One of the greatest comforts about being Filipino is that wherever your compass may point on the world map, you are most likely to find a kababayan or three...or a thousand.
Circumstances bring the resilient Pinoy everywhere—a whole lot of us are true global nomads, fitting snugly into societies once alien to us—but it is when we are amongst our own that we can truly let our guard down and be ourselves. What better way to do so than when we are sitting around a table and breaking bread (or in our case, busting out the steaming, hot rice). From up and down the Philippines, to the streets of Daly City, to Milan, to the back roads of Tennessee, you will find some cook conjuring up the food of the motherland—memories of places and friends and family—and from the instant it hits your taste buds, for that very moment all is well in the universe.
It doesn't matter if you're at home or abroad, or if you're a picky eater and a gourmand—for any true blue Filipino, a few days without a bite of the familiar is sheer torture. I've witnessed friends abroad wax poetic over the taste explosions over a plate of humble tuyo (dried fish) eaten with spicy vinegar and steaming, spectacle-fogging rice. I've served ensaymada (sweet brioche buns), quesong puti (local, carabao milk cheese), and longganisa (sausage) to balikbayans who didn't talk to me the entire meal because they were busy wolfing it all down. And I myself have hunted down pinakbet and pork barbecue in the streets of Manhattan when I could no longer stomach another potato or dinner roll (rest in peace, Elvie's Turo Turo).
Why am I getting sentimental about things and tying it up with food, you may be asking? Well, for this week, I've been tasked to start a sort of meme, and an extremely difficult one at that: 10 Pinoy Foods I Can't Live Without—local delicacies that have ingrained itself into my being, and things I will crave for no matter where I may roam. You would think this would be easy, right? But that's like choosing your top 10 favorite albums—impossible! Nonetheless, here it is an almost personal listing of ten of my favorite Pinoy eats, food that to me evokes mental images from my life, good times all—and presented in the hopes that you share your list with us, too.
Γ
1. Adobo Admittedly, once upon a time, chicken adobo actually bored me, because it was that type that was the most available: the typical, brown variety that often was made in my house because there were no other ideas for that day. It wasn't until I discovered the zillions of varieties of things that can be done with this cooking method (yes, adobo is NOT a dish, but rather a way of cooking—although we use it as a noun all the time) that I truly fell in love with it. Adobo made with just suka and a lot of garlic, Twice-cooked adobo, pork belly adobo flakes, adobong pusit—the list goes on and on. You can take away all the Wagyu beef and foie gras in the world—but leave me with my adobo.
2. Monggo (Mung Bean Stew) A bowl of monggo, still hot, and filled with all sorts of greens (ampalaya, anyone?), maybe some tinapa, or to be truly decadent, a bit of crushed chicharon, is an instant cure for the blues. A humble dish, for sure, but hearty and filling and soothing.
3. Inihaw na Liempo (Grilled Pork Belly) One of my most memorable meals ever was a feast of chicken, fish and thin, bacon cut liempo, all seasoned with only salt and pepper, and cooked in a makeshift charcoal fire grill on the beach. That liempo hit me, and it hit me hard. We ate it with a little toyo and suka, and a mound of hot rice off a banana leaf. I've had liempo many times since, but nothing quite matches up to that hot summer day, with the waves and the audible crunch of the thin layer of pork skin as our sound track. We ate in silence that day. Can you blame us?
