectures in the schools.

NA: But, then…

AG: The next day when we returned, somebody did the excavation and they removed the ceramics. So, from then on I started to gauge, to have the sense of time. We really need to estimate whether we can still finish or not.

NA: So basically, as soon as they see hints of a new layer of bones - if it’s close to 4 or 5 pm, at the end of their day – they realized that it was safer to leave the site undisturbed for the night. Because once you start working on it, you can’t really go back. You gotta keep those bones and artifacts away from extreme exposure to harsh winds or humidity. Then, the illustrators and photographers they have on the team have to document where everything is in relation to the skeletons and other markers that they’ve found. So, you have to actually do the work of carefully excavating these items that are hundreds of years old.

AG: So, it’s better if you have the whole day, the whole time to do it. Then at five o’clock you have this peace of mind that you don’t worry that other people might be doing “archeology” at night...whoever has this negative feeling about archeology. So it happens, always.

NA: I could say it breaks my heart to hear that, but in reality, I prefer being optimistic. The core of the problem is that locals see this group of scientists digging about their land. Maybe they don’t fully understand what people find so interesting in a pile of bones. But what they do know is that sometimes, these digs unearth pottery, and they know how to make money from that, in some way.

28:11 Challenge #2: On rituals and religion

AG: When it comes to burial, it’s very sensitive. You need to be an anthropologist. You need to observe if they have some rituals that they perform for burying their loved ones.

Even though I am a Christian, I am a Methodist, in my faith - we pray. In other communities, in other ethnic groups, they have their own ways di ba (don’t they) of remembering the dead.

NA: So in every community that they visit for a dig…

AG: I ask somebody to pray, like a shaman. I will ask if someone can lead us, so in that way, we are making ourselves visible to the community, in a way trying to adopt in their practices.

NA: They provide offerings of food, sometimes cigarettes and liquor…

AG: And after that, once we do the excavation, I always invite people to visit us.

NA: They found it’s a way of educating people, and…

AG: Telling them that we’re trying to recover it carefully, not to destroy it, because we need to study them. And after, they will be brought to the museum for proper storage. Prior to that, we will try to study them first and hear if they have other things to tell us beyond the historical aspect. Nobody can tell us unless we try to dig it. So, that’s the only way we will know how our ancestors lived during those times.

NA: To many of us, that probably sounds a little archaic, but it’s a reality that researchers like Dr. Garong face, working in remote and deeply rural communities in the Philippines.

And this leads into…

30:33 Challenge #3: A lack of knowledge and involvement

AG: The community, they’re always there in their community. But the National Museum only goes there for a month. After that we will go back to our office. But it’s the community who will protect whatever heritage we can tell them that they have.

NA: I just want to add here that “telling locals of the heritage they have” in this context, means explaining how and why archeology is important, why it matters. For Dr. Garong and her team, who work with a respect for local communities front and center, it’s not about “stamping out” beliefs or even falsifying an ideology that’s been in place for hundreds of years.

When outsiders come in to make changes or propose a new way of doing things, naturally they’re met with resistance, and that’s common anyplace in the world. The study of anthropology in itself, deals so much with this really complex way that humans behave.

But what’s important is getting locals on board with that basic need to keep these kinds of sites undisturbed. This kind of involvement…

AG: We’re protecting the cultural aspect. It’s really important also. So they should know and they should also be informed that they should not ruin it or do something bad. Instead, they have to really protect it, kasi (because) it’s part of our heritage, and that’s the only way we will know our past.

NA: And with this approach, Dr. Garong hopes that…

AG: The community will understand and be familiar with what we are doing. They can also report to us if they’ve seen those materials already, and we can check and we can explore. So, it will also add information for the National Museum.

NA: …and by extension, the body of knowledge in Philippine archeology as a whole.

32:56 What’s next?

NA: “So, what’s next?” I asked Dr. Garong.

AG: Actually, Nastasha, it’s my dream to continue the isotopic analysis and to reveal more of the resources.

NA: In addition to building a body of research on ancient Filipinos and how they lived, this stable isotopic analysis…

AG: It can also reveal environmental situations or conditions.

NA: …in other words, it gives us information about what the country’s climate and geography used to be like. And combined with modern day research, this helps scientists better understand how to tackle the big questions that we face today, like how climate change affects farming, fishing, and everyday life in the Philippines.

AG: Hopefully I can still continue doing this in the future. There are still other sites that can be explored with this kind of research. At the moment, I’m still working with other burial sites in Negros and still working, with understanding the funerary practice in the Philippines during prehistoric times.

There’s still a lot to study about the practices of burying our loved ones and other analysis that can be done, like ancient DNA, that’s also one of my dreams.

NA: And working on ancient DNA, I just discovered, is an actual thing.

WRAP-UP

My warmest thanks to Dr. Ame Garong for speaking with us for this interview and answering all the questions I had about the Ancient Filipino Diet. I hope you learned as much as I did in the process of researching for this episode.

Music for this episode is by David Szestay, that’s his music you hear in the opening and closing credits of the show, “Gillicuddy” and “Blue Dot Sessions.” Visit fma.org to hear from these artists and more.

My special thanks to Rajiv at “The Kitchen Bookstore” for connecting me with Dr. Garong. If you’d like to get a copy of “Ancient Filipino Diet,” visit www.thekitchenbookstore.com and head over to their Filipiniana section to order. They’ve got some amazing titles.

Finally, if you’ve come this far, I do wanna ask you a favor. I would really, really appreciate a short review on iTunes. That helps me reach more listeners and in turn, gets more people get to hear about these awesome stories of food in and from the Philippines.

As always visit exploringfilipinokitchens.com or find “Exploring Filipino Kitchens” on Facebook for updates.

See you next month at maraming salamat - thank you, for listening.

This is a transcript of "Episode 08: The Ancient Filipino Diet With Dr. Ame Garong" (Click the episode link for the audio!)

On Pinoy Heritage - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Francis Ang below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

Today we’re talking with Francis Ang about Pinoy Heritage, touching on what it means for him, and how his experiences led to the Pinoy Heritage pop-up dinners that he organizes with his wife, Diane.

I’ve got to confess, I’ve been following Francis online for awhile – mostly on Instagram – and I love how he plates his renditions of classic Filipino dishes. The colors, the textures, the brightness, somehow it evokes this sense of movement on a plate, and it’s so interesting to see homey Filipino dishes like adobo or kilawin plated in such a way. But it never feels out of touch – at least for me – and I’m pretty particular about that kind of stuff! What I mean by that is, it’s not strictly fine dining food, but it totally merits – in my mind – like a full spread in one of those glossy food magazines I subscribe to.

The plates that are served to people during these Pinoy heritage pop-up dinners are beautiful to me in representing Philippine cuisine, because I get the sense that Francis puts a solid understanding or getting a solid understanding of the cuisine first. After chatting with him, I realized that the knowledge gap I’ve been trying to identify and address these last couple years – specifically about Filipino food – is an actual problem that exists, and it’s not just me with my crazy book collection. Simply put, there’s a lack of accessible resources on Filipino food for those who are interested it. Whether you’re in the Philippines or some place else across the globe, a lot of younger Filipino chefs – I’m hearing – are coming across this issue and hopefully this kind of knowledge gap is something we can address soon.

Anyway, today we’re going to hang with Francis Ang, to talk about how the Pinoy Heritage dinner series started, where he finds inspiration for his take on Philippine classics – very Bay Area inflected – and about introducing Philippine food traditions and recipes to diners who aren’t really sure what to expect when they go to a “Filipino pop-up dinner” – this very newfound way of sharing some time and crowd-tested food traditions from the motherland.

Here’s Francis.

INTERVIEW

FA: Hey, my name’s Francis. Hello everybody! We run Pinoy Heritage, as Nastasha mentioned. It’s me and my wife, and Danica, our other partner.

NA: Could you tell us a little bit about where you grew up? Maybe some of your early cooking experiences and how that led to what you’re doing right now.

03:20 Training at culinary school and in San Francisco’s best kitchens

FA: Yeah. I grew up in Manila. Never knew really how to cook, honestly, until I was 19, until I went to culinary school in city college. Growing up, I’m Filipino-Chinese. So I grew up with diverse food – Filipino food, Chinese food; going to Chinatown, and then until I came here, I learned how to cook. So I went to city college…

NA: That’s in San Francisco…

FA: …and my first class was Pastry. That’s when I appreciated pastry a lot more because it was a creative outlet. Growing up I never knew how to sing, dance, do anything, like paint or draw. There’s just zero talent. So I went to city college and I appreciated pastry, and then I focused a lot more on pastry. I worked in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, mostly on the savory dishes, and then I worked at the bakery, and then eventually left, worked at Fifth Floor as a savory cook.

FA: I was trained first, at Gary Danko, which does a lot of classic French dishes, pastries, and whatnot. Then I went to Fifth Floor with David Bazirgan. He’s very spice-heavy. He’s American-Armenian. I learned a lot about spices, and then we get this amazing wall full of different spices. I cook for Taj Campton for pastries right now; it’s California-Indian. Again, more spices.

04:58 A life-changing visit to the Philippines

FA: From there, in 2013, I went on vacation with my wife to the Philippines. It was during that time we were in Samar when typhoon Yolanda, or Haiyan, happened. We were there and we got stuck an extra week off the grid. It was pretty crazy. We didn’t know how extreme the typhoon was. I guess nobody knew. Towns were displaced, just wiped off the map, families were disappearing. It was chaos.

FA: After the typhoon we walked around different towns, neighboring towns. It was devastating. It was… I don’t know. There’s no words for it. So we went to the market. We tried to buy whatever we can just to be able to feed the neighboring town. We were lucky because our town – my wife’s family’s town – there were two islands blocking it, so the waves didn’t go in. The other towns beside us, they were just wiped out. We bought two sacks of sweet potatoes. We did as much as we could. We didn’t realize how fragile life is, how crazy. One second you’re okay, and next you just disappear.

NA: I can only imagine the type of experience that someone can walk away with, after being in that particular environment, where you’re really seeing the communities and how resilient people are even in those types of situations. I guess they really did have a big impact on how you decided to move forward with your cooking career, and what you wanted to do once you got back to San Francisco.

07:08 The seeds of Pinoy Heritage

FA: So we came here, back to Fifth Floor. We did a fundraiser of Filipino food. People were really happy and it was well received. That planted the seed for us, for Pinoy Heritage.

FA: By the way, when we were gone there was a whole lot of chefs here in San Francisco – they did a huge fundraiser for the Philippines. I didn’t realize until we were in Manila; they’re calling us, “Yeah, we’re this fundraiser. Everybody was calling you, everybody was calling your family, trying to figure out where you were, even your mom didn’t know where you were, what happened...” because there was no communication at all. We were supposed to fly out Tacloban where the eye of the typhoon happened, and the majority of the chaos happened. It’s astounding how human beings react to help each other. It’s very humbling for sure.

NA: In 2013, I volunteered with an organization called NextDayBetter. You may have heard of them. I know they’ve put up a couple of events in San Francisco as well. But the big driver to that particular organization was really the typhoon too. For me living in North America at that time, humbling was totally the right word to use because then even strangers would volunteer and participate in these fundraisers and you really see that the amount of care that goes into caring for other people, and it’s totally a reflection I guess, of the Filipinos themselves and how that comes out in whatever they’re doing.

