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Filipino Food Culture and Traditions

Food is not just anything you eat. They impart stories to us in ways we’re not aware of. Perhaps, you can remember how the smell of bibingka (rice cake) made you meet your first lover. Or the skewered Lechon (roasted pig) made you more friendly to neighbors. Filipino food is essentially tied to culture and traditions in the Philippines. Filipinos make every event special by simply making every dish special.

Importance of Food to Filipino Culture

Food shaped the way Filipinos live. Aside from the food itself, there are priceless memories shared with whoever they’re with, which make it more special. Food glues foreigners, friends, and the whole family together (regardless of lifestyle differences). This can be observed in events like birthdays, graduation, anniversaries, or just a simple get-together. This value is pretty common among Asians but Filipinos take it to a new level. When you happen to buy ice-cold beer from a convenience store. People won’t hesitate to approach you and invite you to a table of pulutan (little amounts of food) and buckets of beer.

Filipinos just naturally bring you homey vibes. They even invite people, even strangers during fiestas, to dine with them in their humble abode. This tradition may also showcase a social status. You’ll see golden utensils and cutlery beside your plate with dishes whose recipes are preserved in their ancestry. After the party, hosts would even give food for you to bring home. A simple gesture like this tells that there are some things money can’t buy.

Filipinos are still culturally divided because they live in the archipelago, and this applies to food too. Each region takes great pride in its unique recipes.

Frankly, Filipinos just eat whatever food is on the table without being curious about its history. It’s awesome to know that influential chefs promote the use of locally harvested food ingredients in TV shows. Highlighting the rich food heritage from different foreign cultures explains how it transformed lives through time and contributed to the joys and laughter in many unforgettable events.

What Makes Filipino Food Unique?

Filipino food is simple to cook and always a pleasure to serve and eat. The blend of flavor and texture makes them stand out. Also, the warmth extended to family and friends motivates Filipinos to ‘cook with love.’ The typical Filipino meal is composed of vegetables, seafood, dairy, meat, and rice. In fiestas, food is displayed, in its appetizing and mouth-watering color, in every home as aesthetic. The naturally produced aroma seduces anyone and traps them in affective means. Its smell makes it unique because of the secret concoction of vegetables, herbs, oils, citrus, and spices.

One certain dish can be cooked in many ways and this shows Filipinos’ penchant for creativity. Everything can be changed, namely, the cooking method, flavor, and ingredients (and amount of) vary. These make each Filipino food you encounter, exciting, and surprising.

Unlike with other countries conventionally cook one dish by the book, Filipinos cook it in procedures and ingredients signature to the region where the recipe is invented. Because flavors in the Philippines are often strong, having only a few spices packs a punch. Here, dishes with simple and few ingredients are more delicious… and budget-friendly too.

The food tradition is much pronounced on every occasion. Washing the dishes is nothing compared to the feelings evoked by these Filipino dishes. It seems incomplete and talks are insubstantial without delights. There are stories linked to such food. Some friend would ask, Do you remember that halo-halo I ate that made me shiver on a freezing night? Every Filipino dish you taste is a product of love, merry, history, tradition, and passion.

Why Rice is Important in the Philippines?

Rice is part of almost every Filipino meal. Half of a typical plate consists of rice. So technically, rice contributes to the priceless memories that Filipino food brings. It is a nutritious source of fiber, vitamins, minerals, and especially, carbohydrates. But too much of this is blamed for obesity cases in adults, children, and the elderly alike. One contributing factor is white rice does have a lot of refining processes. Almost everybody can afford it since the Philippines is primarily an agricultural country. Restaurants may even offer ‘unli-rice,’ meaning unlimited rice. This means you’ll add a small amount of money to upgrade your one cup rice meal.

There are many dishes you can make with this staple food. You can boil, steam, fry (with garlic). It may also be used in baking pastries (as stuffing) or cakes (as in bibingka). In certain regions, Rice can be fermented to produce strong liquor known as tapuy, a native wine served in ceremonies, special occasions, and festivals. Sticky (malagkit) rice dishes can warm you up during a cold, rainy day. Famous examples, of Spanish origins, are champorado, paella, and arroz caldo.

The local goodies include sinangag (garlic fried rice), goto (beef tripe), congee, and puto (steamed rice cake). Like Thai’s penchant for chili, Filipinos’ love for rice is impossible to discount. In Mindanao, rice is part of nearly all rituals, weddings, and traditions. A handful of rice thrown upon newlyweds symbolizes wishes for fertility, abundance, and prosperity. Rice is widely produced in regions where the terrain, soil condition, irrigation, and climate are best for growing rice.

