Google Doodle Features a Filipino Dish for the First Time Ever

(SPOT.ph) Opening the Google homepage today, March 15, will cue some feelings: pride, nostalgia, and even hunger. For the first time ever, a Filipino food is featured on the Google Doodle, and the honor has rightfully been given to adobo. The ultra-versatile and many-faceted dish is front and center on Google in celebration of what is arguably the most well-known Filipino food.

Also read: 10 Times Google Doodle Celebrated the Philippines

Google Doodle celebrates Filipino food for the first time with adobo

Each region in the Philippines has their own way of making adobo. Heck, each family, and maybe even each elder of each family, all have their own special recipes—raise your hands if you remember being a part of or, at the very least, being witness to some sort of feud regarding the best way of cooking adobo. Now stepping outside of the nation's borders, adobo is arguably the most recognizable Filipino food there is; no matter how, at the risk of gatekeeping, seemingly outlandish the ingredients are, at its core, adobo will always be adobo, and will always be Pinoy. 

That claim to being Filipino is exactly why Google chose it as its first ever Pinoy dish to feature as a doodle. "It is an honor to launch this Doodle that celebrates the uniqueness and diversity of Filipino cuisine on such a global platform," said Mervin Wenke, head of Google Philippines' Communications and Public Affairs in a statement. 

The doodle you'll spot on Google today is an homage to the dish created Brooklyn-based Filipino-American Anthony Irwin. Irwin is a staff interaction designer on the Google Doodle team. "For children of immigrants, our relationship with our parents' food is a complex one. On one hand, my mother's cooking made me feel like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. It felt special and safe and warm," says Irwin in the statement. "But on the other hand, most kids just want to fit in. Growing up in the U.S., I didn't want my food to be special. I didn't want to feel different. I just wanted to be like everyone else."

Being able to create this doodle was a form of homecoming for the artist, as well as a way to answer that certain split he grew up with. "Now as an adult, I get to find all of these opportunities to be proud in ways childhood didn't let me feel proud. I can claim Filipino food as a part of my culture and celebrate the connection it creates between my mother's identity and my own."

Also read: It's Time to Play: Google Doodle Brings Back Popular Interactive Games