Is it possible to have an 'authentic' Filipino meal on foreign soil?

(Editor’s note: The author starts this new column to alternately appear with his Turo-turo. Throw any questions into this tempest Pinoy melting pot and Claude says he’ll try his best to answer them. Fire away at Facebook Claude Tayag or email claudetayag@gmail.com.)

To start our ball rolling, here’s a series of questions sent by Marvin Gapultos, a Fil-Am food blogger (burntlumpia.com) based in Los Angeles, California:

Hi, Mr. Tayag. Do you think it’s possible to have an “authentic” Filipino meal on foreign soil, considering Filipino ingredients aren’t always readily available to some of us outside the Philippines? And does using those ready mixes like sinigang powder make it any less authentic?

That’s an unqualified yes! What is “authentic,” anyway? It’s a very gray area nowadays, especially in this day and age of globalization. What used to be hard-to-get ingredients, as well as seasonal vegetables and fruits, are now available year round. They may not be at their peak flavors when not in their natural place and season, but they’re there. Take the example of salmon heads and bellies. They’re readily available at local supermarkets and even wet markets — throwaway scraps of the canning factories of Alaska. They are a favorite main ingredient in sinigang sa miso, and command a premium price compared to using local fish. One can find this fish-head soup being served in most food courts nowadays. Does using an imported fish make it any less authentic? And where did the miso come from anyway? It’s been a part of the Pinoy’s pantry list for many generations, introduced perhaps by the Japanese migrant workers in the early 1900s in the banana and pineapple plantations of Davao and Bukidnon.

To go back to the first question, does using trout, bok choy and sinigang powder on foreign soil make it any less authentic? Cooking, in any country or culture, is making the most of whatever is available locally, and then adapting it to the taste (panlasa) one grew up with. A cuisine is constantly evolving, adapting and assimilating.

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What’s the biggest misconception about Filipino food?

That it’s all brown and oily. Just take a look at the Kulinarya cookbook and see that it’s otherwise.

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What’s the biggest obstacle for Filipino food being appreciated around the world?

It’s we Filipinos who are to blame. We are our own worst critics. Though we love our own native food, we tend to overlook it when dining out in a restaurant. It’s what I call the Adobo Syndrome: “Ay, why eat out and pay so much if our adobo at home is far better?” is a very common attitude among Pinoys when choosing which restaurant to go. Pinoy cuisine is never considered a special-occasion food, perhaps because we have it every day? The adobo syndrome is so true in Filipino communities in the US. No Fil-Am will pay more than $10 for a Filipino meal, mostly in a turo-turo setting, and a “combo meal,” at that. Anything more upscale than that will be shunned. That’s the reason why upscale Filipino restaurants in the US and elsewhere don’t last long. “Why spend so much if we can do it better at home?” is the usual reason. Can they, really?

But of late, Filipino cuisine has been making a lot of headway in the US. At long last, it’s finally coming out of the kitchen closet, so to speak, but more importantly, breaking away from the long, dark shadow of lutong bahay or home-style cooking found in karinderia or cafeteria-style establishments that have bleakly represented our cuisine for far too long. The tandem of Romy Dorotan and Amy Besa of Purple Yam in New York has been leading the way.

Just look at what Simon Majumbar, author of Eat My Globe, said in an interview in Metro Home magazine in 2008: “I underestimated just how delicious Filipino food is. I can only say that I think it is one of the few undiscovered culinary treasures left in the world, and if the people of the Philippines attacked the marketing of their food with the same gusto that they apply to eating it, it could be the next culinary sensation.”

Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern said basically the same thing of our cuisine. In an interview with Today.com he said: “I predict, two years from now, Filipino food will be what we will have been talking about for six months. I think that’s going to be the next big thing.”

The time is ripe. Not only can Pinoy cuisine join the crowd up there, but I firmly believe it has the potential of surpassing all of them. With the variety and richness of our cuisine, coupled with our natural charm and warm hospitality, there’s no reason for us not to succeed. It should be a concerted effort between the private and government sectors. Let’s let our bayanihan spirit come to the fore.

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Food blooper du jour:

In a fine-dining restaurant, a gentleman in a suit (amerikana, we call it, from the Spanish americana, to mean coat or suit), asks the smartly dressed lady server if the chef’s special of the day, Prawns Orientale, had any sauce in it. “Yes, sir,” she promptly answered. “Okay, can I have the sauce on the side?” the gentleman requested. “Surely, sir,” she promptly answered. When the much-awaited dish came, the diner was somewhat dismayed with what was served him, with the sauce all around the prawns. “I thought I told you to have the sauce on the side?” he demanded. “Well, yes, sir, it’s on the left and on the right,” was her smart palusot.

Who was right? You tell me.