The Way We EAT

When Asia Society proposed a book on Philippine cooking in 2008, the initial plan was to follow the model of Thailand where some dishes were chosen to promote the cuisine. But talks with Filipino chefs (especially those involved in the project), some food writers, plus many in the food industry were averse to the idea. The questions mostly asked were: who will say this dish is better than the other or why that region and not my region?

Kulinarya: A Guidebook to Philippine Cuisine (Anvil Publishing, 2008) chose instead to identify dishes cooked all over the country. Its purpose was to show the proper way to cook those dishes.

When it comes to food, Filipinos are regionalistic. It was only by chance that the chefs involved in the book came from different provinces so at least that showed some representation of the whole country in terms of dishes and preferences and ways of cooking.

Because the Philippines is an archipelago, one can conclude that interaction between islands must have been limited before the Spaniards arrived in the 16th century. And then during the Spanish occupation, travel by land and water to other areas was restricted, each person carrying a (identification paper)