NA: One of the things I wanted to tell you that I really love about your dinners here is precisely that, where the way you share photos of the stuff you’re working on, and how you come up with certain dishes. Even that in itself is really encouraging and it really excites me as a person who’s never come to your dinners to come and check it out. I guess my question is, when you first got back to San Francisco and started thinking about wanting to put up these pop-up dinners,, what did you have in mind? Were you thinking of doing your take on some regional dishes or were you driven more about a lot of local California produce? Just wondering what you can share about how the dishes first came about.

10:24 Interpreting traditional Filipino dishes

FA: So, I knew I wanted to make Filipino food after that. I don’t know how or why. It was something that’s been a calling; I’ve always put Filipino dishes here and there in different formats – either savory or desserts – to Fifth Floor, Dirty Habit, or wherever. Even the Taj Campton I consult right now is California-Indian, but I still sneak in some Filipino ingredients in there.

FA: We’ve been doing this pop-up for about a year and a half. It took a while for us to figure out what we wanted to do and what format we wanted to go. Last year we traveled the Philippines for culinary research for six months. That actually opened our minds to how much unknown territory we don’t know. We went to Bicol, Eastern Samar, drove up to Northern Samar, all the way Bicol, to Manila. We learned all these amazing dishes that inspired us to create new renditions of.

11:34 Personal experience as a source of inspiration

FA: We just keep taking notes and then asking either our neighbor’s cook, or relatives, relatives’ relatives. They’re like, full-on “Alright, we’re cooking today, and over the next three days.” They would ask us what kind of dishes do we want. And I was like, everything. One day we cooked like 10, maybe 15 dishes. There was like, a lot of us. There was three full cars of just family driving up north to Manila from Samar. So there was a lot of food, but there’s a lot of people to eat it. We cooked a ton and, you know, you just take your notes and you come here, you go to a farmer’s market, which we love here in San Francisco, this a bit of a sight. Every day there’s a different farmer’s market. It doesn’t matter what day of the week.

FA: So, you go to the market, you see that, and then it triggers some memory like, “Okay I should do pinangat with swiss chard,” which we recently did. We traveled in Ilocos as well. We learned how to make Ilocano empanada. And then last winter was endive and chicory season, so we use that as a filling instead of green papaya.

12:51 The “soul” needs to be in it

FA: The way we create a dish is, the Filipino soul needs to be in it. Whether it will be a traditional dish that we spin off, or a traditional ingredient that we use. For example, let’s say pancit. We would make pancit, then think of Italian pasta. So we would think of adding a touch of butter, and then put in soy sauce, garlic, that’s how we spin off the dishes.

NA: I think one of the things that makes it really relatable, like the stuff you’re doing now and the stuff that a lot of chefs are doing now, where second or first generation Filipinos think there’s really a lot of that respect that comes with understanding what the “soul” of those dishes are, and I totally love your comment where “your rendition” or “your take” of a certain food has to be ‘rooted’ in some part of that dish...you wonder what the original Filipino delicacy or dish is about? For example, pinangat, as you mentioned. Can you tell me exactly what pinangat is? Is it taro leaves that’s wrapping something?

14:24 Dishes with roots

FA: Mm-hm. The way we learned it there is, you take a fish and then they paksiw it, which is, they cook it in either vinegar or some acidifier, garlic, onion, ginger and then they scrape it. Then they add chopped taro leaves and stems. They put it inside the taro leaf, wrap it, and then cook it in coconut milk. The way we learned it in Bicol, that’s how they did it.

NA: Bicol is a region widely known to be the Philippines’ best place for cooking anything and everything with coconuts. I even got a book called “The Coconut Cookery of Bicol” that attests to how ingrained it is in the local culture.

FA: So I take that same concept and just apply it to whatever local dishes we can get here. There’s just amazing, amazing produce here in San Francisco. I can’t stress it enough!

NA: So that’s really what kind of makes it a bit of a hotbed for these types of food ‘concepts’ – you can still call it that – for experimenting with how you want to interpret just how those kinds of dishes are really developed or inspired by traveling. Around the time you were visiting the Philippines last year, as well, I was also there. The purpose of my visit then was I wanted to go to Mindanao, because I have never gone. When you grow up in Manila, there’s still a big cloud that hangs over just visiting Mindanao in general, like what kind of food they have there. I was really curious about visiting Davao and I went to visit some chocolate farms and where they grew coffee there. I totally treasured the three weeks I was there. It was a short stay but I learned so much.

NA: After I came back from that trip, that’s when I decided I totally wanted to do the podcast. I want to keep blogging about it because the only way you are going to be able to start sharing those kinds of stories about certain foods in those regions are eaten, and how people enjoy them too. There’s not enough people talking about it, so the part that I can do best for myself, as someone who writes and does a lot of media stuff, is to kind of do it my way, to talk about it online.

NA: I guess it’s a very similar concept for even the Filipino Food Movement. We have all these folks joining the Instagram page and sharing their homemade recipes. It’s really heartwarming because you see so much potential and a lot of drive behind people exploring their own identity and their own appreciation and understanding of the food through whatever way they can, whether they do it professionally or at home.

17:34 On travel plans

FA: That’s very true. We honestly have a trip coming to try to go to the Mindanao region – Davao, Zamboanga, General Santos – hopefully, we’ll see.

NA: That trip happened after we recorded our interview...

FA: But we’re definitely going to explore that Malaysian-Indonesian Muslim region. That specific cuisine is very different from what you grow up in Manila. So I’m trying to incorporate more Filipino dishes. That’s why we want to travel to Mindanao where the spices are really…

NA: Yeah, like try out palapa and see how that’s made from scratch kind of thing?

FA: Honestly, the only regional cuisine like that is in Manila by Quiapo. I’ve never had it before until last year. I was like, “What the hell is this? Oh my God! I need to travel more.”

NA: Yeah! Galing ano? (Awesome, isn’t it?) It just really makes you realize how large the Philippines is and to get to explore all that.

FA: Yeah. I think what opened our mind to it was the Madrid Fusion for sure. Last year, Chef Tatung was talking on stage about Mindanao cuisine…

NA: That’s Chef Tatung Sarthou, a very well respected chef and advocate for regional Philippine cooking…

FA: …and that was definitely a reason to go check it out. Right now we’re asking people we know, so we can actually get relatives or whoever to actually teach us the dishes, because you can’t just go there and say like, “Hey I want to learn.” Everybody’s going to look at you. You got to find people you know.

NA: Exactly, absolutely, and that’s what’s exciting to me about Filipino cuisine. You touched on it a little bit earlier where you’re going around and you’re going through all these towns. Even to me, I guess where it comes from is that, there’s so many different techniques and so many different, even ingredients that many other Filipino folks are not familiar with either because they’re not from that region maybe, or they just haven’t heard about it or not very many people use it in regular Filipino cooking.

NA: So that’s what’s really exciting about the stuff you’re doing with Pinoy Heritage, where you’re trying to incorporate a lot of these cooking styles and techniques with the stuff you serve to guests.

NA: Let’ switch gears a little bit. I’m going to refer to a couple of dishes that you have in your Instagram feed just because I want to see how some of those dishes were made. So for example, the pinangat you mentioned. I see that you have swiss chard, pickled stems, halibut, coconut milk, kumquats, and baby shrimp. So, I guess in that presentation, how did you do it differently from the regular pinangat?

FA: This one what we did is, we got some fresh coconuts. We used the water to poach the fish. We poached the fish, we took it out and then we marinated it like the paksiw, the vinegar, ginger, garlic. And then we folded back in the blanched swiss chard. Then we cooked the coconut leaves from raw and then you just keep cooking, cooking, cooking. Eventually your fish becomes either really tough or really soft. It’s delicious either way but I want to make sure it translates well here.

NA: If you’re testing a recipe, for example the pinangat that you want to translate into stuff that you are going to serve at the pop-up dinner, when you’re testing it out in your kitchen, what are some of the things that you keep in mind? Like for fish like that, you want to make sure that it stays the right texture, like –

22:11 Dishes come from what’s local and abundant

FA: Yeah, we have the right tools to do the pop-ups, so for this one we have a controlled oven where it doesn’t go crazy with temperatures. A lot of the dishes we create use whatever’s available, whatever’s in season, what we can get. Majority of the inspiration is just what’s around, and there’s a lot around. So, kumquat is just amazing. The fish needs to be cut with something, a little bit of sweetness, a little bit of acidity, brightness. Watermelon radish is just like another funk that adds to the dish. And then the baby shrimp is alamang that we might have just brought here in the States from the Philippines. And then we add a little bit of vadouvan – it’s like a French curry – very onion-heavy. So we add a little bit of that to add another layer of flavor. It’s got acid, spice, fattiness, and just freshness from the kumquat.

NA: This attention to detail is what really makes this style of Filipino cooking stand out. You can see where the professional training Francis had that shapes things. Gary Danko, that first restaurant he worked in, is one of San Francisco’s top French restaurants. If you look it up online, you’ll see “superb dining” and “exemplary service” as common descriptions of peoples’ experiences eating at the restaurant.

NA: But what’s worth celebrating, I think, is the fact that Francis takes that sensibility for creating a really memorable dining experience, not something often associated with Filipino food especially in the restaurant circuit. Sourcing local ingredients and translating Filipino recipes to adapt to that local produce while improving upon traditional cooking techniques, all this stuff contributes to developing the profile of Philippine cuisine as a whole.

NA: This approach definitely isn’t something that only Francis does, not by a long shot. It really inspires me to think that more people are starting to think this way about our food, because it’s not “boxed in” by what your grandparents think it is or what traditional Filipino food is supposed to be. And if you don’t live in the Philippines, that isn’t a barrier at all! There’s so much interest in Filipino food – by both Filipinos and non-Filipinos – I think because we’re really starting to realize how much there is to discover about the culture and the traditions and the geography and just the origins of these everyday things that are very normal for Filipinos, especially for regional cuisines.

NA: One of the things I want to ask you about is the influence, because you mentioned about some of the other chefs you worked with before, at the first was more like traditional French and the other one where you were really encouraged to play with spices and understand the depth that spices can really bring. In terms of expanding your different styles and what you want to do with some of these Filipino dishes, how important is it to you to be able to learn from other people, from other chefs, and use that as a springboard for some of the stuff you want to do?

26:38 Why you need to go to the Philippines

FA: Every chef’s experience creates their own originality, I think. That’s how I think of Filipino this way and another person can’t. We just cook a different way. It’s not like my Filipino dish is better than yours, it’s just very different. I think what’s the most important part is - which I tell a lot of chefs, about Filipino food - if you have the chance, if you have the time, you really need to visit the Philippines. It’s just beyond of what you think. Every time I research something, we find something new and it’s just very inspiring. You really don’t want to f-up Filipino food for the rest of the people. So please do your research, and you really need to go visit. You need to find the soul. That’s the most important part.

27:39 A nod to tradition

NA: You gotta find that soul. I guess, in a nutshell, that is what Pinoy Heritage is about.

FA: Yeah. Basically what we say is, our Filipino food is a nod to tradition in a California sense, basically.

