CCA prepares a Pinoy barbie for Aussies

MANILA, Philippines -We, Filipinos, love our own food as much as our own blood. There is nothing that excites us more than a potluck at home with the entire clan. We know the taste and the smell of lola’s kare-kare, tita Girlie’s fruit salad and kuya Efren’s lechon. But when it comes to foreigners, the potluck remains a questionable feast.

In the past three years I’ve been living in Melbourne, I’ve seen well-traveled Australians embrace Asian cuisine with the influx of Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai restaurants. Surely, there would be space for one more. But how would one introduce Filipino cuisine and all its influences that come from Spaniards, Americans and Southeast Asian neighbors?

It was simple really — let Filipino chefs cook their food and present it in a way Australians would be excited about. This was where the “Filipino Barbie” began, a project of Center of Culinary Arts, Manila (CCA), which aims to promote Filipino cuisine in the land down under.

“Barbie” is a colloquial term in Australia for barbecue, a gathering of family and friends but more so, a good reason to have beer and sausages during a sunny day. And that was what exactly happened on the first Filipino Barbie in the Northcote Social Club.  We had lechon roasting on the spit and 250 hungry guests. Oh, yes, they were very hungry guests.

The line piled half an hour before the opening siren. The CCA students, who were in Australia to experience the best of Australian cuisine and to be exposed at the events of the “Melbourne Food & Wine Festival,” barely had time to rattle through their steels and sharpen their blades.  Instead, they had to twist and turn, grapple with the ravenous demands of impatient lechon lovers with the help of senior chefs, Melissa Sison (CCA program director) and Jonathan Bautista (corporate chef of Cravings).

On closer inspection, the impervious crowd revealed a mixture of Pinoys and Aussies. The smell of the lechon motivated the crowd. Perhaps, we had found the entry point to the Australian market.

Overwhelmed by this success, we decided to test the market’s taste again last March 9 to coincide with the “Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.”  This time, in William Angliss Institute, we wanted to introduce a more sophisticated presentation of Filipino food.

A culinary trio — celebrity chef Sau del Rosario, CCA chefs Melissa Sison and Gigi Angkaw — created a menu that would puzzle the guests and deconstruct traditional dishes from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. A brigade of 20 culinary students executed the menu — pritchon, sinuglaw (grilled pork and fish ceviche), suam na mais (creamy corn soup), chicken inasal, pinakbet, watermelon atsara and halo-halo.

On the night of the second Filipino Barbie, CCA students adorned in kimona and barong welcomed the guests with glasses of mangosa, a Pinoy take on a mimosa and offered their hungry bellies bite-sized pritchon. Many were happy to see our national beer, San Miguel, being served as well.

As each course was served, no longer in potluck style, you could see the inquisitive faces. The pinakbet was stuffed in tomatoes, crispy prawns floated in the soup, and diced watermelon tasted of cane vinegar. The flavors were still of traditional Filipino cuisine, but there were few twists throughout the dinner.

At the end of the night, the chefs came out from the kitchen to meet the guests, only to be embraced by a loud round of applause.  There were no more inquisitive faces, but expressions of satisfaction and pride among the guests. Again, the Filipino Barbie was a success.  

For the CCA students, it was a test to measure their stamina and skills in the kitchen. Most of them felt like they were running in a marathon, and at the end, they felt the fulfillment of a victorious run.  It was a triumph like no other and for them to be exposed at such a young age at a functioning kitchen, they truly have what it takes to survive the rigors of the kitchen in the future.

Both “Filipino Barbie” events have a lot to say about Filipino cuisine in the global landscape. One of which is Filipino cuisine’s popularity is very young compared to other Southeast Asian cuisines. It has yet to be defined.

Still, there is much that can be done if we are not stuck in our old ways. We have the recipes passed on from generation to generation. Now, it’s up to our chefs to play with the traditions. But please, just save the potluck for the clan.

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The author Beatrice G. Trinidad is based in Melbourne, Australia, working for a dynamic company specializing in new wave advertising, social media and consumer trends.