A feast of books for Filipino Food Month
What better time to launch books about food than during Filipino Food Month? “Pigafetta’s Philippine Picnic: Culinary Encounters During the First Circumnavigation, 1519-1522” was written about in this column some weeks back. Felice Sta. Maria wove a story through her research that Ferdinand Magellan was killed because of food that he demanded as tribute. At least that’s my short version of it. The book can be ordered and delivered. Details are in the Food Writers Association of the Philippines Facebook page.
The other book is “Appetite for Freedom: The Recipes of Maria Y. Orosa, and Essays on Her Life and Work.” The original book was published more than 50 years ago, and this new version was reworked by Ige Ramos, who is also publisher.
Ramos, award-winning book and graphic designer, whose works include “Kulinarya” (Anvil Publishing, 2008), “The Governor General’s Kitchen” (Anvil Publishing, 2006), and “Panaderia” (Anvil Publishing, 2015) said he wanted to make the design contemporary to appeal, I suppose, to a new generation of readers.
Younger generation
For his book design, Ramos was inspired by Nick Bantock, a British author and artist whose books look like they were made by an album enthusiast.
One of his famous works, “Sabine’s Notebook” (Chronicle Books, 1992), caught my attention many years ago when my son asked me to buy it for him on one of my trips abroad. There were envelopes with letters within the book, a rather figurative representation of correspondence, that became a hit with the younger generation.
Ramos also colorized old photographs. This was not in the style of how old photos used to be colorized (dresses made brilliant, lipstick applied, rouge added) but splashes of color were added to make lively the drab sepia and black-and-white photographs of long ago.
There were graphic artworks that looked like images in a kaleidoscope, like snowflake designs. These can be seen in the chapter on Roselle, that flower which was used extensively before the war to make into many food products, then was no longer known, but later revived.
Those kaleidoscope artworks, Ramos said, were inspired by the works of Neri Oxman, an American Israeli scientist and designer who teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She uses several science disciplines such as “biology, computing and materials engineering” to create designs. Ramos does the same by placing chemical formulas and botanical illustrations and colors that liven the page.
But while Ramos did apply contemporary design techniques, he said he also did not want to “lose the vibe of the last century” when Orosa worked and when her book was published. This is why he used photographs from that period like the 1920s kitchen and the old lab of the Bureau of Science.
Chapters were reworded in this new edition. The book acquired a new title that was added to the original, “Appetite for Freedom.” That says in three words what the book and its 700 recipes wanted to achieve— self-sufficiency in food so a country can improve its economy and survive in times of crisis.
New material
Chapter 1 was originally “The Preservation of Philippine Foods.” Now, it’s “Taming Nature by Culture” though the original title is also there. “Rebranding the rice bran” is the new title of the chapter on rice bran.
But new material was also added. A story about Orosa, “The Chemistry of Resistance” by Jessica Gingrich, was reprinted from Lady Science, a magazine that features women “in science, technology and medicine.”
Present at the book launch held online were Sta. Maria, who wrote the preface of the new book and who has studied the food of that period, and Evelyn Orosa del Rosario Garcia, daughter of the late Helen Orosa del Rosario, who wrote and published the first book of her aunt.
When we wrote about Orosa in this column some time back, the younger generation was amazed to find she had formulated banana catsup, soyolac and extracted thiamin from rice bran. Those were just three of her accomplishments. With the new presentation of her book, this lady who lived and worked in the early 20th century and her groundbreaking and practical ideas will be brought to the present through redesign and reworking.
The book will be released in June, but preorders can be made through ige.ramos@gmail.com.