NA: Can you tell us a bit about what your pop-up dinners are like? Who comes to the dinners, and what kinds of feedback have you received?

FA: To be quite frank, everything is well-received. People who go in to pop-ups aren’t the same people who go in regular restaurants. They know what they’re getting into, either a good review from a blog or a food writer. But all-in-all there’s a lot of people who haven’t had Filipino food, who go to the pop-ups. Everybody so far is pretty happy with what we’ve put up and I can’t say how blessed we are with the pop-ups we’ve had so far. There’s a lot of support definitely from the Filipino Food Movement and just local media here in San Francisco. Even local chefs are just coming out, local industry people are coming out. It’s really cool. We definitely feel the love down here.

NA: What’s it like in the community of Filipino chefs over there in San Francisco?

FA: We all pretty much, for the most part, know a lot about each other. Collaboration-wise, I haven’t really collaborated with a lot, but we all support each other here. We go visit each other’s restaurants and find each other inspiring. It’s grateful. It’s just cooking styles are different everywhere.

NA: Would you have ever thought back then ,when you were a teenager in Manila that you would be doing this, like now?

FA: Absolutely not! I don’t know how to cook until I was like 19, 20. I think it’s more of survival that I learned how to cook because you grew up in Manila, you’re pretty spoiled. You never have to cook anything. Then you come here and like, “Oh man! I want Filipino food. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know have any money. But you have to learn!”

NA: Back home, when I was growing up, we had a helper at home. She was our yaya who helped raise myself and my two other siblings. She would often do the cooking. My mom and my dad were both working. They worked like insane hours and they’d be home every night at ten o’clock because traffic in Manila is just horrible. It didn’t even occur to me until I moved to Canada and I moved out of my parent’s house because I went to school in a different city. One of the reasons why I started writing my food blog with my Canadianized recipes is that I was really craving for sinigang one time because I was sick and I was living by myself and I’m like, “I don’t know how to make sinigang from scratch!” I don’t even want to go to Chinatown to get the produce because there is really no other way that I can make sinigang by going to my local grocery store. Stuff like that kind of made me start thinking there must be a different way to get the dishes or do the dishes I want to satisfy the craving or the flavor I am looking for.

FA: You definitely take it for granted until you come out on your own, for sure.

NA: Did you have any particular Filipino foods that’s your favorite?

FA: Definitely sinigang. I grew up a skinny kid and everything else didn’t seem good until sinigang. Growing up when I was like five, six years old, it took me like two hours to eat a meal. And then if it’s sinigang, it’s like 10 minutes lang (only). For sure it’s sinigang.

32:04 Advice for interested cooks

NA: Do you have any advice for people who are interested in cooking Filipino dishes and recipes but maybe aren’t sure where to start?

FA: For me, for people who just want to learn how to make Filipino food, you need to travel to the Philippines. First, it’s a good excuse because the Philippines is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Amazing beaches, the most hospitable people. That’s a good excuse for you to learn how to make Filipino food. Just know that, yes there are traditional ways, but you don’t need to go the traditional route. Just know the soul of the food and the dish, because Filipino food is an evolution. Either the Chinese traders, then the Filipinos absorbed it, think of like lumpia, pancit. And you got the Spanish, you got the Malaysian influence. So it’s just an evolution of food. Eventually Filipino food will blow up here in the US… or I guess it has already. It’s evolving again to involve local produce, what’s available here. I wouldn’t say it’s fusion. It’s an overused word and people just butcher that word. Even though Filipino food is true fusion, in a sense. So just make it tasty. Don’t try too hard. Just make it tasty. And it just needs the soul. That for me is the most important part. The soul.

NA: You got it, Francis. To me too, it’s that soul paired with this almost ingrained hospitality that I love about sharing Filipino food with others. It gives me a lot of pleasure and joy just being able to do that.

34:20 On Filipino hospitality

FA: Filipinos are known for being hospitable. It’s just very genuine. You come to a Filipino’s house – “Oh let’s eat. Have you eaten yet?” “Kain na. (Let’s eat.)” It’s always, you have to be full. If you come to my pop-up and you say, “I’m so hungry.” By all means you need to tell me this, I will feed you until you’re happy.

FA: I’ve told people in my pop-up dinners, “If you’re hungry, you let me know. I will send you another course, and I will be very happy to do that.” That’s just part of it, of being Filipino. You just take care of people. There’s just genuine love, I think. We’re just wired that way. Yeah, it’s beyond a job, it’s just second-nature, I believe. And people here in North America who have Filipino friends and have been into their family’s house, I’m sure they’re agreeing with me too, because they’re not going to leave until they’re extremely full.

WRAP-UP

And with that, I hope you’ve found this episode just as satisfying. I’m definitely craving some kind of Filipino food, so I’m probably going to end up making something for dinner. Visit pinoyheritage.com to learn more about Francis and his team, and to book a seat for their next dinner if you’re in the Bay Area.

My warmest thanks to Francis Ang for this interview. I definitely look forward to where Pinoy Heritage goes next!

Music for this episode is by David Szestay for the opening credits, Eric and Magill, and Lee Rosevere. They share their music along with an incredible roster of artists at fma.org.

For those of you subscribed to the show, I’m so sorry this month’s episode was a bit late. There’s a lot going on here in Toronto and I’m so excited to share that with all of you soon. I’ve been involved with a number of different Filipino food events in the city, and the energy from each of those projects, each of those communities we work with, it really is something to experience. I can’t say that enough. I’m hooked on sharing Filipino food culture in as many ways as possible. If you’re interested in learning more about that, head over to nastasha.ca to learn more.

And as before you can subscribe to the show on iTunes by looking up ‘Exploring Filipino Kitchens.’ My RSS feed is now finally working again. So please do subscribe, and if you had issues with it before, it should be working now, but please do drop me a line if you are having any problems with it. And visit exploringfilipinokitchens.com for further information about this and other episodes we’ve done.

Maraming salamat, and thank you, for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 07: On Pinoy Heritage With Francis Ang” (Click the episode link for the audio!)

Cooking Filipino Food At Home - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Betty Ann Quirino below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

Today we’re talking with Betty Ann Besa-Quirino, an author, recipe developer and prolific blogger whose thoughts and experiences on cooking has personally helped me develop confidence in my own cooking abilities – to become part of what keeps global Filipino food culture alive.

I’ve been reading Betty Ann’s blog, called Asianinamericamag.com, for awhile now - pretty much since I started cooking Filipino recipes from scratch. What I love most about Betty Ann’s writing is that it’s very personal. She writes truthfully, and like the best blogs, I always feel like I’ve walked away with some kind of reward, or treasure, after reading her posts about cooking Filipino food at her home in New Jersey.

So I asked Betty Ann if we could talk about home cooking - and particularly, the kind of Filipino home cooking that first and second generation Filipinos who grow up in the US know. And these are lessons that apply to understanding every kind of food culture, not just that of Filipinos.

There’s a deep love for food that’s simultaneously comforting and also really ecstatic. Between friends, I’ve found that although our love for the food runs deep, there’s still a bit of apprehension with actually cooking the dishes we crave, either because we know our moms make it best, or we’re not familiar enough with the cooking techniques and get this fear that we just ruin a dish would take over. Maybe that’s just me, but it’s a familiar feeling!

This episode, we’re talking about what it’s like to cook Filipino food at home. I can’t promise that we won’t make you hungry.

BQ: Hello Nastasha, and hello to all your podcast listeners. My name is Betty Ann Besa-Quirino. I’m a Filipina at heart who lives in America. I live in Northwestern New Jersey. I’m a writer by profession. I’m a cookbook author, a journalist, and I’m also an artist.

NA: Betty Ann has also written a book about her husband’s grandfather, a former president of the Philippines named Elpidio Quirino. The foundation they’ve helped start, continues to advocate for accessible education among students and teachers in the Philippines. Betty Ann is an active member of several research and journalism committees as well, including the International Association of Culinary Professionals based in New York, and a group called the Culinary Historians of the Philippines.

BQ: Right now I’m a correspondent for Positively Filipino, a premier online magazine that publishes out of San Francisco, and I have a blog called Asian in America, where I transform traditional Filipino dishes to modern meals in my American kitchen.

NA: I’ve been reading Asian in America Mag for several years now, and that’s one of the things that I’ve found really manifested itself in your blog posts, it’s a really big inspiration too. Roundabout the time that you started your blog, there weren’t that many Filipino recipe blogs online at the time. I remember that was when around the time we first moved to Canada and if I would start to crave some things, I would start searching for recipes. I always came across your recipes online there and I always enjoyed the stories. That was such a big part of cooking for me, that there’s always a story involved about the Philippines and life in America and that kind of thing.

04:25 “People paid attention to my stories?”

BQ: Oh thank you! That’s very encouraging to hear and I’m flattered. I didn’t realize people paid attention to my stories. It’s just that I was beginning to feel the I was boring people, and I don’t want to come off as a very self-centered person in my writings. So lately I’ve been trying to cut shorter my stories, but that was interesting to know.

NA:I think it is really valuable and I guess it’s kind of eye-opening in some way too, because for Filipinos sometimes, we still have this tendency to feel a little bit shy about ourselves and our cooking. So even – for example – if I’m cooking at home with my mom, we’ll talk about making dinner or something, or cooking Filipino food, and then I’ll tell her, “I cook this for my boyfriend who’s not Filipino.” And she’ll go, “Oh well that’s just lumpia. Would he like some?” And them I’m like, “Yah, he actually really does!”

NA: So, I really like that your stories are very descriptive and it’s a mark of a good journalistic take on it.

BQ: Oh thank you! Now I’m looking at my blog and I’m wondering, “Really? She likes my blog!”

NA: Some of my friends also know about Asiainamericamag.com because of all the recipes that you have published over the years. Could you tell us a little bit about how the blog started?

06:07 From writing ad copy to blogging and authoring

BQ: Okay sure, I’d love to. First of all, the blog is a recent writing platform. I have been a writer all of my career life. I have a degree in communication arts from St. Paul University in Manila. So, right out of college I worked as a copywriter for an ad agency. For many years, that was my life. I was very proud because I was trained by the best in the industry in the Philippines. It was a lot of hard work, but I learned so much. It was a very diverse industry and field, and you learn to write for everything – motor fuel, airline, cars, butter, noodles, ice cream, beauty soaps, detergents, and our clients from Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, San Miguel Corporation, Nestlé…

NA: And those are some of the largest corporations in the Philippines.

BQ: ...And it is hard work but I was trained by the best. So, that’s honed my writing skills.

NA: And if that wasn’t enough...

BQ: Oh, and I also was a college professor for Assumption College when we were living in the Philippines. I taught creative writing and advertising.

NA: Now THAT’S impressive. “So, how did being an advertising copywriter and college professor lead to the blog?” I asked.

07:30 Moving to the US

BQ: Then we moved to the US and of course, life was different, totally different. Totally different from what you see in the movies and magazines, and it just shatters everything you dreamt about living in America.

NA: This was the first of several “real talk” moments during my conversation with Betty Ann that’s stuck with me; that difficulty of adjusting to life in another country as a new immigrant. I understand what she means by how it shatters you, perhaps not always in a way that other people can see, but you know is real.

