9 Things You Should Know About Filipino Food

[Celerity]

From savory to sweet, the flavors of the Philippines are as vast as its islands.

https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/filipino-food-guide-flavors-seasoning



Growing up in the Philippines and stewing in the centuries-old roots of its colonizers—Spain, the United States, Japan—I always looked outwards, dreaming of elsewhere. I scoffed at most things local. But now, a decade after living far and away from my motherland, I realize that I was wrong. Why was I oblivious to riches all around me in that tropical paradise? My cuisine, often maligned, misunderstood and pigeon holed here in the West, is as vast and diverse as its over 7,000 islands. But there are hallmarks of its distinct flavor, recognizable across the diaspora, singing to our lonely souls in our homes away from home. Let’s break them down, element by element, these building blocks of Filipino food.

Rice is life

Kanin, or rice, is the staff of life for Filipinos. No meal, including midday merienda (a snack or light meal), passes muster without rice on the plate. It is a blank canvas, steamed plain, to be painted with the accompanying ulam (main entree) or jazzed up with garlic as seen in sinangag, which is a dishof garlic-potent fried rice. White rice is also the foundation of kakanin, the category of sticky sweet bites, including the varieties of suman, puto, and bibingka, enjoyed as breakfast, dessert, or snack.

Coconut reigns in dishes both sweet and savory

From the root to the trunk to the leaves and fruit, every element of the coconut (niyog) serves a purpose, including in Filipino cuisine. Coconut meat, juice, and milk are key ingredients in both savory and sweet preparations. Coconut juice is good to simply drink, of course, but it also makes the brothy base in dishes such as Binakol Na Manok, a.k.a. chicken in coconut soup. Then there’s an entire spectrum of guinataan dishes—which is to say, foods cooked with gata, or coconut cream or milk. Grated coconut flesh often accompanies rice cakes, otherwise known as kakanin. Or sweetened and transformed into macapuno, this coconut component makes its famous appearance in the iconic shaved iced dessert halo-halo.

Sour flavors are always welcome

Filipinos are suckers for the pucker of asim, or sour, flavors. From the generous use of vinegars of all kinds—sugar cane, palm or coconut—in adobo, paksiw, kinilaw or extra sawsawan, to citrus superstar calamansi as juice or seasoning to using fruits as souring agents in sinigang, to enjoying raw, sliced, green mangoes with bagoong, asim gives us life.

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