the fiesta dishes offered at family celebrations. It also meant that kitchen shortcuts were not the standard. For example, coconut did not come pulverized and presweetened in a bag nor did coconut milk come in a can. Around the same age that I learned how to ride a bike, my grandfather taught me how to properly shred a coconut “homestyle” on a short wooden bench fitted with a round, serrated metal blade. My mother then soaked the shredded meat in water and squeezed it to extract coconut milk for guinataan, a savory coconut soup, or reduced the milk on the stovetop into latik, a thick cream spread on cassava cake. The squeezed, shredded coconut meat was dried or toasted for sweetened rice cakes. In setting high culinary standards, my family taught me the principles of quality, flavor, texture, and balance that set Filipino food apart as a satisfying and memorable cuisine.
My husband and I spent the better part of our twenties and thirties serving long tours of duty deep in the trenches of the restaurant industry—me in the back of the house, cooking, and he in the front. Fine-dining French, Italian, American, contemporary, and Pan-Asian restaurants were our training ground, allowing us to work our way through the kitchens and dining rooms of Europe and Asia without ever leaving U.S. soil. When we decided to open Rambutan in 1998, there was no question in my mind that the menu was going to feature the Filipino food of my heart. Although I was certain that most of the nearly 4 million Chicagoans had no notion what Filipino food was about, I longed to share the cuisine that my childhood and years of professional training had prepared me for—the flavors of Southeast Asia and the techniques of Europe combined in one kitchen.
Rambutan wasn’t the first Filipino restaurant in Chicago. A handful of brave pioneers already ran Filipino eateries that were northside mainstays. But what I wanted for my own place was a cuisine that reflected my roots while embracing my American upbringing. It meant serving traditional Filipino cuisine that included the wonderfully fresh and vibrant ingredients available locally. Thus, the culinary doors were flung open to endless possibilities. Adobo, a Filipino national dish, was no longer just for pork or chicken when Maple Leaf Farms, a local duck farm, sold fresh duck right across the border in Indiana. I could, without guilt, forgo frozen bangus (milkfish) for fresh day-boat Lake Superior whitefish. Never again did I have to open a can of Ligo sardines to make misua soup when my fish purveyor delivered fresh sardines within forty-eight hours of being caught. And tomato-cucumber salad could be easily completed by the addition of Wisconsin buffalo mozzarella instead of the native caribou cheese, kesong puti. That is how both my restaurant and this book were born—out of a deep respect for my native cuisine alongside an understanding of American dining and a desire to use fresh local products.
Jennifer M. Aranas
ISLAND FLAVORS OLD AND NEW
The roots of Filipino-American cuisine lie in one of the world’s first culinary melting pots, the Philippines—an archipelago of several thousand islands that borders the Philippine Sea on the east, the South China Sea on the west, and the Celebes Sea on the south. A country of Malay origin, the Philippines is largely a product of deep impressions made by Spanish and American conquerors. Prior to Western colonization, the islands were inhabited by a Malay population scattered throughout the archipelago. Having established a relationship with the natives early in the ninth century, the Chinese became their primary trading partner establishing a strong commercial and social presence on the islands. Arab, Indian, Portuguese, and Japanese traders followed suit, making the islands an important trading port where silver, spices, commodities, and wares exchanged hands.
Sailing under the Spanish flag of King Charles V, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan set foot on the Pacific island of Samar in 1521. But it wasn’t until a subsequent expedition in 1542 that Ruy Lopez de Villalobos gave a name to the islands calling them “Filipinas” after the crown prince of Spain, Philip II. The first Spanish colony, established in 1565, began 334 years of colonizing and Catholicizing the Philippines, erasing much of their native culture and religion. However, the conquistadores were not completely without merit, having funneled to the islands important economic crops and livestock from New Spain (their Mexican territories), such as avocado, cacao, tomatoes, maize, and cattle.
The era of Spanish rule came to a halt with the Treaty of Paris in 1898, which ended the Spanish-American war and ceded the Philippines, along with Cuba, Guam, and Puerto Rico, to the United States. U.S. President William McKinley wasted no time developing the Philippines’ social and economic infrastructure in the American exemplar, spreading English and ideals of democracy all over the islands. Having spent forty-seven years grooming the Philippines for its freedom, the United States granted the Philippines independence in 1946.
The Original Fusion Cuisine
It is hard to resist the vibrant flavors of ginger and lemongrass, the glorious triumvirate we lovingly call sofrito (sautéed onion, garlic, and tomato), or the crispy crunch of egg rolls in various incarnations. On the surface, Filipino food is entirely familiar. Noodles, rice, stews, and stir-fries are neither new nor Filipino inventions. But the interplay of exotic flavors, balanced and harmonious, is uniquely Filipino and anything but ordinary.
Filipino history explains the motley of influences on the Philippines’ simple food. Modern Filipino cuisine is a collage of ethnicities starting with a native Malay base flavored with layers of Chinese, Spanish, and American accents. Rice is a longtime staple in the Philippines, having been cultivated since 3200 B.C.E., and today is still unequivocally the primary food. Dishes heavily laden with coconut (guinataan, for example) or vinegar (stewed paksiw, raw kinilaw, and pickled achara) are attributed to the Malay natives. Fermented fish and shrimp pastes are used to season raw and cooked foods from green mangoes and sliced bitter melon to kare-kare, oxtail in peanut sauce, and pinakbet, vegetable stew. Dishes such as inasal, grilled or roasted meats, sinigang, sour soups, bachoy and bopiz, stewed organ meats, tinutungan, chicken with palm hearts, tapa, marinated dried beef, and dinuguan, pig’s blood stew, exemplify the simple, varied, and original style and flavor of the Islands.
Chinese traders who established themselves in the Philippines early in the ninth century contributed significantly to Filipino cuisine with a large variety of noodles (pancit), steamed buns and dumplings (siopao and shumai), and egg rolls (lumpia). Arroz caldo, pospas, and lugaw are Filipino adaptations of Chinese congee. Soy sauce, ginger, tofu, fermented black beans, and dried mushrooms are all Chinese flavors commonly found in Filipino food.
The Spanish, who conquered the Islands in 1542 left the deepest impressions on Filipino cuisine by integrating their homeland foods, renaming native dishes in Spanish, and importing New World flavors from Mexico, their North American territory through which the islands were governed. Spanish colonists taught their Filipino cooks how to prepare such favorite homeland dishes as caldereta beef stew, meat-filled empanadas, meat and chickpea cocido, chicken pastel, savory egg-based tortillas, and paellas—all cooked and flavored so differently than the steamed, white rice of the Islands. Quickly cooking a sofrito of tomato, garlic, and onion in olive oil is the flavor base that preludes many Filipino sautéed dishes (guidsdos). Other dishes that bear Spanish ancestry are almondigas (meatballs), sopa de ajo (garlic soup), morcon (stuffed beef roll), and croquettes (savory fritters). Desserts are overwhelmingly European in style, replete with rich custards and buttery cakes. Flan (egg custard), natillas (soft cream custard), brazo de mercedes (meringue jelly roll), budin (bread pudding), mazapan (marzipan), turron (nut nougat), capuchinos (brandy-soaked cakes), and buñuelos and churros (fried dough fritters) were indulgent endings to Spanish meals served with coffee or hot chocolate, a practice still relished today.
The Mexican influence on Filipino cuisine may not be apparent on the surface because it was indirectly introduced secondhand through the Spanish. But today, crops from Mexico are an integral component of a modern Philippines. From a culinary standpoint, Mexico’s food is not so obvious; tacos,