Traditional Food in the Philippines

Filipino dishes offer unique blends of Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Western, and Pacific Islander flavors due to influences from colonization eras.

Tapsilog

Tapsilog is a staple breakfast dish.

Cured beef (tapa) is seasoned with sauce (a mixture of soy sauce, calamansi juice, brown sugar, minced garlic, and black pepper). The fried garlic rice (sinangag) exhibit a strong aroma and topped with a sunny side up egg (itlog).

Buko Pie

Coconut meat is baked with sweet condensed milk inside to make a pie. Some versions add vanilla, pandan, and almond.

Arroz Caldo

This comfort food is usually eaten on rainy days. It’s chicken soup with rice and egg making a thick porridge. Add ginger, toasted garlic, scallions, and black pepper for flavor. You may add calamansi and fish sauce as well.

Lumpia/ Turon

This food is always present at Filipino parties. Rice paper wraps traditional Chinese lumpia ingredients but without egg. Turon is lumpia containing banana having sugar or caramel sauce in the wrappings.

Pancit

Filipino noodles have many variations. Remarkable is pancit bihon (soy sauce, chicken, pork, and vegetables) and pancit palabok (shrimp, shrimp gravy, crushed pork rinds, and boiled egg).

Siopao

It’s the Filipino adaptation of Chinese steamed buns and filled with meat, vegetables, and sometimes a hard-boiled egg.

Tinola

Tinola is the Filipino chicken noodle soup. Ginger, onions, and fish sauce flavor the nutritious broth. The heartier ingredients are tender chicken, unripened papaya, and siling labuyo (chili pepper).

Ube

This native purple yam can be used from cocktails to pastries for lush color and flavor. Ube halaya (jam) and ube ice cream are some sweet treats.

Most Famous Food in the Philippines

There are these kinds of food that totally define Filipino cuisine. Hearing someone describe them, you’ll say, “That sounds like Filipino.”

Balut

This ugly duckling is among the weirdest street food that ever existed. Yes, you read that right, it’s a duckling! It’s a developing duck embryo that’s boiled and scooped inside its shell. Usually, it is sprinkled with salt and poured with vinegar. Some say it can strengthen the knees.

Kinilaw

Kinilaw is the Filipino ceviche, consisting of slices of raw fish marinated in vinegar with calamansi juice, salt, pepper, and chili peppers. The name kinilaw literally means “eaten raw”. A healthy choice, Kinilaw makes a great appetizer or light lunch.

Sinigang

Sinigang is the most salient Filipino sour meat stew. Usually, tamarind (sampalok) serves as a souring agent. Lots of vegetables like okra, water spinach (kangkong), radish, onions, and eggplant. Pork, chicken, beef, and fish can be used as meat.

Kare Kare

Kare kare (“curry curry”) is a stew with oxtail, ox tripes, veggies, topped with ground roasted peanuts, onions, and garlic. It’s served with shrimp paste (bagoong), calamansi, and chili if you want.

Sisig

Pork sisig is the most common form (chicken and tuna can be used). It makes use of chopped pig ears, jowls, and liver, onion, and chili peppers. It is served on a sizzling skillet with a raw egg on top and calamansi.

Adobo

Named National Dish of the Philippines, this, indeed, is the most famous. Chicken or pork is braised in vinegar and soy sauce then seasoned with garlic, black pepper, and bay leaves. The meat is cooked in stew or marinated then pan-fried to produce a pungent, umami dish.

Lechon

This flavored pig that’s roasted over charcoal is a must-try in many festivals. Leftovers may be stewed, with vinegar and spices to cook paksiw na lechon, or used in sinigang. It’s hot and crispy on the outside, flavorful and tender on the inside.

Halo Halo

It’s the perfect dessert to beat the summer heat! Important ingredients are shaved ice, ice cream, and condensed milk. Cold fruits (e.g., lychee, mango, banana, jackfruit), leche flan, sweet beans, jellies, corn flakes, and coconut strings are suggested ingredients. It literally means, “to mix everything.” There, really, is no exact formula or recipe.

Filipino cuisine has striking similarities with foreign cuisines owing to the country’s years of colonization. This gave birth to unique cooking methods and flavor blends, which create food Filipinos can be proud of. For Filipinos, food is not just anything you can fill your tummy with. It’s a product of labor and creativity that’s inspired by love.

Sharing food won’t probably hurt you. Spreading love makes us more humane. And Filipino food does just that.

Christine Peneva

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