Iloilo’s most famous dish is their chicken inasal, that is chicken barbeque marinated in lemon grass and achuete (annatto seeds)

Adobo is the most popular Filipino dish and even considered as the National dish. But everyone claims that their adobo is the best. Example, is it with or without soy sauce? I put soy sauce while Mary Ann insists the correct way is no soy sauce but browning the meat on the pan from its pork fat.  Does it really matter? I think the root cause of all this “misunderstanding” is our usage of the term “adobo”. We all talk about it but we actually have different images in our minds. Adobo is a cooking technique, rather than a singular recipe or dish. We may have borrowed the term from the Spaniards and Mexicans, but that’s where the similarity ends. In the Filipino context, adobo generally refers to the chicken/pork stew simmered in vinegar and garlic. It is perhaps the country’s most popular dish, spawning countless variants that it is inaccurate to call it as a singular dish. To say there are 7,100 recipes of our adobo is an understatement – there are as many kinds of adobo as there are households. Treating adodo as a cooking technique will give us a better understanding of its nature. It is the braising of any meat (chicken, pork, beef, quail, duck, venison, seafood, balut, etc.) or vegetable (kangkong, okra, mushrooms, peanuts, etc.) in vinegar, garlic, black peppercorn and bay leaf, with regional variations or personal preferences of adding soy sauce (from the Chinese), atsuete (Mexican achiote), onion, coconut cream, lemongrass or turmeric. It can be made like a saucy stew, or thickened with mashed chicken liver, or fried to a crisp, or the cooked adobo meat pulled apart to be deep fried into crispy flakes. It is this versatility that makes it the most popular and well-loved Filipino comfort food.

Another fascinating dish is the pancit. Where did the word come from, and the place where it was originally served, the panciteria? True, its origins may have been Chinese, but us Filipinos have taken to it like our own and given birth to a wide spectrum of malinamnam noodle dishes. But wait again, which pancit? Have you ever wondered why miki is favored up north in the Ilocos region? Or Batil Patong in Tuguegarao, but just some 20 kms to its south is Pancit Cabagan?  While in Pampanga it’s Pancit palabok, a.k.a. Pancit luglog; but a bit further south is Pancit Malabon. But for Manileños it is mami, which is always paired with siopao. Going further south, it is Pancit Grade 1 in Sta. Rosa, Laguna; while Lomi is favored in Lipa City; Habhab in Lucban, Quezon; Kinalas in Naga City, and Batchoy in Iloilo City.

Of all the basic tastes, it is sourness that is most dominant in Philippine cuisine. With vinegar as one of the most indispensable ingredients in the Filipino kitchen, it has been in use for centuries not just for seasoning but also as a natural preservative. In the pre-refrigeration era, it was common practice to cook with vinegar, which would prolong the dish’s shelf life without refrigeration, most especially with our hot tropical climate. It is also widely used as a marinade or brine, pickling vegetables and fruits (i.e. achara and burong mangga), and is the much-favored dipping sauce throughout the length and breadth of the archipelago.

But up north in the Ilocos region, it is the bitter and salty tastes that are most sought after, while sweet and sour for the Pampangos, the mouth-puckering sour for the Tagalogs, and the richness of gata and hot chili in Bicol?  Down south in the Visayas, it is the simple basic cooking techniques of sugba/tola/kilaw, or SU-TO-KIL for short, that draw out the natural sweetness of its bounties from the sea. It is the most basic form cooking, but definitely not plain tasting, mind you. After all, it is surrounded by one of the richest fishing grounds in the archipelago, and it would be almost criminal to use any spice to mask the natural flavors of the freshest seafood there is. And, what it is with pryd chicken and Filipinos? Not to mention the sweet banana ketchup and the equally sweet spaghetti with red hotdog.

Speaking of sawsawan, where can one have an infinite myriad of dipping sauces to go with one’s meal? Like in most Asian cuisines, sawsawan is provided at every dining table in the Philippines, whether at home or in commercial establishments. Doreen Fernandez ascribes it to a desire to fine-tune the taste of the dish to the preference of the individual diner, unlike in western cooking where there’s the ego of the chef to contend with (thank God for our great unnamed kusineros). Most common sawsawan on the Pinoy dining table are patis (fish sauce), toyo (soy sauce) and bagoong (salt-fermented fish or shrimp paste), or any of the three mixed with kalamansi or vinegar and spiked with chili. The sweet banana ketchup and liver sauce are fast becoming staples, as well. Also popular are the side dishes with any of the following combinations: chopped tomato, onion, green mango, salted duck egg, grilled eggplant, fresh mustard leaves, kamias, radish, cilantro, and chili, as well as lató (seaweed), atsara (from the Indian achar, pickled papaya and other veggies), burong manga (pickled mango), and burong isda (salt fermented rice with fish). These quasi-salads go well with any fried or grilled meat and fish. Isn’t our sawsawan more fun than the standard salt and pepper?  Filipinos are the most democratic when it comes to eating their food.  we adjust practically almost everything to suit our taste making probably other nationalities wonder if we have no high regard for our cooks. Of course we love our cooks; we are just very understanding people.

In our book Linamnam, Mary Ann and I probed the origins of such iconic dishes like Pampanga’s sisig, Ilocos empanada, Batangas bulalo, Lipa City’s lomi, Bicol express, Iloilo’s batchoy, Manila’s steak ala pobre and salpicao, to name a few.  It all boils down to one person “inventing” it, whether intentionally or accidentally. Then it catches on and everybody copies it within the clan, the community, the province, then the whole country, becoming part of the national “tradition” over time. But the question remains: How many years or even generations must a dish need to qualify as traditional and authentic?

The book Linamnam doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but it will definitely lead the reader find out for himself the best eats every region has to offer, and also the why’s and how’s of what makes each dish unique and outstanding in its own right. Along the way, you’d discover the sheer variety and intricacies of our multi-layered cuisine, making it easier for the uninitiated to understand what makes the Filipino eat what he eats, and debunking the pronouncements of armchair pundits that Filipino cuisine is all brown, oily, and unappetizing.  As they say, variety is the spice of life. With such wonderful regional cuisines having an endless variety of tastes, flavors and all its nuances, and often full of surprises, isn’t it adventurously more fun having such diverse cuisine?

This four year long journey made us realize the richness of our cuisine, or should I say the cuisines of the Philippines, that, with all its regional differences, it is our common love of malinamnam food that binds us together. It is DEFINITELY more fun eating in the Philippines, authentic or not.