NA: Anyone who’s started life in a new country inevitably becomes familiar with that feeling of being very far away from the world and family you know, with a day-to-day reality that doesn’t always match up to what most other people think life in America is going to be like.

BQ: Our children were very small. Our youngest son was only three years old. Of course, I opted to stay home and raise them even if I had offers to work in ad agencies. New York City is 50-60 miles away and I just won’t do that, leave the children. So I took some part-time jobs along the way just to be close to home, research jobs. I also taught language at Berlitz Learning Center because I’m also fluent in Spanish; I was teaching professionals Spanish to English. So those were things that kept me occupied as my children were growing. Before I knew it, they were soon off to college.

BQ: I have been home-cooking the whole time and all my life. That was the norm for our family, home cooking.

NA: And so with the help of her American-raised children who became digital product designers and cross platform journalists, Asianinamericamag.com became one of the first Filipino recipe blogs that consistently landed in top search results for Filipino recipes.

09:36 Starting the blog

BQ: I was afraid that my sons will be eating junk food when they go off to college, so I started writing recipes in a yellow pad for them. But being millennials they preferred something digital, so they told me, “Mom, you need to have a blog.”

BQ: So then my son Tim, who’s now a product designer at Facebook, he told me, “I’ll create it for you, and I’ll only teach you once. Then you’re on your own.” My youngest son Constante, is a journalist and a communications major. Both of them went to Drexel University in Philadelphia. Constante also gave me tips on writing for online publications.

BQ: So that’s how the blog started. It was a desire of a mother to make sure that her sons were well-fed while they were away from home. Even the name was off the cuff and done in a hurry because we were at the dining table and my son Tim – the older one – was starting away, and he said, “Okay what name do you want?” “Oh I don’t know,” I said. So I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. I had no idea what I was doing. But both of them said, “Mom, you’re a writer and you write about food. So you’ll know what this is all about,” they both said.

BQ: So that’s how it started. I had the camera but it wasn’t a nice one. Eventually, my husband started giving me for birthdays and Christmas - cameras, lighting equipment, and the boys did the same. Now they give me props for my blog or for my cooking.

BQ: So, it has grown. It was a writing platform at the start for me, and it grew.

NA: I love that story that you just shared with us because one of the things I really like about blogs is that it allows you to be very intimate with your writing in a way you can share it with other people. I was smiling as you were telling me the story about how your sons had encouraged you to start it and prompted you to start doing the recipes and recording them online because it’s such a great example of how really very family-oriented a lot of these types of projects begin, especially with cooking and especially with Filipino cooking.

12:22 On food, family, and cooking

BQ: Food, family, and cooking has always been central in our lives. Like I told you, home cooking has been the norm for us ever since. My sons, I taught them how to cook, and now I’m very proud they do better than me in the kitchen. It’s always a feast when they come home. There’s so much noise. We fight. They shoo me away from the kitchen. Now they think they know better, and they do! They actually do. It’s a very fulfilling and gratifying feeling and I’m very proud of it. I’m proud of how they turned out and I’m so happy when I hear from people that they read my blog, they love my recipes. It’s always my intention to help somebody, to share a recipe, if I can make somebody’s day better, that gives me a lot of happiness.

NA: As it should and to me as well. Personally, what I find very rewarding about it is really being able to share that experience as well as the story too.

13:35 Growing up on a farm in the Philippines

NA: I mentioned over email a few times that, really when I started learning how to cook Filipino food, was really when I moved out of my parent’s house because I was going to college downtown. With a lot of Filipino families too, there’s still the tendency where, you know “Oh you know my mom will cook it,” or “I’ll come home.” And there’s always like something that someone in your family has made, and after I moved out it was like, “Oh you know I’m craving adobo or pancit,” and all that. Then I’m like, “Oh well, I have to learn how to make it,” because no one else will be able to make it for me unless I go to get some take-out or something.

NA: It’s very reflective of me realizing that so many of these food traditions I didn’t really care about much while I was growing up, became really important as I became an adult. That’s what I’m finding in your blog posts and recipes over the years. They’re like a marker of life and things that you’re experiencing, that kind of thing.

NA: Naturally, I wanted to know more about how all of this started for Betty Ann, so I asked her to tell us about where she grew up.

BQ: I grew up in a very rural, agricultural province. Tarlac was my home province. I was raised in Tarlac up to high school. Then I went to college in Manila. But my father – by nature, by profession – was a farmer. He was an agricultural businessman. We owned farms and we owned rice fields and sugarcane fields. I was raised in that kind of environment. Our home had a large, huge backyard in the back. And we had cattle and we had a piggery and we had chicken and goose. I can’t even remember what other animals we had. Then we had fruit trees and vegetable crops. That was my way of life growing up. I didn’t step into a supermarket to buy food until much later, by the time I was merely a teenager. As a child, I remember being tasked with collecting the eggs from the chickens we were raising. For as long as I remember, there were always brown eggs because that’s how farm-raised free range chickens lay eggs.

BQ: For years I would collect the eggs and put them in the basket and later on, when we went to the city – by this time I was, I think it was fourth grade or fifth grade – my first experience to see white eggs in the supermarkets, I was shocked. The first thing I asked was, “Who washed them? Why are they white?!”

NA: …as if to say, why do these eggs look different from what they should be? They should be brown right?

BQ: So yun nga (that’s it). That was my kind of upbringing. Everything we had on the table was from produce that we grew in the backyard or our farm. As the seasons came and went, then our vegetables and fruits were seasonal.

BQ: And that’s how I learned to cook. I started going into the kitchen, and if I could reach the kitchen counter, one of my first task was trim the edges of sitaw, long green beans. I remember that. That’s why I love sitaw because that was one of my first tasks, to remove the edges of it with my fingers first, and later when I was old enough to hold a knife I was assigned to cut it into smaller pieces to be cooked.

NA: That’s the magic of bringing kids into the kitchen, pretty much as soon as you can trust them to keep their hands off of hot items, because those are the kinds of lessons that need to be learned. They need to be internalized in their own way. I totally remember snapping the ends off from these bright green beans like the yard-long ones Betty Ann talked about. They’ve got this little snap to them when you break them off, kind of how you’re supposed to snap off the woody ends of an asparagus stalk at the point where they naturally break. It’s a good task to give like six or an eight year old maybe, get them all set up in the kitchen, prep some vegetables next to the grown ups while they’re cooking. It’s the kind of stuff that sticks, until you’re grown and you have your own little kitchen helpers to share that kind of experience with.

NA: These kinds of food memories, in the end, are the things that drive us to write the stories that matter; the stories that we get to tell from our own perspectives, and in our own voice, driven by the need to connect with some part of ourselves that we’re looking for, or maybe have lost, in the “now” or the reality of our everyday lives.

NA: This next story is about mango jam, and it’s Betty Ann’s award winning piece in a food writing competition that’s like the gold standard of Philippine food writing.

19:50 The story of mangoes in a jar

BQ: I saw in your website you have the book ‘Savor the Word’ of Doreen Gamboa-Fernandez’ Writing Award Essays. My essay ‘A Hundred Mangoes in a Bottle’ is in that book. I won an award in 2012, and if you read that essay, it’s all about making mango jam. That is a very memorable essay for me because I grew up cooking with my mother, learning from her, and mango jams in the summer were one of the most important traditions we used to participate in.

BQ: Fast-forward to life in America. A few years ago when I saw mangoes in the market, I was so excited and I said to myself, “Let me recreate the mango jam of my childhood.” I was trying and I couldn’t quite get it. At the same time, I was refreshing my writing, so I was taking writing classes with Monica Bhide…

NA: Monica is a renowned food writer and cookbook author with a dedicated online following. Her blog about modern Indian cooking has led to several book deals, leading workshops and international conferences…

BQ: …and she was coaching me on different writing styles. I told her about the mango jam experience…

NA: …and Monica basically said, “That’s a beautiful story, why don’t you write about it?”

BQ: …so I said, “Yeah, why don’t I?” So, she said, “Write an essay about how you made mango jam with your mother.” So I set off to write an essay, then I went back to my writing teacher, went back to Monica and I said, “There’s a problem. I can’t write the essay.” She said, “Why not?” “You know? I just remembered, one of the most painful things I remembered is I never asked my mother for the recipe. My mother died in 1981, so of course six years ago, I couldn’t ask anyone anymore.” I told Monica, “How sad is that? I’m really, really so sad that I never asked my mother for the recipe of the mango jam. It’s something we did for so many years and I took it for granted, and I never asked her. Why did I not ask her?” I said, “I know how to do it, but I don’t know the measurements. I don’t know how many mangoes, how much sugar, or the temperature, or what kind of mangoes to choose.” I was so sad, and Monica said, “You know what? There’s your essay. Write about the sadness.” And I said, “My God! That’s hard! I’m going to be crying for every word.” “And that what makes a good writer,” she said.

BQ: So I wrote the essay. Long story short, I wrote it, 800 words, showed it to Monica my writing teacher, showed it to my sons, showed it to my husband, and they all said it’s good. “Yes,” I said, “it’s good. But I’m not giving it to anyone,” I said, and I put it away in a drawer. I kept in in a drawer for years.

NA: At that point, Betty Ann says, she just wasn’t ready to share something so personal yet; something that affected her deeply, that touched upon a memory that wasn't just about food, but really about loss and regret.

BQ: Then one day, I saw the Doreen Gamboa-Fernandez Writing Awards. They were open to submissions and, even if I was in the States, they encouraged me to “Yeah, why don’t you submit?” So I emailed my essay, and I’ve won an award…

NA: Which just goes to show that if you’ve got a story that needs to be told, go ahead, tell it! Because there’s no other person on earth who can tell that story better than you can.

23:50 “Who cares?”

BQ: When I wrote ‘A Hundred Mangoes In A Bottle’ essay, Monica – my writing teacher – encouraged me to submit it to several publications. “But, first of all,” I told her, “Who will be interested in this? People who don’t know me are not going to care.” I said, “It’s about my personal sadness, and there’s no recipe. So ultimately, nobody will care.” And she said, “No you’re wrong, no really.” The thing is from my perspective, who’s going to care about my sadness? If you don’t know me, are you going to care? Who’s going to care about mangoes if they’ve never tasted mangoes. I also said, “It’s about a rural town in a province in the Philippines that people have probably never heard about.” There’s really no draw for the reader; that’s what I kept thinking. So I kept it.

24:50 A lesson learned

BQ: So what did I learn from that? Nobody else has your story. Every person is unique and if you worry about things that have not yet happened, then it’s an exercise in futility and it’s just going to make you crazy. I should not have said to myself, “Hey, nobody’s going to care.”

NA: See what I mean by real talk? Thanks for the life advice, Tita Betty Ann! It’s all real in many respects. There’s absolutely nothing to be gained by simply waiting for something to happen to you. I can’t help but think of how motivationally engaging that is; to know that other people experience that same kind of vulnerability you feel, that you’re not alone.

