Books that celebrate provincial Filipino fare
“Also Filipino: 75 Regional Dishes I Never Had Growing Up” is my fifth cookbook. The previous ones have been mostly about family heirloom recipes and the Filipino fare I have known and loved from the moment I learned to appreciate food, like the caldereta of my Lola Nene, the boquillos of my Lola Belen and the leche flan of my mom Cynthia.
The new one fills in the gap as I learn about dishes outside the metro, in 22 provinces, to be exact. I knocked on people’s doors, hung out in carinderias, and talked to taxi drivers to ask about the home-cooked dishes they like and where I could possibly learn more about them.
I ended up with 75 items including the luñis of Batanes, chicken pipian of Ilocos Sur,
tinutungan na manok of Sorsogon and masi of Cebu. These not only added to my local culinary vocabulary, but they also managed to enrich me as a Filipino.
My advocacy is expanding Filipinos’ knowledge beyond the usual adobo, sinigang and
kinilaw, but since we’re also celebrating Filipino Food Month, I would like to add to your food library by listing down more books that focus on provincial fare. These zero in on a particular region or cuisine and some even tell interesting stories behind the dishes.
Travel may be restricted at the moment because of the pandemic, but leafing through these books surely makes appreciating Filipino food a trip.
‘The Tausug Cookbook’ Published in 2019, this decadelong project is a collection of Halal Tausug family recipes that have been passed on from one generation to another.
To supplement his book, author Abdulaziz Hamsain came up with a YouTube channel where people can watch how the dishes are cooked. Notable items in the book include utak utak, a coconut-infused fish patty, and the jaa, golden crispy threads formed into a small hollow cylinder.
‘Atching Lillian’s Heirloom Recipes’
Aside from sharing recipes for Kapampangan specialties such as tocino del cielo, a rich custard; betute or deep-fried stuffed frogs; and bobotong asan, which is steamed milkfish in tanglad sauce, the 288-pager also features highlights of Lilian Mercado-Lising Borromeo’s life, from the time she won in the Great Maya Cookfest in 1976 and 1977 to her culinary genealogy.
‘Negrense Heritage Cooking’
Produced by the Slow Food Community Negros, this labor of love took just a few months to produce, yet the legacy it leaves behind will last lifetimes. “This is not merely an enumeration of dishes you can cook,” writes Reena Gamboa, niece of the late great food historian Doreen Gamboa Fernandez. “Some are not even cooked anymore.” But they see the importance of still documenting and preserving them.
There’s a recipe for bas-uy
(ground beef soup), bindongada
(stewed tripe) and the caramel milk candy called dulsi gatas. ‘The Cuisine of Quezon’
An accountant by profession and baker by occupation, Milada Dealo Valde gathers more than 40 dishes found on many of Quezon’s dining tables and compiles them in this hardcover. The recipes are categorized into soup, meat and poultry, seafood, noodles and vegetables and sweets.
These include a dish of chicken innards called pirihil, chami noodles and a cassava dessert called kalangkang.
‘Karasa’
Much research went into this book, which celebrates Catbalogan’s culinary traditions. There are recipes for bola catalana, which is like an embutido; pakdol or beef stew; and their famous tamalos, a variation of tamale. It includes pages on Samar’s indigenous ingredients like kolis leaves for paksiw, their wide range of seafood harvest, and fiesta practices.
‘Naimas!’
The food heritage of Ilocos Sur is immortalized in this thick and comprehensive book produced by chef Heny Sison and DV Savellano. The sections are divided by towns and their products like bagnet in Narvacan, tuna in Caoayan, and kakanin in San Juan. The recipes include mixed chicken stew named sapsapuriket, a soupy Vigan miki, and their version of dinuguan called dinardaraan.
‘Davao Cuisine’
This is a compilation of the food eaten by the 10 tribes of Davao City, such as the Ubo Manuvus, Matigsalug, Jangan and Bagobo. A lot of their dishes use coconut, from meat to milk, as seen in the recipes for panyalam (deepfried cake) and utan (taro in coco milk). Bamboo is also prevalent as a cooking equipment as proven by the linuob to baboy (pork) and tinadtad na bakbak (frogs).
‘Heirloom Recipes of the Cordillera’
The book is a beautiful introduction to the food shared among the communities of indigenous peoples in the Cordillera region, which cover Ifugao, Kalinga and Apayao, to name a few. Apart from recipes on how to cook items like binatungan (rice and beans), and ginataang bisukol (snails in coco milk), some pages also offer cooking tips, ingredient substitutes and food history like hamul, the village buffet.
Travel may be restricted at the moment, but leafing through these books makes appreciating Filipino food a trip