Institutional memory

Institutional memory – INQ7.net is my column for today.

Foodarama

In Filipino food, culture and identity, the Sassy Lawyer who is also rather a radical chef, writes about our failure to promote Filipino food.

Along the way there’s an interesting exchange of views as to what “authentic” Filipino food is.

In New York City there is a Filipino restaurant called Cendrillon that has attempted to make Filipino food accessible to foreigners as fine cuisine.

In truth, the question as to why Filipino food hasn’t gained popularity abroad, despite so many Filipinos living expatriate lives virtually everywhere on the planet, seems to bother many Filipinos.

A surprising number of Americans, because of the U.S. bases and the pockets of Filipino communities in the States, are familiar with lumpia and adobo and like it very much. Chances are, if Filipino food is discussed at all, it is lumpia and adobo that are mentioned and recipes for them printed: sometimes sinigang is included, too.

I asked a chef-writer friend why Filipino food doesn’t catch on, and his reply (tongue in cheek or not) was that “our food is too brown,” while most other people add that our food reeks of too much fat.

The question of fat, is, I think, crucial. It’s too obviously there. Chinese cuisine may, perhaps, be as filled with bad cholesterol, but it isn’t as obvious. Thai food seems positively a health nut’s dream in comparison to ours. In contrast so many Filipino dishes positively glory in lumps and chunks of fat and fatty items.

The same chef-writer friend claims that Thai food was actually reinvented under the auspices of the 19th Century kings of Thailand, to make the food aesthetically pleasing to Westerners, if not to introduce certain concepts of preparation in vogue at the time. This was the genesis of my friend’s “too brown” comment. In the presentation department, by Western standards, our food often lacks the combinations of color, texture, and then attention to presentation that obsesses the West (and Japanese), and which the Thais, if the royal edicts concerning food preparation are true, learned.

In Cendrillon in New York, the Filipino food is deprived of fat, and attentions is paid to presentation. There are Filipino chefs and gourmets at home who have been trying to do the same thing. But it has not caught on, and no “new Filipino” aesthetic when it comes to food has arisen.

Nor have attempts been made to study our food in order to preserve the flavors and mixtures that characterizes it, while purging it of its more unhealthy aspects. I remember telling friends when I first visited Bangkok that while we seemed so similar to the Thais, they stood out in marked contrast to us in the rarity of their pot bellies. Some friends argued this was a function of diet: at the time Thailand was still virtually at par with us economically, but they seemed to eat more healthily. Less meat, more vegetables. This segues into a story I heard from a Thai that about 20 years ago, concerned with the proliferation of farms growing poppy and marijuanna in the upland regions, the King embarked on a program to get farmers to plant vegetables, and prodded the government to establish a functioning and efficient transport network to get produce quickly and cheaply to urban centers. He also lobbied to reduce the number of middlemen and thus give the farmers greater profits.

The result was, according to the Thais, cheap and fresh vegetables for everyone, happier farmers who gave up on te drug trade, and a society that always has cheap food, which tides everyone over even when the economy is down.

Joselu

Check out the new website of the Ayala Museum! Welcome to the Ayala Museum Web Site

Meanwhile, Teddyboy Locsin writes of the death of Joselu Villanueva:ABS-CBNNEWS.COM

New beginnings

New beginning – INQ7.net is my column for today.

Macapagal the First

Macapagal the First – INQ7.net is my column for today.

Eggciting

In MgA kWeNtOnG tAmBaY nG sIrAuLo Sa SiNgApOrE, Batjay reports an end to egg rationing in Singapore.

Lost generation

Lost generation – INQ7.netis my column for today.

Meanwhile, in Hell on Wheels By Hudson Morgan is this little tidbit:

Emprisoned on the grounds of one of his former palaces, Saddam Hussein is wearing sandals, gardening, and reading books about the ancient days when Baghdad was capital of the Islamic world. Other tidbits from the NYT fronter: He still proclaims himself the lawful ruler of Iraq and likes to ask prison officials for cigars. And when he exercises with some of his former comrades, says an Iraqi official, “They call each other by their old titles, Mr. Minister of this, Mr. Minister of that. It is as if nothing has changed.”

Senior moment

Senior moment – INQ7.net is my column for today.

The earth moved

Woke up around 3:15 am with the building creaking for about 15 seconds or more. Turns out it was a 6.2 earthquake: MSNBC – Earthquakes rock 2 locations in Asia

ecriminalize

In ABS-CBNNEWS.COM, Today Newspaper comes out with an elaboration and in support of some of the points raised in my Monday column.

However, in A Sassy Lawyer in Philippine Suburbia, the Sassy Lawyer takes a contrary position.

Interesting! Incidentally, I met Rep. Diaz last night on Tina Monzon Palma’s show. He is apparently the nephew of President Ramon Magsaysay. This is around his 6th or so time to serve in Congress, he was first elected in 1969 in the old premartial law Congress, served in the Batasan, and was elected again for 3 terms under the present constitution, took a a 3 year break due to term limits, and is now on his first of three allowable successive terms. He is 77 years old.

Last night he announced he was unequivocably withdrawing his resignation from the House, and chuckled at all the fuss created. My reading based on our discussions is that he really resigned because (in order of importance):

1. When a congressman has to sit out a term, because of term limits, and then returns to the House, his seniority is calculated not on the total number of years served in the legislature, but on present consecutive terms. Thus, having not been in the House 3 years, Rep. Diaz is now considered a neophyte, while in the old days his seniority would be calculated from the terms he served since 1969. This is indeed a deviation from traditional House practice.

2. Because of being considered a neophyte, he wasn’t offered any “good” committees. In most legislatures, committee chairmanships (where the prestige or the money are) are determined by seniority.

3. He’s an old pro and simply enjoyed throwing everyone into confusion by suddenly saying he was going to resign.

No other reasons, rhetoric aside. Funny man, actually, and clever in the old school way.

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