own family’s food traditions and cultures, in the kitchen and at the table, Filipino or otherwise, and celebrate these customs to keep them alive. But I wanted to do more. Eventually, I wanted everybody to experience Filipino flavors and ingredients.
But in order to bring a greater awareness and appreciation of Filipino cuisine to the rest of the world, I realized I needed to go beyond blogging. So with my blog recipes in hand, I opened my own Filipino restaurant—well, sort of.
In June of 2010, I opened The Manila Machine—Southern California’s very first gourmet Filipino food truck. However, The Manila Machine was much more than just a converted taco truck serving Filipino food. It was my own mobile restaurant serving my take on Filipino cuisine. In every sense of the word, the Manila Machine was my personal vehicle for bringing Filipino food to the masses.
Among The Manila Machine’s tasty offerings was chicken adobo, pork belly and pineapple adobo, spicy sisig, and lumpia. Also made to order were a number of pan de sal sliders—bitesized sandwiches served on traditional Filipino rolls. Not only was I able to successfully field test many of my own recipes, but thousands of Angelenos were also getting their first taste of Filipino food from my mobile kitchen. And they were coming back for more! Soon, people all over Southern California were buzzing about Filipino food, and I was the one feeding them—from a truck no less!
At the same time, however, Burnt Lumpia and The Manila Machine both made me realize that there are so many other Filipinos who, like myself, fear losing their own family recipes and simply want to learn more about their own cuisine and culture. I also now know that people of all ethnicities want to enjoy and experience Filipino flavors as much as they do Thai, Vietnamese, and other Asian cuisines.
TRADITIONAL WAYS ARE WONDERFUL; BUT NEW WAYS, WHEN APPLIED WITH UNDERSTANDING AND SENSITIVITY, CAN CREATE A DISH ANEW—WITHOUT BETRAYING THE TRADITION.
—DOREEN G. FERNANDEZ, FOOD WRITER AND HISTORIAN
This shared curiosity in Filipino cuisine, and the need to preserve Filipino culture, is the inspiration for the cookbook you now hold in your hands. This isn’t the end-all-be-all Filipino cookbook—far from it. My hope is that this book serves as a starting point that will spark a new and lasting interest in Filipino food and culture.
The Manila Machine was Southern California's first gourmet Filipino food truck.
Hungry customers line up for Marvin's take on Filipino cuisine.
I want Filipino-American parents to start feeding their toddlers bitter melon so that we can have a new generation of Pinoys craving pinakbet.
I want college kids to have a freezer bag full of frozen lumpia, made by their own hands, so that they can have a mess of crisp spring rolls whenever they please for those late night studying (or drinking) sessions.
I want newlyweds to learn that they must always keep their stash of rice full and at the ready so that they can avoid having to order a pizza when the in-laws pay a surprise visit.
I want Filipinos and non-Filipinos alike to gain a basic understanding of Filipino cuisine so that it can be enjoyed and embraced rather than avoided.
And I want my own children to grow up loving the dishes I cook for them—Filipino food and otherwise.
And that should be a simple enough goal for all of us.
THE NEXT BIG THING?
Today, Filipino food seems to stand at a culinary crossroads. In a world of Twitter, Facebook and food blogs, food-minded people are constantly looking for the next big culinary trend. A hot-button topic within some of these food circles is whether or not Filipino food can be this so-called “next big thing.” Alas, the same questions always arise:
“Why isn’t Filipino food more popular? Why isn’t Filipino food more mainstream?”
Filipino food can be more than simply “trendy”—it is an incredibly diverse and complex cuisine with a multitude of indigenous variations and global influences.
Whether or not Filipino food goes “mainstream” isn’t really a concern of mine. For me, in order for Filipino food to be appreciated a little bit more, it must first be understood a little bit more.
With such a diverse culinary heritage and an abundance of nuanced flavors, it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world comes to appreciate and understand Filipino food.
UNDERSTANDING FILIPINO FOOD
The Philippine Archipelago consists of some 7,000 islands clustered in the warm Pacific waters of Southeast Asia. Across these islands, over 100 distinct languages are spoken amongst a multitude of regional ethnicities. And with native cooking techniques such as adobo (braising food in vinegar), kinilaw (quickly bathing raw food in vinegar or citrus juices), and ginataan (cooking food in coconut milk), it is easy to assume that the cuisine of the Philippines consists of an indigenous panoply of Malay-based dishes. But this assumption is only partly true.
Adobo, pancit, lumpia, and shrimp—just a small sampling from a typical meal at my grandmother’s home in Delano, CA.
Harvested rice from my uncle’s farm in Badoc, Ilocos Norte, Philippines.
A backyard barbecue in progress at my parents’ home in Valencia, CA.
There is much more to the story of Filipino cuisine. With a long history as a trading partner with the Chinese, Arabs, Indians, Portuguese and Japanese, the already diverse Malay menu of the Philippines is further accented with flavors and cooking techniques from other parts of the world.
While culinary influences from India, Portugal, and Japan are understated, in certain Filipino dishes, the Muslim influence from Arab trading partners is very apparent in the Muslim region of Mindanao in the southern Philippines.
CHINESE INFLUENCE
Although the Chinese began trading in the Philippines as early as the ninth or tenth centuries, they did not begin to settle in the Philippines in earnest until the sixteenth century. The Chinese influence on Filipino cuisine is most apparent in our pancit noodles and lumpia spring rolls, but Chinese ingredients such as soy sauce, black beans, tofu, pork and pork lard—just to name a few—have all become mainstays in Filipino cooking.
SPANISH INFLUENCE
The Spanish first arrived in the Philippines in 1521, but would not control the islands until 1565. The Philippines would remain under Spanish rule until 1898. During this 333-year reign, the Spanish would leave an indelible mark on Filipino culture and cuisine.
The Spanish colonists, homesick and hungry, soon began introducing Spanish ingredients, cooking techniques, and dishes to the Philippine natives. Before long, Filipinos began using the Spanish sofrito of tomatoes, onions, and garlic cooked in oil as a base to their own dishes, while also embracing and adapting Spanish dishes such as caldereta, empanada s, embutido and flan, among
