Exploring Filipino Food Culture and Its Significance

To start with, this is filipino food culture essay where I want share my attitude towards Filipino food and cuisine. Dinuguan is important to me because of the various types of food and resourcefulness of the Filipinos. They were able to take an ingredient and expand the uses of it. For example, pig, commonly known in Spanish counties as Lechon. A whole pig would be fried or roasted. The insides of the pig would be in another dish that involves the blood and insides of the pig. Everything would be eaten and put into use.

Dinuguan at puto is a Filipino food that has roots in the past with a few cultures. They affected the ingredients, culture, and how we eat our food. Different regions of the Philippines often have different variants of the same dish. It not uncommon to find the same dish but it has a different taste or texture. The typical Dinuguan at puto is a chocolate-like color pork blood stew, in which the word dugo meaning blood, and its often described as chocolate meat.

But before any of that, my relationship with food, especially Filipino food, its direct line to the Filipino culture. I was born here in the US; I very rarely went to the Philippines. I know almost nothing about my traditions and customs for many years. I enjoyed all the of the Filipino food, there is something that is tied to me and always draws me in. Everything part of the Filipino food has always me questioning, why was it made this way? I didn’t understand the techniques, the types of ingredients going in the dish, why was it made or the origins of the food itself.

Looking at dinuguan it looks unusual at first glance but it’s a combination of several generations and cultures together to create a dish. My grandmother taught me how to cook Filipino food and I always enjoy cooking with her. I have personally seen a pig been killed and the blood drained. From what I remembered, two people were holding the pig down and one stuck a blade on around the throat. They would keep holding it until it had no strength to resist and run. The blood would drain from a stone slab and into a bowl that pools with blood. I stared with curiosity and sadness knowing that this was my dinner and knowing the pork comes from. It a memory that I use to appreciate where the food comes from and not to waste food. It was nearby a beach in Palawan when I was with my father and his daughter. So, cooking Filipino is my lifeline to Filipino traditions. I have never thought that food would be complex. The flavor pallet of Filipino cuisine can be a variety of flavors like sour, sweet, salty, bitter, and savory. Dinuguan is savory compared to other dishes. Traditionally, dinuguan is paired with either rice or puto. 

Puto is made with glutinous rice flour and sugar. It comes with a whole roasted pig called Lechon. Lechon and dinuguan would be together in a party or large gathering or a fiesta. Many parts of our culture and food were derived from an array of cultures. Lechon is a fried whole pig without the innards and dinuguan is a dish that uses the pig organs and pork in part of the dish.

However, there were many foreign influences from the back to 200.000 BC. But the dates are not exact because it was not an official recognition until the Spanish conquered and colonized the counties in 1565 by Miguel López de Legazpi. The first to “discover” the Philippines was Ferdinand Magellan in 1521. (Cullinane et al.) Many of the ingredients that come from Spain was onion, garlic, and tomatoes with that, the act of sautéing onions, garlic, and tomatoes in oil came from them. Many of the Filipino food has Spanish sounding names because the Spaniards that influence the people who were living there; Filipino food came about due to, the ingredients that were available and ready to be used. 

The Chinese bought their version of vinegar and soy sauce to the Philippines before the Spanish had arrived. Basic ingredients are used to make dinuguan, this melding of cultures imparts several flavors as so as a tradition into the dish. They are very heavily used in many dishes so it not uncommon to see these types of ingredients. But this is to also explain that we’re not just an off branch of the Spanish, but we are the combination of several generations and culture, customs, tradition, and our way of life. We pray at the table, to pray for the food and grace from God.

That religion is from the Spanish colonizers that introduce Christianity into our life. The churches often are similar and still have the Spanish roots within those glass panes. Even the language that we speak often haves' Spanish roots. Our last names are part of something that not originally belong to us, for example, Alegre, it the last name meaning joyful in Spanish. The Chinese do have some influence in our language, Tagalog, the way we call our elder brother or sister is Kuya and Ate, respectively, derives from the Chinese influence in the language.

Since our history and culture keeps changing, the US had some major influences on the food and overall culture. The Americans brought food preservation like canned food, packaged food, and fast food. Spam was integrated into Filipino dish; the dish was eaten with rice and/or eggs for breakfast. Also, ketchup was important to some dish either as a marinade for a barbecue or use as a sauce for most dishes. As such, during World War II there was a shortage of tomatoes. The Filipino uses sweet banana with spices, vinegar, brown sugar, and red food coloring to create a sweet, tangy sauce that looks like ketchup but isn’t ketchup. The idea of fast food came from the Americans and thus created Jollibee. Jollibee is a Filipino fast food joint that has Filipino food some are fast food while others have traditional food for a menu.

The dishes showed my history of what I was or who I thought I was. Dinuguan is important to me because it's unusual, it doesn’t show any heavy influences, but it shows my core. The ingredients may be from another place across or near the globe, but this dish reminds me of the time I spent learning to cook, laboring for a dish that doesn’t last a day. But I enjoyed it, I love cooking. I could take parts of the Filipino dish to create something new. Even though I was born, lived, and raised here in the US and even if I don’t speak Tagalog, I felt a connection from my hands to the dish and the dish to my body.