Filipino Food: Ready for the World
One of the best things about globalization is having food from across the world on your doorstep – in the bigger cities at least, anyway.
We have access to pretty much every cuisine we could ask for, but there’s one in particular that is, according to top chef Anthony Bourdain, set to be the next big food trend: Filipino.
Bourdain believes Filipino food is “underrated,” “ascendant” and a “work in progress.”
And he thinks western palates are ready for it. “I think certain Filipino dishes are more likely to take root and take hold more quickly than others,” he told CNN. One of the dishes he particularly likes is called “sisig,” which is made from the snout, jowl, ear and tongue of a pig.
“I think ‘sisig’ is perfectly positioned to win the hearts and minds of the world as a whole,” Bourdain said, adding that he thinks the dish is “casual, accessible, [and] exactly what you need after a few beers.
“I think it’s the most likely to convince people abroad who have had no exposure to Filipino food to maybe look further and investigate further beyond ‘sisig’. I think that’s the one that’s gonna hook them.”
Bourdain will be relying on people being open to eating all the parts of a pig that we normally discard. He said that Filipinos who moved to the US “were able to assimilate and Americanize very easily and very quickly.”
“I think Filipinos embraced America and were embraced by America in a way that other cultures might not have been,” he explained. “I think Filipinos in America maybe underrated their own food. They used to be mocked for ‘balut’ (hard-boiled duck embryo).
“A lot of traditional Filipino food has sour and bitter notes, which are very unfamiliar to American palates of a few years ago. American palates have since changed drastically. I think there’s a really bright future.”
In the States, in particular, there’s been an explosion of Korean cuisine over the last decade, and Bourdain believes the same will happen with Filipino cuisine.
In London, there are only a handful of Filipino restaurants at the moment – including the incredibly popular Romulo in Kensington. But where America goes, the United Kingdom often follows – with food, anyway.