Culinary Culture
The Also Filipino cookbook wins bronze at the AsiaPacific Stevie Awards 2021
For his fifth cookbook Also Filipino, Angelo Comsti introduced something adventurous and deeply personal. This endeavour is quite different from his previous books in that it takes readers into the nuances of regional Filipino cuisine, exploring unfamiliar, delectable dishes from across the nation.
Most of Comsti’s cookbooks deal with Filipino food because as a journalist, he is passionate about documenting and preserving treasured recipes, which to him are cultural gems. “Our food is rich and wealthy, much like our history, our soil and agriculture. I do hope that it won’t take another foreigner to claim how beautiful our food is before we come to appreciate it ourselves,” he notes.
Food has always been on the top of his list whenever this gourmand travels. Comsti shares that in working on Also Filipino he discovered a ton of dishes that he—and apparently many other people— never knew or had not tried while growing up in the country. The writer dove in headfirst and began cataloguing these must-try finds. “The goal for this book was two-fold: to preserve, as well as to introduce a roster of dishes people would never have discovered unless they travelled domestically. We’re all familiar with sinigang, adobo, lechon, halo-halo, bibingka, but what about chicken piaparan, kansi, kinalas and inkalti? They are also Filipino,” he elaborates enthusiastically, echoing the book’s title.
“My personal motto is ‘the more I eat, the less I know’,” the author comments. “The more I went around the country and ate in local eateries and street side-shacks, the more I realised that I didn’t know much about my own cuisine. Hence, the cookbook and other avenues wherein I’m trying to promote regional food.” Through these flavour-packed recipes he hopes to entice Filipinos and foreigners to travel more domestically to enjoy and see the Philippines the way that he does.
As a writer and a F&B professional, Comsti thought to himself: “If I really want to know and understand our cuisine and be able to effectively promote it abroad as a writer or a proud citizen, then I must acknowledge the presence of these lesser-known dishes.” Thus, in Also