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You Are Where You Eat

By on May 13, 2013 in Food

You Are Where You EatI’ll share a little secret with you: I once had a touch of Xenophobia.

Xenophobia is defined as the fear of strangers or foreigners and while I was never afraid of strange or foreign people, I was afraid of strange food.

We were on a tight budget at my house when I was growing up and the food we ate reflected that.  We ate well and never went hungry, we just never ate real ethnic foods. Spaghetti was as Italian as we got. Chili as Mexican. Canned Chun-King chow mein with the wet stuff in the bottom can and the noodles in the top can was as Chinese as it got at my house.

I declined an invitation to have Chinese food with one of my girlfriends’ families once just because I had no idea what the food was and was scared that I would embarrass myself by not liking it. In fact, I didn’t have restaurant Chinese food until I was in my twenties! Shocking, I know, to anyone who has seen me recently as I chow down on jellyfish salad.

Now, of course, everything has changed. I eat Asian food more often than I eat typical American food. I had adobong manok for lunch today and a side dish of kangkong last night and for some reason, I’ve been thinking about my wife Menchu’s lechon paksiw off and on for the last three days.

While my stomach is prepared for life in the Philippines, amazingly, I read about people who are considering a move there who don’t like Filipino food or who haven’t tried it yet! The other day I read an article by a fellow who said that when he moved to the Philippines, he had to have his girlfriend order everything at restaurants because he didn’t know what the dishes were. Another guy I read a couple of weeks back said he was moving to Iloilo and then later said that he didn’t like fish or shellfish. I guess it’s possible to get by in the tropics without eating fish but I wonder if that guy is truly suited for a move to the Philippines.

The old saying goes, “You are what you eat.” I think those of us who have Filipino spouses, are looking for Filipino partners or who are seriously considering a move to the Philippines in the future should change that old saying into something new: “You are where you eat!”

What do you think?

 

 

photo credit: hermitsmoores via photopin cc


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A different Thanksgiving dinner

By on November 21, 2012 in American culture, Clash, Food, History

A different Thanksgiving dinner turkeyWhile Christmas and New Year’s Eve and Day are big holidays in the Philippines, the other holidays we celebrate in America are not.

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays. Celebrated in America as a day of thanks for the things we are lucky to have, it is based on the story of some of the first pioneers to come to America and their feast with the local indigenous people at the end of harvest time and after a deadly first winter.

American tradition dictates that a turkey be cooked for Thanksgiving. Experts concede that there was probably more seafood and vegetables than turkey at the first Thanksgiving but turkey, bread “stuffing”, pureed pumpkin pie, and jellied cranberries are now considered “traditional” fare.

I asked Menchu last week what she would like to have for our Thanksgiving meal, figuring it would be about time to start shopping for a fresh turkey and the other staple foods.

She surprised me by saying, “Chicken.”

“Chicken! What kind of chicken?”

“The chicken from Safeway (supermarket).”

“You mean the rotisserie chicken they sell in the plastic tubs?”

“Yeah sure! It would be easier than cooking!”

So there it is. Our official break with tradition. A different Thanksgiving dinner: rotisserie chicken. Menchu is also making buko pie which is one of my favorite desserts.

Now I’m not much of a traditionalist or a sentimentalist so chicken and buko pie for Thanksgiving is actually fine with me (I always look forward to buko pie) but I’ll wager that suggesting such a radical departure from tradition in some households would cause problems.

How about it? When cultures collide, how do you compromise?

Oh and Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

 

photo credit: Andrea Westmoreland via photopin cc


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Happy Birthday To Me

By on September 3, 2012 in American culture, Food

Photo of yummy frostingToday is not my birthday. My birthday is two days from now but since today is Labor Day and a holiday off from my work, we’re celebrating my birthday today.

I didn’t have Filipino Spaghetti (which we always joke is the “traditional” meal) but we did go to Foulee Market on the corner of South Columbian Way and Beacon Avenue South and grab a bunch of Filipino specials. We bought fried bangus, lechon paksiw, fried rice and pancit.

There was no big birthday cake either. My wife Menchu picked up bibingka and I grabbed a package of ube bread for my birthday sweet.

I wonder what it will be like to celebrate my first birthday in the Philippines after we move. Will it be like today? Fried bangus and ube bread? As you can probably tell, I’m not a traditionalist so I won’t miss the cake and ice cream that usually accompany American birthdays.

I think I can tell you that the spread will be bigger. More food, more people, plus beer. Lechon, spaghettie, buko salad…yum! I can’t wait to grow old in the Philippines!

 

Yummy Frosting photo is © D. Sharon Pruitt and used under Creative Commons license.


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Rice Every Day? Can You Eat That?

By on March 19, 2012 in Food

Rice every dayChances are good that if you’re in a relationship with a Filipino, you’ve either faced or are going to face the sticky starch question: Am I going to have to eat rice every day?

The role of rice in the Philippines has been compared to the role of potatoes in America. Americans eat about 126 pounds of potatoes per person every year. The average Filipino eats about 205 pounds of rice in a year. That isn’t a huge difference but what is different is how our cultures view their primary starches.

Americans are usually thought of as being “meat and potatoes” people. Typical meals for us are a burger and fries, steak and potatoes, sausage and hash browns and so on. We can go without the potato on the plate, though.

To a Filipino, however, a meal isn’t a meal without rice.

My wife Menchu makes great tinola, Filipino chicken soup. She serves it in a bowl that she puts on the table between us and serves rice on plates with it. The idea is to scoop some soup out onto the rice and eat both. The first time she made it, I  She serves mongo (mung bean) soup the same way.

When I was growing up, rice came out of a box marked “Minute” or “Uncle Ben’s” and my family ate it topped with butter and sugar. It wasn’t until I moved to Seattle and spent some time with a Japanese-American woman who grew up in  Hawaii that I began to eat rice “normally”.

Once I knew that Menchu and I were going to be married, I began buying rice in the big, 25-lb. bags and cooking it more often. Once she got here, the transition to eating rice every day  was smooth for me. I understand, though, how weird eating rice every day might seem to other Americans and how something as simple as rice can complicate a relationship.

So what do you think? Rice every day?

 

Rice photo is © visualpanic and used under Creative Commons license.

 


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