Subscriber First Name — The Newsletter is Back!

Hi Subscriber First Name,

The newsletter is back.

I took some time off to grieve over the passing of the former President of the Philippines Benigno S. Aquino III. Before moving to the US, I served as his assistant, the staffer carrying a big black bag with everything he needed for his daily engagements. I wrote a series of tributes to PNoy in case you’re interested to read.

I hope you enjoy this issue. As usual, I’m sharing a couple of interesting reads and new titles that have arrived the shop.

I’m always open to suggestions on what you’d like to see in this newsletter, so please feel free to send any comments my way by replying to this email.

Raf

P.S. Needless to say, if you’re not loving this newsletter, the unsubscribe button is in the footer of this email. I won’t get offended. 😊

🍲 Food for Thought

Here’s your serving of interesting ideas to nibble on.

🍲 Committee to decide what is ‘standard’ adobo by Roy Canivel — What are your thoughts on coming up with a standard way to cook adobo? On one hand, doing so might be a step towards consistency which will make Filipino cuisine easier to market. On the other hand, one distinct quality of Filipino food is the wide variety across regions and provinces. Standardizing might compromise one quality which makes Filipino cuisine stand out. (Another question: why standardize adobo first? Why not other dishes?)

🥫 The Canned Food Conundrum by Jess Hernandez — A thought-provoking essay on how canned food became popular in Filipino food culture. Growing up in Manila, canned food has always been present in our pantry — vienna sausage, corned beef, SPAM or the more affordable Chinese version called Maling, and pork and beans (which should actually be called “beans and beans” because each can just had a tiny piece of pork and the rest were beans).

🍠 How P-Noy Brought Filipino Cuisine to International Renown by Margaux Salcedo — This is a tribute to the late President Benigno S. Aquino III and how his administration, led by the former Secretary of Tourism Mon Jimenez, supported the promotion of Filipino cuisine on the world stage.

🔥 In case you missed it…

Filipino Food Crawl hosted a food chat with Clang Garcia, author of Food Holidays and gastronomic experience curator, and food and culture writer Bettina Makalintal, who led the discussion in our first food chat in January.

We had a wonderful time going through the nuances — ingredients and cooking styles — of different dishes across the Philippines. One point that Clang made which struck me was that she saw the variety of Filipino food change from province to province, not just on the regional level.

The video of the chat is now live on YouTube. Enjoy!

SEE THE VIDEO

📖 Books of the Weeks

These are the new titles that have arrived at the shop.

Written by Stephen Acabado

For nearly 100 years, academics and the lay public have quarreled over, debated, and investigated the antiquity of the Ifugao rice terracing system of the Cordillera Central in the Philippines.

Though they have been long argued to be some 2000 years old and a massive building challenge, we now gain solid evidence that they initially predate, at best, a short time before the Spanish appearance in the archipelago.

Written by Gideon Lasco

This book is an exploration of the Philippines as a beautiful land, a home to a diversity of peoples, a nation-in-the-making, and a country at the heart of the world.

Drawing from anthropology, history, contemporary events, popular culture, and the author’s field experiences and travels, the essays draw connections between nature and culture, self and society, the local and the global, as well as the past and the present in order to arrive at a deeper, fuller, critical, yet hopeful view of a country that is larger than many imagine it to be.

Written by Stephanie Coo

“This book is, to date, the most comprehensive and rigorously-researched study on the forms of dress worn by almost all types and classes of inhabitants of the Philippines under Spain from 1820 to 1896.

Written in a lucid style and appropriately documented with prints and photographs of the period, this work is an indispensable source book for all artists who design for theater, film, television, and the fashion industry, as well as historians of all persuasions and Filipinophiles of all nations.”

Written by Floro L. Mercene

The Filipino diaspora is at least 400 years old. Since the 16th century, Filipinos have been going to foreign lands to find their place in the sun. In the beginning they were known as the Manila Men.

For two-and-a-half centuries, Filipinos by the hundreds traveled yearly to Mexico and the Americas, with many electing to stay and find a new life. The chief means for migration was the Manila galleon.

The end of the galleon trade in 1815 did not stop the exodus of Filipinos to foreign lands. This book attempts to answer the question: What happened to those Filipinos who started the diaspora?

Written by Arturo Pacho

Embark upon an adventurous journey through the islands of the Philippines and explore the taste, aroma, and high spirits that dwell in each bottle of native tropical wines.

From the cultural textures of tapuy, basi and tuba to daring new wines from rare fruits and staple crops, these tropical wines follow the arrival of Filipino food, heralded as a new exciting culinary frontier.

Learn how traditional wines changed Philippine history in the fight for independence, examine their socioeconomic aspects, and marvel in the ingenious techniques used to create delicious wines found nowhere else.

VISIT THE SHOP

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