NA: Drifting away from our story for just a little bit. I just want to talk about this event I went to not long ago called “Fear as Fuel,” organized by my friend Gelaine who runs a social entrepreneurship meet-up group. Amazing, right? Anyway, I’m glad I went that evening. It was at a co-working space right across the Christie Pits Park in Toronto. At the event, there were business owners, people who ran workshops, people who were looking to find a community of other self-starter kinds of people. Honestly, taking part in that form of community engagement – for me I think – really helps. In the end, it’s kind of nice to hear other people go through similar kinds of challenges with their lives. You can feel vulnerable about work, about relationships, life in general. But you kind of just have to learn how to overcome them, and it’s a lot easier – or at least a bit more comforting – knowing that other people experience that same kind of fear, that same kind of vulnerability too.

NA: Next, I wanted to hear about things Betty Ann has learned over the years as a food blogger and recipe developer; like cooking techniques she’s honed or adapted for her North American kitchen, and examples of ingredients she’s used to substitute for more traditional Philippine fruits and vegetables.

28:02 Finding ingredients is a challenge

NA: I’m wondering over the years, what kinds of substitutions have you had to make? Say for calamansi, for example, because that’s kind of a really very popular, integral thing to a lot of Filipino cooking, but even here, it’s not very easy to find.

BQ: No, it’s not. Here’s the thing. As far as the ingredients are concerned, substitution has always been a challenge for me and I will say, for most people who do not live close to a Filipino community where Filipino groceries or Chinatown are far away, it’s always a challenge.

28:43 Three components to successful recipes

BQ: How do I deal with it? First of all, I came to the realization that for the success of a recipe, there are three things that are needed: ingredients, ease of the recipe/how easy it is to do, and the delicious result. If you have those three things, those three components, then your family will have a very good meal. It doesn’t matter if it’s a simple adobo or an elaborate paella. You have to have ingredients, ease of the procedure, and a delicious result.

29:22 Substituting traditional Philippine ingredients

NA: So, how does Betty Ann get that in her own kitchen?

BQ: Early on, I realized I will not always have 100% of all the ingredients in my Filipino notebook or my Filipino cookbook. So, I learned to memorize what flavor I wanted to achieve and I taught this to my sons. Then I kept searching and searching for the right substitute. For example, if we got invited to Filipino parties in New York or where Filipino communities are, I wouldn’t ask, “Oh where did you buy your calamansi,” or “where did you buy your pancit.” I wouldn’t ask. I pay attention to the flavor that was achieved, then I keep that in my memory, in my mind, in my heart, in my senses. Then I go home and try to recreate it to the best of my ability. Calamansi was only something I recently found because it’s only lately that we have frozen calamansi. In the early 90s, we had to go to Chinatown in New York, which was 60 miles away by car for us. Even then it was always expensive, so why do that? Later on, through asking, through researching, and through tasting myself I found that Meyer lemons are the closest in flavor to kalamansi. So I kept that in mind, even in my blog I say that, I said that to friends, I share it as a cooking tip to other fellow Filipinos, or to those who are not Filipino who want to cook Filipino food. That’s one.

BQ: And you know, everything down the line, if you need a souring agent for sinigang? I know that tamarind is not unique to the Philippines and geographically it’s used by other neighboring Asian countries. So, this was like in the early days of the Internet, in the early 90s. I researched for ingredients from other cultures, from other stores. Sometimes, international markets will have a wider inventory of Thai ingredients versus Filipino products, so that’s where I look.

NA: And really, the 90s were not that long ago. Thinking about how difficult it was to source certain types of Asian produce then – before the arrival of today’s international mega-marts and online shopping and even Asian vegetables like bok choy and those yard long beans we were talking about, available at local farmers’ markets – you would really have needed to think outside the box and kind of critically about the flavors you were looking for. If you couldn’t get the ingredients you wanted at the closest grocery store…

32:30 Remember the origins of a dish

BQ: When you have to remember also the origin of the dish – again I taught my sons this one; aside from remembering what the flavor is trying to replicate – you have to remember that basic Filipino dishes in the Philippines, they use backyard fruit; like sinigang, pinakbet, they always use backyard fruit; nilaga, whatever is the produce from the backyard is what goes in the cauldron, and that’s what you cook with. That’s important to remember. That’s how I learn how to substitute ingredients here in North America. You just have to remember the origin of the dish. You have to remember how it tastes like, and then you go on your search to try to recreate that by being creative and finding different sources.

33:40 A visit to the Ilocos region

NA: Switching gears a bit. Next, I wanted to talk about culinary trips, and some of Betty Ann’s travels to the Philippines that she’s written about online.

NA: I know earlier you were telling me about the experience you gained as a copywriter in the Philippines early on in your career and how a lot of the skills and the lessons you learned, copywriting for all these different brands and these different types of products kind of fed into your approach to writing in general with being creative. For people listening as well, I’ll post the links to two of Betty Ann’s articles on Positivelyfilipino.com.

NA: Specifically the one you sent over to me was something called ‘Holiday Dishes With Ilocano Flavors’ and ‘Day Trips to Culinary Heaven.’

BQ: The Ilocano Flavors coincidentally, that was the same year we were celebrating the 125th birthday anniversary of the late President Elpidio Quirino who was the grandfather of my husband. So the entire Quirino clan was going to get together in Ilocos in November 2015. As early as a few months before the trip, here in America I was already planning, “Hmm, why don’t I research about Ilocano food and write about it?” It was twirling in my mind already; the different ideas, different things, and what approach I could do, because I knew we will be served the flavors of the province. I knew that. I knew that just going from one town to the next, there’s a big difference in flavor and in ingredients, even if it’s the same dish you’re served. That’s how it came about. I already planned it even before going home to the Philippines.

BQ: Now when I got there, that was the challenge. You know why? Because nobody else had the mindset that I had. Everybody else was busy with the reunion, with the historic events, with getting together with relatives you haven’t seen in 30 years, and then the heat, the traffic, and so many other elements. So, long story short, I was the only one who was interested in doing a deep dive of Ilocano flavors. Nobody else was thinking the way I do.

NA: Man, if I were there, I’d have loved to go around and accompany Betty Ann with her research. That would be amazing!

BQ: It was interesting. You know how I went about it; I would take as many pictures I could. I tasted everything; taste, not ate; taste a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I interviewed people – not celebrities – I interviewed ordinary people in the restaurants, in the streets, the family cook, the aunt, the cousin, the friend of the cousin, and just basically put the article together. The thing about Ilocano food is that regionally, the flavors are strong and powerful. They grip you. You know when you come from America where the FDA controls the saltiness and the ingredients and requires a list of ingredients on the labels, then you’re thrown in the province where nobody gives a hoot what’s in it, but it’s delicious, then it’s really, really, really a cultural experience.

BQ: Again, you have to look at the geography and where you are. Ilocos is in the northern part of the Philippines, where the soil is barren and dry, and not good for many other vegetables and produce that are grown in other parts of the country. But there are things that survive in that kind of soil, in that kind of heat.

NA: Some examples of fruit and vegetables that thrive in this environment include string beans, squashes, gourds, peppers, eggplants, some corn, papaya, root crops like sweet potatoes and purple yams, and a plethora of beans, okra, and the eponymous bitter melon.

BQ: Believe me it was so hot in Ilocos. Hotter than any other province I have been to. Geographically, that’s because we’re nearly at the tip of the northern part of the Philippines. There’s actually a part of Ilocos where you can see China from there. Now, going back to that you have to understand the geography and what kind of food they produce. They produce a lot of garlic, that very powerful Sukang Iloko (Ilocos vinegar) made from coconut, and then they put siling labuyo (wild chili) with some bird’s eye chilies which, whoo! It’s much more potent than it is here in America.

BQ: One of the first things I ate was the Vigan longganisa. They’re small, cured pork sausages that are very garlicky and very vinegary. You can’t be in Vigan, Ilocos Sur if you don’t try the longganisa. Then I also had lechon kawali (crispy pork belly). In Ilocos, it’s called bagnet, and we had that. Why is it very popular there? Piggeries and agricultural livestock are predominant.

BQ: We were also served pinakbet, the vegetable stew, which is not the same as the pinakbet you eat here in America, nor the pinakbet I had in Tarlac. It’s just really Ilocano pinakbet. There’s a different way they do pinakbet there. There’s different norms and customs. In Ilocos, you do not put squash in the pinakbet. You don’t. A true Ilocano knows that. If you put squash like the kabocha squash? Aha! You’re not Ilocano. Even the way it’s cooked, they basically layer and layer and layer the vegetables in a crock pot, they don’t mix it, they don’t stir it, they just layer and layer and layer the vegetables with the bagoong (shrimp paste), a little broth, onions and garlic, some seasoning, and that’s it. That’s the way. As simple as that.

BQ: We had something that was like malunggay – moringa – we had that and it was… Wooh! Now I’m getting hungry. It’s just basically malunggay simmered in fish bagoong. Yes, it was delicious!

BQ: I also brought home a lot of pasalubong – gifts from the travels – to my family in Tarlac and to friends in Manila. I brought back Vigan longganisa – the cured pork sausages – because they were very garlicky and potent. I brought back a lot of cornik, which is fried corn kernels, they were full of garlic, full of adobo spicy flavors. The native pastries, the Vigan bibingka (rice cake) is different from the bibingka that we know. It’s more like a cassava type of coconut cake. It’s very delicious. I have the recipe. I have yet to make it here in America. I’m afraid it won’t turn out the same.

BQ: You know why? Here’s what I also learned. The humidity contributes a large part of the success of the recipe. Here in North America, on the East Coast, we cannot replicate the heat and humidity of the Philippines. But therefore, there are a lot of dishes, even if you have 99.9% the complete line of ingredients ready on your counter, it’s not going to be the same. Our water is different and the heat is different. It’s not going to be the same.

BQ: The Vigan empanada was legendary food I was trying to taste. I tried it a long, long time ago and I haven’t had it in a long time. The Vigan empanada is different. It’s a half-moon-shaped large empanada. From Ilocos, the ones they have there are almost orange in color, but that’s because they put achuete or annatto seeds in the dough. The dough is spread out so thin, it’s almost like a wafer, it’s almost like the lumpia wrapper. That’s what the texture is like of the Vigan empanada. The filling is made up of grated papaya and vegetables, some meat, some pork, and then they put a raw egg inside it. They seal the filling, so imagine it’s a half-moon orange empanada, and then they deep-fry it. And it’s best eaten when it’s warm and crisp.

NA: Mmmm. That really makes me want a Vigan empanada!

BQ: I know, me too, I’m drooling at my own description. Can you imagine how shameful that is? I have a recipe for the Vigan empanada which I got from the family cook at the Qurino-Syquia mansion but I’m still going to kitchen-test it. Like I told you, the heat and humidity of Vigan is different from Flanders, New Jersey so I’m afraid it’s not going to be the same but I’ll do my best.

NA: The way you were describing the Vigan empanada where it’s wafer-thin, half-moon pastry, with a fried egg inside, all these delicious, really yummy fillings, it’s the kind of stuff that people love posting about online these days. A part of what I really want to do with this podcast project is tell the stories of Filipino food from different perspectives. From the story that you shared of actually going to the province in the Philippines where this particular empanada is born, it reminds me and it reminds us that we can almost associate the Latin-American-like Spanish thing, and then it goes back to what you were saying again earlier of you have to remember the origins of something.

