one filipino dish a week

Why is Filipino cuisine very underrated and unknown to non-Filipinos? Especially here in the east coast in the US not too may people know about Filipino food. I know it’s anecdotal but, the most common responses I’ve noticed range from the completely unfamiliar, “What is Filipino food like?”, to the uncertain, “This Filipino friend of mine brought me to their house and we ate something like…”, to the vaguely familiar, “One of my buddies is Filipino and his mom would make lumpia”. That’s it? I don’t understand and I’m quite perturbed of by this.

Is it that Filipinos are apprehensive to share because they think that non-Filipinos would not like the food? Are we ashamed to share? Do we think that Filipino food is not “high class” and not worthy to be served to other non-Filipinos? Is it that there aren’t great restaurateurs and chefs outside the Philippines?

There are lots of great restaurants in the Philippines but here in the NYC area there’s practically none. At least none that I would highly recommend to non-Filipinos who are willing to try Filipino cuisine. None that has a menu that’s friendly to non-Filipinos who are not familiar with the food. The majority of the places here are cafeteria-style (turo-turo), styro to-go platters and plastic utensils. Why is that? I’m not saying that it has to be a fine dining place but just some real plates. There are lots of Cuban and Mexican places that are great places that aren’t expensive yet you still get to sit down and don’t have to point at your food.

Maybe I’m just being idealistic but I don’t think I’m asking for a lot. All I want is to have Filipino food become a choice in the restaurant going public. “So what do you want to eat tonight Chinese, Thai, Mexican, Italian, or Filipino?” or “What’s a good place around here? There’s this good Filipino place a couple blocks away.” Is that too much to ask? Let me know your thoughts.

This week I’ve come across a lot of food safety articles, blogs, etc. It really caught my attention. While I’m contemplating on the next dish to make… I wanted to talk about this real quick.

I came across this article earlier this week and it got me thinking about how important food safety is.  I think we’ve all eaten something that got us sick and ruined our night. And as I’m learning more about food in general I’m finding out that these problems spawns from the fact that we have no idea where our food comes from. Well, it comes from a well-oiled-big-business machine. When we go to the big box grocery store there’s all our meats in nice styro packages and cereals in bright colored boxes. But, we don’t really know how they got there though. We hear from our vegetarian friends how huge companies inhumanely raise and slaughter the chickens but we just sort of brush it off as something that doesn’t really affect us. Out of sight, out of mind. I think if we all saw how that really happens before it gets into that nicely wrapped 4 pack of chicken breast we’d all be vegetarians too. In the case of this girl who ate contaminated beef at some fast food place or the spinach scare a year ago all lead back to big business being careless. And the widespread reach of their supply to the public compounds the problem.

This leads me to this other news that I came across this week that the FDA approved cloned meat and milk from cloned animals to be safe. Wait a minute…. when did we perfect cloning animals? I thought all the cloned animals were dying left and right because of some problem. The biggest thing about this news that is really bothering me is that they’re not going to label products that come from cloned animals. It’s very much the same way that they didn’t label genetically modified organisms (GMO). They’re just going to put it out there and once someone says anything they’ll just say “oh it’s been out there for a while now and it seems fine…so it’s fine.” Right. If you guys don’t know, a big percentage of food that you consume comes from GMO. It’s mostly corn and soy products like cereal, soda (high fructose corn syrup), etc. But what if I don’t want to eat GMO or cloned meat or drink milk from cloned cows?? Where’s the freedom of choice there? I’m sounding much like an activist right now which, I’m normally not, but, this is something that I would want more and more people to know. I have no clue if the milk from cloned cows will have strange effects. The only people who are saying that it’s safe are the people selling it and the people who are getting paid by the people who are selling it (e.g. FDA).

Food is such a vital component to our lives yet it really doesn’t get much attention. America has a lot of food problems from obesity to people tricking them into eating food that may not be safe. This is my plea for whoever reads this to just be more aware of what you eat.

It’s that time of year when people ask everyone if they have a new year’s resolution. Well this is mine. I’m going to learn anything and everything I can find about one Filipino dish each week, cook it, and then of course eat it. I’ll use this blog to chronicle what I’ve found each week. Hopefully I’ll survive. Next stop the first dish.