Drawing the line

Summoning all my knowledge of Filipino food and drawing a line on what makes something Filipino gives me heartburn. Trying to summarize how Spanish, but not Spanish; how Chinese, but not Chinese; how American, but not American our cuisine seems too daunting a task. And, in hindsight, shouldn’t have been the thought process of defining something constantly in transit. The fact of the matter is, when you’re trying to draw a line through such lofty distinctions, the best piece of advice is to just not. Filipino food does not work on rules, it works on people. It’s as inclusive as that unspoken open invitation to anyone’s house during piyestas.

Trying to find something from the past just won’t cut it. The landscape of food changes with the tide of wants and needs. We don’t stop at “Adobo is the national dish” or “Sinigang is the national dish” because they both dishes share sentiments of our identity, but we can’t call them an end all. Because our food isn’t anything in particular, it’s not something honed by years of trying to understand ourselves. We weren’t given that space. It’s everything put together into this confusing, fascinating category of whatever goes, which isn’t a bad thing.

The most shining example of our ingenuity to me is Filipino Spaghetti. But why that? It’s not even Filipino. True our ancestors didn’t pull this from the ground they treaded. We didn’t invent the spaghetti, but we made it ours. The Frankenstein’s monster of what used to be something Italian. Brought by immigrants to the US, then brought to us via dodgy negotiations with Spain. We have bastardized the Italian flag-bearer of culinary tradition and made it into a mess of processed hotdog, Quickmelt and banana ketchup. Yet it remains an integral part of the culinary landscape we have tried for so long to placate. It bleeds into our every day and imprints itself into the collective memory of children across the entire country. Anyone who says otherwise lies to you and orders C3 from Jollibee whenever humanely possible.

The suggestive nature of our food tells of a people trying to make heads of a world that wouldn’t just let it be. I think maybe that’s why I can’t draw the line between things that are and aren’t Filipino. Our food has its own identify solely because it doesn’t have just one. Like the failed revolutions of old, we are fractured by our geography and everything else in between. We want different things and can only

rally behind the unified banner of rice and all its forms. The late food writer Clinton Palanca decried the concept of authentic Filipino food and the caustic walls we try to build around it. I was once like that, so rigid in attempting to understand my food by looking beyond, through words and worlds that were not mine. It gave me a fundamental understanding of what it was, but never what it is.

I think to see Filipino food is to inspect where it is most celebrated: at home. It is where we seek Filipino the most. Here, we find the sacred ritual of marinating bangus in garlic and vinegar then stuck in a 1.5-liter tub of ice cream. Where we place trays of cured beef on top of gates to bask in the sunlight and make into tapa. Where the tapestries of Filipino food is woven, honed and sought.

The veins of flavors run diverse throughout the regions, which directly reflect on the food of the household, much like my own.

I think Filipino food is kind of like the food spread during all the family reunions I loathe to attend. I never quite understand what qualifies as appropriate food to bring to these types of gatherings. I don’t think there is any solid rule. I’ve seen, on occasion, a bilao of California maki beside spaghetti (with condensed milk) and humba. The food, no matter how unrelated, always finds a cramped corner in a plate or over rice. Humba sauce gets mistaken for adobo, Mang Tomas is drenched over anything that isn’t already concerningly brown, and suka gets poured on whatever God deems worthy.

Philippine food is a potluck. We defy authentic with what works for us. We take all that is given, pancit from China, embutido and callos from Spain and all the canned goods from the US and frame them into what we define as good. That for me, is food at its apex. A conundrum of influence and flavors made new and magnificent by our own culture and context.

And that’s what makes Filipino so fun. I can talk about how we love sour products. How it’s become a national mission to put

kalamansi or suka on anything. I can also readdress the importance of sawsawan as a cornerstone of our collective hospitability. Yet these can only say so much. The identity we so severely want to define is in front of us, in those plates of unchecked, unbound culinary messes. Filipino food doesn’t aspire to be anything and it shouldn’t. Resistance to the inevitable inconsistencies of our culture would only cause unnecessary stress. I’d rather laud in our own beautiful, continent-defying mess. This way I can get to my spaghetti with leftover lechon and pancit my mother packed from the reunion.

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