NA: There’s so many different things you can almost learn about, like the history of the Philippines through the different foods we offer. These kinds of recipes and dishes kind of make their way through time because even simpler dishes like sinigang or adobo, those are very everyday dishes most people make. Like you mentioned earlier, the three things to make a successful recipe are that, you have the ingredients, it’s easy to make, and it gives you a really delicious result. All of those three things are checked off everyday from meals like sinigang and stuff like that, and it also gets checked off with really special kinds of things that you eat like Vigan empanada, stuff like that, that you go on a trip for.

46:27 Food traditions are priceless

BQ: You know for this article I wrote ‘Holiday Dishes With Ilocano Flavors,’ aside from asking cousins and aunts and people and strangers about the different kinds of dishes I tasted, I also asked my aunt – I have to give credit to Atty. Aleli Quirino, or Tita Nila, she’s the daughter of Judge Antonio Quirino who was a brother of President Elpidio Quirino – and Tita Nila had to go through the family diary of her parents to look up some of my questions. She took the time from her work – she’s a lawyer – and I was pestering her about this. I said, “Tita Nila how do you make this and how do you make that, and what do you do during Christmas? Do you serve this or that?” and she said, “Let me go look at mama’s journal.” These are priceless memories really, because they are family journals. They are family diaries that are kept and a lot of them are confidential. But food is meant to be shared, so I guess it wasn’t a problem to ask.

NA: That’s one of the things that I would really hope. It’s kind of a little spin-off project I would like to do with these podcast recordings, to hopefully kind of encourage people in the Philippines and people anywhere who want to start recording their recipes. Especially now more than ever, it’s so easy to have a copy of these types of mementos and recordings whether you write it down or upload it to your own personal blog or record it on your cell phone and save it as an audio file. It’s so important to me to be able to get these stories about the food and about your family and about certain regions and places in the country because I am looking forward to going back to the Philippines so much because there’s always a new province I want to visit every time because there are so many places to visit and so many things to eat.

48:40 Advice for home cooks

NA: So, what’s Betty Ann’s advice for a curious cook like me?

BQ: Let me tell you this. I used to be in your shoes. I used to be young and nervous and afraid of being scolded for doing the wrong thing. Don’t be, alright? I used to hate it when someone hovered behind my back while I’m cooking, breathing down my neck and face. “So what are you making? Oh, don’t do that. Your fire’s too high. Noo...” Okay, block that all out. If that makes you nervous, get away from that moment. If it makes you nervous that your mother is watching you when you’re cooking, that your aunt is screaming at you for having a high fire, then don’t cook in front of them. Do it by yourself in your own time, at your own place, with ingredients you bought yourself. Then you’re not accountable to anyone.

BQ: Number one, get away from what makes you nervous. First you identify, “What makes me nervous? My mother? Okay. She should not be around me if I’m cooking,” but don’t tell your mother that; I’m sure she’s nice. I’m telling you, eliminate the factors that make you nervous. Number two, don’t experiment when you’re about to serve a humongous amount of people. If you’re going to have a party, serve recipes that you are used to making even if you’re asleep. So, that means going back to practicing, until you learn how to make the biko properly, until you learn how to make the puto properly and you’re confident. The self-confidence comes with practice. And most of all – don’t forget this – learn and know what you do best and keep doing it. Nobody else is like you, Nastasha. Nobody else is like me. We’re all unique people. We all have our differences…

NA: And with that, like a magically timed flourish, the power went out in my apartment building because of a heavy snowstorm that was barreling outside. Talk about pulling out of the tropical paradise we almost felt like we were in, remembering trips to the Philippines and the heat of the countryside! Total contrast. It was the middle of winter, the middle of February for both of us on the east coast and everything outside was buried in at least a foot of snow.

NA: Anyway, Betty Ann ended with some valuable advice that I’ve definitely taken to heart – do what you want to do, do what you love to do, travel to the places where you know you’ll get to taste the real deal, and don’t be afraid of translating recipes in ways that you feel comfortable doing.

NA: That follows my personal take on cooking sous-vide Filipino recipes. I got a couple of them up in my blog. They’re definitely not traditional, but I love the precision of sous-vide cooking too much not to at least try and to see what a 24-hour oxtail peanut stew is like. Man, it’s delicious! It’s my super modern, slow-cooked version of kare-kare. I gotta say, the ligaments around those oxtail bones were the perfect bite. There’s no other way you could get that with regular cooking, they’d melt right into the sauce. Absolutely worth it. Anyway…

NA: So as a take-away, Betty Ann’s philosophy on cooking is something I appreciate and totally relate to. And I hope it’s encouraged you to cook a Filipino dish, maybe tonight or if not, sometime soon. At least look up a recipe, pick up a few ingredients that you can work into your own take on a particular Filipino dish. Forget about everything other than your desire to make something good, because, with a little bit of research and prep, it’s really not that hard to create a memorable Filipino meal, whether it’s a weeknight or special occasion, to share with others.

WRAP-UP

My warmest thanks this episode to Betty Ann Besa-Quirino. Please visit www.asianinamericamag.com for recipes – it’s a good time to try one out – and follow Betty Ann on Instagram and elsewhere online as well.

Music for this episode is by David Szestay, Eric and Magill, Squire Tuck and Blue Dot Sessions.

Visit Exploringfilipinokitchens.com for more information on the show. Do check it out, I’ve updated the website with a new look! It looks pretty slick! Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts from. As before, if you enjoyed the show, please recommend it to a friend, then maybe leave me a review on iTunes. I would really appreciate it.

Everything you hear on Exploring Filipino Kitchens is written and produced by me, and I’d love to keep sharing stories about food and people from the Philippines. So every subscription helps!

Maraming salamat and thank you, for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 06: Cooking Filipino Food At Home With Betty Ann Quirino” (Click the episode link for the audio!)

Building Communities Around Filipino Food - Episode Transcript

Find the transcript of my interview with Joanne Boston below.

INTRO

Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I’m your host, Nastasha Alli.

Today we’re talking with Joanne Boston, a founding member of the Filipino Food Movement. Joanne’s vision for the success of Filipino food in the American mainstream has and always will be supported and inspired by community – the main theme we’re talking about on today’s show.

Another big thing we’re talking about today is place – San Francisco, California in particular – and the people who live there. What you’ll want to keep in mind, while listening to this interview, is that even though Joanne’s talking about what her environment was like growing up in San Francisco – the experiences she has, especially around food – are totally universal, whether you’re Filipino or not and regardless of where you are.

As we’ll hear, building community is really about creating those experiences that bring people together, and then keeping that momentum, that excitement, going forward, and sustaining it so that people gain a sense of ownership and pride in the places they live in. That’s community, and how Filipinos build community, whether in a small town in the Philippines or big cities around the Bay Area.

This is essential listening for anyone interested in learning about how Filipino food culture has and continues to develop. Let’s dive right in.

JB: Thank you for having me. First of all, it’s an honor to be part of this project. My name is Joanne Boston. I am based in San Francisco, California...

NA: And for six years, Joanne was vice-president of the Filipino Food Movement.

JB: …which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was made official two years ago. I have been involved with Filipino food for over eight years. I think we are at a golden point in the progression of Filipino food, and I just want to be a part of it.

JB: My connection to Filipino food started from the day I was born. Let’s just say that. I grew up with Filipino food. I just see the beauty in it and I want people to get to know it.

NA: Full disclosure: I’m a contributor to the Filipino Food Movement blog, which was how I first got connected to Joanne. We talked a little bit about Project Adobo, one of Joanne’s early blogging projects that featured adobo recipes from home cooks and working chefs. Adobo is that quintessential Filipino dish that’s cooked with vinegar, spices, sometimes soy sauce, and often with a lot of other extras thrown in.

NA: I came across it when I was in journalism school at the time. Like I always do, I wanted to write about food in some way, but when I started back then I was kinda like, “You know what? It’s really cool that I’m seeing these stories that are distinctly Filipino, that was shared by Filipinos, about something that many other Filipinos can relate to.”

NA: So it’s one of those things where it really made me realize that you could approach the story about Filipino food in not a conventional way. So, it’s great to see that progress, to see it grow. Just the community aspect of it as well.

03:57 Project Adobo

JB: I saw that a lot of the people who contributed to Project Adobo ended up participating in other parts of my personal journey through Filipino food and with Filipino Food Movement. So, it’s a great place to see how one dish can affect one person’s life. And you know all the stories are different.

04:30 Starting a food blog

JB: So I started food blogging in 2007. I was on social media. Prior to that – high school – we were on Asian Avenue Apartment 107, really old school on social media. But actual blogging for food started 2007 when I started going to college here in San Francisco. I had been working throughout junior college, and then when I went to a medical program, I was in the city. San Francisco is a mecca of all these great Californian restaurants – very diverse restaurants.

JB: Coming from a family that works in hospitality – my mother and my aunties, they all worked at hotels in the city – I learned from my mom to go out and eat out because she was also in culinary and hospitality. She introduced me to home-run restaurants and really fine dining restaurants. And when I was walking around here, I said, “Wow! This is a great place. People come to San Francisco just to eat.” So I just decided to make a blog to chronicle all the things that I ate.

JB: I was in school. I initially did it as a “what can I eat on a college student’s budget.” And then after I graduated, my blog got more and more attention and I started doing freelance writing for different local publications here.

JB: There used to be one called ‘Pinch’ and I don’t know if it’s here anymore. But Pinch had CPS and they would ask me, “Hey Jo, can you write up a list for people who wanna look for the best burger, the best pizza, things like that?” There is just one time where I was asked to do that, and it was called ‘The Best Of...” series for CPS. I asked my editor if it’s cool to write a list of Filipino restaurants because there’s such a high concentration of Filipinos in the area, yet we are not represented anywhere. And so, I don’t know what made him say ‘yes’ but I made a small list of food carts and food vendors here in San Francisco.

JB: After that, I said, “Hmm… I could either go on and talk about tuna tartare and fillet mignon,” but after a certain point I got tired of that. I got tired of writing the same thing and it got old for me, and I said, “Okay, you know what? You gotta go back to your roots and you gotta write about what you really enjoy, which is the Filipino food.” So, after a couple of years I was writing for my blog. It went from a restaurant blog to more of a promotion blog of how to find Filipino restaurants.

JB: I got invited to certain community events, and the main one I was introduced to was ‘Kulinarya,’ which at the time was a Filipino cooking competition. Just think Iron Chef but with four chefs and there were judges for it. It was a big deal and I was asked to write a small article for their newspaper.

JB: Soon, I was approached by different people who were at that event. I was approached by the chefs, by other media outlets, and we all just said, “Hey! You know we see each other all the time.” This wasn’t the first time I saw them. I’d see them at festivals around the city. I’d see them at, of course Kulinarya, at restaurant openings, and we just said, “You know what? Let’s do something. Let’s go out. Let’s mash our brains and think of how we could get our culture and Filipino food here in San Francisco.”

JB: So I went from blogging, to freelancing, to attending events, writing for events, and then eventually collaborating with the people who are already in the industry and the community. So that was the progression.

JB: And from then on I just started meeting great people like Sonia Delen who was one of the chairs of Kulinarya. She introduced me to other restaurateurs in the city. And then on a trip to New York City, I met Chef Romy Dorotan, and he said, “You need to go meet PJ Quesada.”

JB: So, this whole networking was the key for this progression and I probably wouldn’t get here if it wasn’t for the blogging, because blogging is really important. I don’t do it too much now because I like to be more on the ground now, but blogging is very important because it does tell a story. And it does tell people tips on where to go, it gives them the chef’s story, your story. So hopefully for this year we hope to have a more active blog for the Filipino food community.

NA: Those stories are at the core of this episode. And really, the core of our existence if you happen to be as crazed about food and people as Joanne and I seemed to be. The idea of how the place you grow up in kind of fits into who you are as a person, is another big theme that runs throughout this talk. So, I asked Joanne to paint us a picture of what growing up was like for her in San Francisco.

10:18 Growing up in San Francisco

JB: I’m a rare breed. I’m from the Bay Area, San Francisco born and raised. I was born in the early 80s in San Francisco. I lived along Mission Street for much of my childhood and I only lived in two places really. I lived in San Francisco and then I lived in Daly City.

JB: I have been exposed to so many Filipinos over the course of my lifetime because the Bay Area – especially Daly City – they call it Manila town because there are so many Filipinos here. It was never anything foreign to me. I thought Filipino was the normal, which it is, it is the normal for me. I was just blessed to be brought up in an area where, you could just go down the street and rent out a VHS tape of a Lito Lapid action movie and buy a package of kutsinta or chicharon.

JB: Throughout my childhood, being Filipino has been an integral part of it. I went to a Catholic school – first two years of my schooling -- and a bunch of public school and high schools in Daly City where they had a Fil-Am club. Majority of the student population was Filipino. I went to school at Skyline College which is along the peninsula where more Filipinos lived. I was a co-founder of the Filipino student union back in 2005, and it’s great to see that it’s still alive, a lot more people joined after I left. We even produced the first PCN at Skyline. I want to say that was one of my proudest moments because it was very important for me to connect to my roots, because even though I was Filipino, I had not visited the Philippines in ten years. I went there every couple of years up until I was probably 13, and then I had a 10 year gap.

JB: Even though I was raised Filipino – I saw Filipino people everywhere literally – college was when I really realized that you have to go back to the Philippines. It’s a blessing just to be in the Bay Area. However, you do see a stark difference with other cultures. Filipinos’ most concentrated area in the United States, yet again, we’re not represented, and we’re not necessarily brought up in many conversations as far as entertainment, cooks, things like that, but we’re there. It’s just that there’s not enough noise about us out here, and I think when I met up with those people at those events, we saw the same thing. We see hundreds, thousands of people going to these Filipino fiestas, but where are we in the press? Where are we in mainstream media? Where are we in the cooking shows? That’s where it all started. It’s was just very daunting that we are here but we’re still being ignored. It’s about time that people get to know us. I don’t want people to know us just because some guy on TV made us cool. I want our own people to be proud of us, to be proud of ourselves. I still think it’s a cultural thing, that we aren’t that way. But it’s changing.

NA: I think that a lot of what drives this desire to be known is, in one way or another, related to our search for identity. Whether it is establishing your identity as a Filipino-American, a Filipino-Canadian, just being able to reconcile who you are with your cultural background, I think is such – at least for me – that’s the big driver for me and why I’m very interested in learning about the culture, traditions, and the history of Filipino food in particular.

JB: Guaranteed if you ask any young person – or any person in general – what are the best parts of being Filipino, guaranteed they’re gonna say ‘their food.’ Guaranteed.

NA: From those early events, when you had to think about how you want to present Filipino food to the public, how did that change over time? Could you tell us about when it’s been particularly challenging or rewarding?

15:17 Early days of local food communities

JB: When I first started getting involved with the community, there were only two organizations that really initiated events here. One is the consulate, and FAAE, which Al Perez – he’s one of our board members – started it. He’s in charge of the Pistahan festival. There weren’t very many kids in my generation who were doing that at the time, around 2009-2010. But then again, Pistahan has been here for 25 years. They have been here forever.

JB: So, my generation, we’re coming to that age where we know, we now have a voice, and we have a force. Back then, it was very hard to get everyone together because it was very sparse where people were, who were interested. There was only two people at the time having a pop-up. The restaurants that were open at the time were very traditional, are very traditional, usually owned by first-generation Filipino-Americans or immigrants who came from the Philippines to open up businesses here, or were born there, came here at younger age, there wasn’t any sort of glue.

JB: I think that’s what we want to create. We want to create a net for everybody to fall into and work together.

NA: Now, I know this might not be relatable or even all that interesting to everyone. If I were busy with my back-to-back shift six days a week from a couple of years ago, I probably wouldn’t be listening to this podcast at all. But the fact that you are means that you are interested in hearing about how grassroots communities spring up around food, and how people strengthen their relationships with each other by eating together. To my mind that is a very powerful thing.

NA: So, how exactly did this small network of people bound by their love of Filipino food turn into a base 56,000 followers and counting on social media?

17:41 Looping in chefs

JB: Let me backtrack to 2010, where I met those people at those events and when my kuya Chet – he was a nephew of one of the chefs I met, and he was the one who created that spark – said, “Why don’t we collaborate with the chefs?” Back then the chefs never really worked together unless they knew each other from way before. But for the most part, each restaurant was working for themselves. They weren’t really collaborating.

JB: So, we went to each chef and went to the restaurants and said, “Okay, is it possible to have an event at your restaurant, invite a demographic that hasn’t been touched yet, and possibly provide a dish or entrée that hasn’t been presented onto your menu? So make it a special event for whoever comes.” And the group that I was in at the time, we called ourselves ‘kapaMEALya.’ It’s a social dining group. This was way before Feastly, or even before all that.

NA: The word ‘kapaMEALya’ is a play on the Tagalog word ‘kapamilya,’ which by definition is someone you’re related to by blood. But like a lot of Filipino puns, food is kind of in there in the mix someplace. In this case, where the English word ‘meal’ stands for the family that you enjoy eating with, with whomever you count as family.

JB: And it was a success for the most part, until we found out that the restaurants were closing left and right, and we were losing our venues. That was a wake-up call, like, why are all these restaurants closing? And of course a plethora of notions came, like, maybe the general public is not educated. What are they thinking about Philippine food? Do they even know what Filipino food is? Do people know where to get Filipino food?

19:47 How the Filipino Food Movement started

JB: We had all these questions and it was disheartening to see friends of ours having to close down their restaurants and we said, “Let’s do something about this.” We didn’t know exactly what at that point, but we knew we had to create noise some way. A year after kapaMEALya stopped operations, because, life happens, I met with Amy who introduced me to PJ Quesada, who is from a family business who’s been in the area for a really long time and his passion is Filipino food.

NA: And when Joanne got together with PJ to brainstorm ideas for the kind of group they could gather around promoting Filipino food…

JB: Some of our conversations, we realized that social media was a huge tool. This was when Twitter was coming out – Twitter had been ‘the’ thing in 2009-2010 – Instagram was coming, and we saw the values in using those vehicles. And then one day he just said, “Jo do you want to do a food event?” Honestly when he said that, I knew I found the right people because I had wanted to have a Filipino food festival for the longest time.

NA: To put things in context, this was when…

JB: The street food movement was here, the food carts, the food trucks… This was about 2011-2012, so they were hyped up at that time. And I was saying, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we had all the food trucks come at one place and everybody just eat Filipino food?”

NA: And then a year later…

JB: That’s what they’re doing now, not with just Filipino food trucks but with Mexican, Puerto Rican, Spanish, all these Asian food trucks. So, he said, “I have a similar idea but it’s gonna be with the chefs and restaurants and food trucks.” And when he told me that it was going to be at Justin Herman plaza…

NA: One of San Francisco’s largest public squares…

21:46 Collaboration over competition

JB: I was like “Wow!” If he told me that I was gonna be able to do this when I first started blogging, I would have told him he was crazy because I never expected anything like that to happen.

NA: And as those initial ideas with PJ and key community leaders came into sharper focus…

JB: I don’t know what it was. Call it a major coincidence, the right timing, I don’t know. But after that event we had in 2014 here in San Francisco, I have seen so many collaborations between the chefs who were present at that event, whether they cooked or participated in on the prep or just being there.

JB: So I began to see all these connections being made, and again if he told me that if that was gonna happen back when I first started blogging, I would have said, “No, that’s impossible.” Because at that time it was more about competition over collaboration.

JB: Now it’s collaboration over competition where everyone is working on the same team. We have the same goal, but those who are in it now, they see the value in working together. Rather than pushing each other down, they’re pricing up together, which is great!

NA: Collaboration over competition. I love how that’s like straight out of a motivational poster of some kind. But it’s real and more importantly, addresses another key issue that’s familiar to Filipino communities across the globe. That infamous crab mentality, where, as you push yourself up just a little bit higher to get closer to the top, to your goals, you realize that the competition to get there means a lot of other people are also determined to pull you down.

JB: But then again, it’s hard. A lot of restaurants are still having trouble keeping their doors open. There’s a lot of people opening their restaurants, but then again, I see that some of them are not educated enough on the business end. Their food is great but on the business end, it might be a little lacking.

JB: So I’ve seen the struggles the chefs have had, but I’ve also seen successes which has been great. Like here in San Francisco, we have two great friends of FOB Kitchen where they actually said, “We started our pop-ups because we see all these inspiration from all these other chefs doing it.” And that to me was like, “Wow!” If they could just feed off each other’s energies and be successful with their businesses, isn’t that great?

NA: Now, I have never been to San Francisco, but I could almost see – like a flashback – Joanne sitting with her grandparents by the window of this restaurant, with San Francisco’s Manila town behind them. Bustling with people doing groceries, running errands, going about their everyday lives, and I kind of imagine that it’s me and my folks sitting on the stools by the window of this burger joint called Tropical Hut in my hometown in Manila. It’s definitely got this 80s vibe to it.

NA: There’s a little carousel in the corner that six kids can ride on, and one of the best things I loved about this place was how every time we went, my dad would always order something called ‘burger steak,’ which is a hamburger patty dripping in gravy. This insanely juicy burger patty, rice on the side, easily the best part of our week.

NA: The last time I went home, I sat at the Starbucks across the street from this place, and thought about how strongly my memories of home were tied to the four blocks that surrounded this corner. It was right at the entrance of our town, so you can’t come in or out without passing it.

NA: As a teenager, it was easy to hop onto a tricycle or a jeepney from the terminal – that was our escape from boredom – and spending the last of my pocket change at the barbecue stand another block away on ten sticks of isaw, which are chicken intestines marinated in this sweet, garlicky, tomatoey, peppery sauce. The barbecue vendor there never cared that a bunch of teenagers always hung around her stall for hours, gorging on grilled meats and cigarettes.

NA: That’s what I mean by the concept of place as a central force to defining and understanding who you are as a person, because we all have our origin stories and the places we spent our formative years – for better or worse – make up an integral part of who we are and who we become.

NA: And back in San Francisco…

26:41 “We are here!”

JB: I would see all the same people just working together, collaborating, consulting on each other’s menus. It’s a rewarding feeling just knowing that they’re all here for each other. You could say the area’s been saturated with Filipino restaurants, but at the same time, we’re creating a community. We’re creating a force that will not be erased. We’re here.

JB: Currently, I’m in downtown San Francisco, but two blocks away, there’s SOMA Pilipinas, which is a district that San Francisco just made official last year. And that’s huge! It’s time for this country that, we have a community of Filipinos and I think that efforts from all these business owners, and all these restaurateurs and chefs, they’ve all contributed to that – to that noise, to that effort. It’s heartwarming, it’s rewarding, it’s something to be very proud of. I don’t want to tear up right now. My family has been in San Francisco since shortly after World War II. My grandpa and granduncle came here because of their efforts in the war. My granduncle stayed in the old Manila town way back when, and then ended up moving to different parts of the city before he settled down near Mission Street where I grew up.

JB: So, San Francisco in itself, is a very important part of who I am. I don’t think I could live anywhere else, honestly. Just knowing the city recognizes us and the city knows we’re here and finally giving us a place to call our own? That’s amazing. I have seen the progression of how we were, you know kind of on the surface, where we’re an oil slick on the surface, but now we’re a frickin’ iceberg. You know we’re here, you’re not gonna avoid us, you can’t avoid us now.

JB: So that’s how I see it. But then again, we still got a lot of work to do. The Heritage District is still in development and what I’ve seen is lots of organizations working together. I hope to participate in the development of that area because I used to come to this area so many times as a kid because my grandparents would just sit at a restaurant on Fifth and Mission and we’d eat Filipino food there together.

29:32 The Filipino food community

NA: So who does the Filipino Food Movement reach out to? Who are some of the people in the community?

JB: The Filipino food community have this drive to make their families proud. Every person I talk to, every chef I talked to, I ask them, “Why do you cook?” And they said, “I wanna tell my family story and I wanna make my mom proud.” What we see in the community is that they want to make a name for themselves, they want to be successful and they want to change the narrative. They don’t want to be part of that generation where everybody became a nurse or a lawyer or a doctor. They want the community that we work with. They’re the trailblazers – there we go – they ARE the trailblazers. They’re the one saying that we can be successful in the restaurant industry, as cut-throat as it is already.

JB: I’ve seen that there are so many openings of Filipino restaurants with an American narrative to it. That’s one community that we work with. Another community we want to work with more are those who are intrigued or are curious about Filipino food.

30:44 FFM’s mission

JB: So, let me just backtrack. The Filipino Food Movement’s mission is to promote, preserve, and progress Filipino food through education and community-building. So, we see all these chefs coming together. I think that’s a great way of promoting and progressing. And then as far as preserving and promoting, you have to make sure that those who have not had Filipino food are educated about the dishes, that they know the general history.

JB: It’s very multifaceted, our food. It’s got Spanish, Malay, Chinese, American, the native flavors in it, and I think that was one part that was missing from a lot of the menus back in the day. They just serve the food, no description, where it came from, it’s just there. So people were kind of, “Okay, what are we eating? Why are we eating this? How does this connect to anything?” So we want to create that context.

JB: So that’s one community. Another community we want to work with are those who are curious, have entrepreneurial spirit, yet they don’t know how to start their own businesses. So I guess we have the established, we got the newbies, and we have those in transition – from becoming a newbie to an established restaurant.

JB: When you say ‘community’ it could go in so many directions because Filipino food grew from community, but yet it can grow into so many different ways and go into so many different tangents. So I think we have a real great opportunity to tap on all those communities and see what they want to happen with our food.

JB: Like for you and I, for example. We like to write about Filipino food. We like to tell the stories and create connections between our families, the food we eat, and our culture. That’s one of many parts of preserving, progressing, and promoting. So, we’re all aligned. We are all in this for one goal. Actually, many goals. We all have different goals. But one main goal that we have is to show off our culture and be proud of that culture.

NA: But at the same time…

33:20 Filipino food outside the Philippines will always be different

JB: We have to be mindful that the food that is being made here in the United States, or in Canada, on in Europe is gonna be different from the food that’s going to be made from the Philippines, because the personal stories are gonna be translated on that menu. The community we work with are entrepreneurs, work hard, the ones who work their butts off to make themselves seen in the media, who go above and beyond to ‘just cook.’

JB: One person is Alvin Cailan who is in LA Unit 120. He had an incubation program where he let other chefs in his area come in and test out their concepts. That’s great! That’s the type of people we want to work with. We want the community we work with to work with other people, other chefs, business owners, entrepreneurs, so that they could help each other out, so that these businesses can thrive.

NA: You’re not seeing my head but I’m nodding very vigorously with a lot of the things you say. It is truly heartwarming. Because as you mentioned a couple of times, the word ‘community’ and what’s happening in the Bay Area, is guys like younger chefs who are changing the narrative of Filipino food. I identify with that quite a bit because we’re all doing our part even if it’s you introducing your non-Filipino friends to one Filipino dish at a time, even if it’s that one little step that you take forward, it does play a big role in kind of like paying it forward and introducing more and more people to it. It’s the community aspect of it is totally at the heart of all of this, I think.

JB: Yup, and plus Filipinos are naturally hospitable people.

NA: Absolutely!

JB: Yeah, that’s what I like about us. You will never leave a Filipino household hungry.

35:42 Three truths to live by – be inclusive, diverse and personal

NA: Let’s talk about truth and pride.

JB: We at Filipino Food Movement, we have three truths when it comes to Filipino food. The first one that is inclusive. The second one is diverse. The third one is personal.

NA: Now, let’s go through that one by one.

JB: Again, the inclusive, this is for whoever wants to eat it, eat it. Whoever wants to make it, make it, do it. Who can say that you can’t eat or make it? I think a lot of people do not have access to Filipino food within their communities, which makes it harder. But hopefully with more and more restaurants and more and more chefs around the country contributing to the movement or doing their own events, that’s helping the movement already.

JB: The second thing is that it’s diverse. So many regions in the Philippines, so many dialects being spoken. An adobo in the north will totally be different from adobo in the south. And pride comes into that because a lot of people say, “Well you know, mom’s adobo is the best. I’m not gonna taste yours because I already know it’s gonna suck.” So, pride plays into that because a lot of people do not want to go out to restaurants to eat Filipino food because they automatically think that what they’re gonna get, won’t be good as the one they get at home.

NA: Let’s stop for a second here. In many Filipino communities, that reaction that Joanne talks about where people go, “I’m not even gonna try this because my family or my region’s version is better,” is a real barrier that prevents many Filipinos – wherever they are in the world – from appreciating the full spectrum of Filipino cuisine. It prevents people who live in the northern provinces of Luzon, for example, from sampling the palate of spices used in everyday southern Mindanao cooking, simply because they don’t know what it’s about or what it’s made of. It’s the kind of thinking, unfortunately, that prevents your particularly traditional relatives from enjoying the refinement that the soul of their cooking impressed upon younger people.

JB: But then again, if you have an understanding that it is diverse, you have to keep an open mind that whatever you’re gonna have outside of your household will be different from yours. You cannot be making comparisons, only because you’re doing yourself a disservice, you are not letting yourself enjoy what other people have made for you. So that, having pride there, that can affect it. That can affect your own availability to eat the food other people have made.

JB: The third one, personal. Of course everyone has their stories. We’ve been talking about stories the entire time. Stories are very important. One, because we all have them. It makes us human, and it makes us appreciate what we do appreciate in our daily lives. We have to keep those stories alive in order for our kids, their grandchildren, our grandchildren, their kids, their kids, their kids, to really understand our culture, and to appreciate. Our immigrant families coming over from the Philippines, and even the families coming or that are back home in the Philippines, we have to make sure those stories stay alive. A lot of Filipinos think that it’s all pork-based, that it’s all brown, that it’s not healthy. But that’s not necessarily true.

39:25 Pride in culture

JB: As far as pride, I think the pride the chefs feels when they have their dinners, when they create a new dish, or the pride they feel when they know that what they’re cooking is an homage to their family? That’s the pride I appreciate. Not so much the pride of ‘my mom is so much better than yours.’ There’s different levels of pride. The pride that I want to resonate is the pride in our culture, that we are all working together to make our culture known, and that we are all putting together an effort, contribution to this bigger thing that we are.

JB: I don’t want to keep calling it ‘the movement’ but I guess this approach, even more so than just the food, just us as Filipinos, that’s the pride that I feel that we all should feel.

NA: What I personally believed was a big key to telling the story of Filipinos all over the world, and of the food in particular, one of the keys to being able to tell that story more fully and more richly, does have a lot to do with educating people. Not just educating foreigners like people who are non-Filipino, but also Filipinos themselves because a big part of this, I guess you can call it a bit of a rediscovery of the different types of regional cuisine, like “listen to us because we have legitimate stories to tell and we do actually have really good food we wanna share with you!”

NA: And we do have all these great cooking techniques and ingredients back home that, thankfully I’m starting to see becoming a little bit more available even outside the Philippines. So, it’s exciting!

41:34 Closing thoughts

This month was a blast, and I truly wanna thank Joanne for taking the time to chat with us for this episode. She was totally down with this idea of sharing stories from the Filipino Bay Area community with all of us. So, our sincerest thanks!

What I hope you take away from all this, though, are not just stories about the emergence of Filipino food in the US and western world. In fact, I encourage everyone who identifies as Filipino, including friends and family that I grew up with back home, to appreciate the magnitude of what a passionate, curious group of young people can do. This idea of building communities around food, it’s an old one, by no means invented or “made cool” by the kids of American immigrants. We’ve known this for centuries.

Every culture celebrates around food: for baptisms, weddings, getting a new job or house, anniversaries, or – in the Philippines – town fiestas in particular for patron saints that are very much alive and well. I admit, I really wish I went to a lot more of those town fiestas when I was a kid.

Anyway, this gathering of people with a common goal, to share their love of Filipino food, I think is the most extensive and purposeful spread of knowledge about food in the Philippines. Ever. Think about it... with stuff you can find online, accessible wherever you can get a Facebook connection, that community-building aspect almost automatically comes with it, and enables us to have these conversations about food, and why it’s okay to talk about them it in terms of being trendy, in terms of more people who’ve never had Filipino food before, trying them for the first time.

Even if there are larger, more pressing issues about food in the Philippines – like food security that also exists, that also needs time in the larger frame of discussions – I really believe that the best way to tackle these complex issues is to start by making it matter to you, to a friend, to one person at a time. Eventually, those people will find a way to come together and build the kinds of communities that can make change happen themselves, almost organically.

It’s all about strength in numbers and it’s the best way for us to make noise – as Joanne puts it – to engage as many as we can in meaningful conversations around Filipino food. The more we talk about it, the more we collectively lend our voices to the emergence a strong, burgeoning food culture.

WRAP-UP

Music for this episode is by David Szestay, Eric and Magill, The Polish Ambassador and Podington Bear.

To say hello to other Filipino food lovers who also listen to this podcast, head over to exploringfilipinokitchens.com and give us a like on Facebook, leave a comment, or just say hello! And, I’ve got one little favor to ask. If you enjoyed this talk, mention it to a friend. Then find Exploring Filipino Kitchens on iTunes and hit subscribe. That would be amazing!

Maraming salamat - thank you, for listening.

This is a transcript of “Episode 05: Building Communities Around Filipino Food With Joanne Boston” (Click the episode link for the audio!)