Created On: 07/08/2009 13:50:02 The following is from a British journalist stationed in the Philippines.
This was written in 1999. Matter of Taste by Matthew Sutherland..
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I have now been in this country for over six years, and consider myself in
most respects well-assimilated. However, there is one key step on the road
to full assimilation which I have yet to take, and that’s to eat BALUT.
The day any of you sees me eating balut, please call immigration and ask
them to issue me a Filipino passport. Because at that point there will be no
turning back.
BALUT, for those still blissfully ignorant non-Pinoys out there, is a
fertilized duck egg. It is commonly sold with salt in a piece of newspaper,
much like English fish and chips, by street vendors usually after dark,
presumably so you can’t see how gross it is.. It’s meant to be an
aphrodisiac, although I can’t imagine anything more likely to dispel sexual
desire than crunching on a partially-formed baby duck swimming in noxious
fluid. The embryo in the egg comes in varying stages of development, but
basically it is not considered macho to eat one without fully discernable
feathers, beak, and claws. Some say these crunchy bits are the best. Others
prefer just to drink the so-called ’soup’, the vile, pungent liquid that
surrounds the aforementioned feathery fetus…excuse me, I have to go and
throw up now. I’ll be back in a minute.
Food dominates the life of the Filipino. People here just love to eat. They
eat at least eight times a day. These eight official meals are called, in
order: breakfast, snacks, lunch, merienda, pica-pica, pulutan, dinner, and
no-one-saw-me-take-that-cookie-from-the-fridge-so-it-doesn’t-count.
The short gaps in between these mealtimes are spent eating Sky Flakes from
the open packet that sits on every desktop. You’re never far from food in
the Philippines. If you doubt this, next time you’re driving home from work,
try this game. See how long you can drive without seeing food and I don’t
mean a distant restaurant, or a picture of food. I mean a man on the
sidewalk frying fish balls, or a man walking through the traffic selling
nuts or candy. I bet it’s less than one minute.
Here are some other things I’ve noticed about food in the Philippines.
Firstly, a meal is not a meal without rice-even breakfast. In the UK, I
could go a whole year without eating rice. Second, it’s impossible to drink
without eating. A bottle of San Miguel just isn’t the same without gambas or
beef tapa. Third, no one ventures more than two paces from their house
without baon and a container of something cold to drink. You might as well
ask a Filipino to leave home without his pants on. And lastly, where I come
from, you eat with a knife and fork. Here, you eat with a spoon and fork.
You try eating rice swimming in fish sauce with a knife.
One really nice thing about Filipino food culture is that people always ask
you to SHARE their food. In my office, if you catch anyone attacking their
baon, they will always go. “Sir! KAIN TAYO!” (”Let’s eat!”). This confused
me, until I realized that they didn’t actually expect me to sit down and
start munching on their boneless bangus. In fact, the polite response is
something like, “No thanks, I just ate.” But the principle is sound-if you
have food on your plate, you are expected to share it, however hungry you
are, with those who may be even hungrier. I think that’s great. In fact,
this is frequently even taken one step further. Many Filipinos use “Have you
eaten yet?” (”KUMAIN KA NA?”) as a general greeting, irrespective of time of
day or location. Some foreigners think Filipino food is fairly dull compared
to other Asian cuisines. Actually lots of it is very good: spicy dishes like
Bicol Express (strange, a dish named after a train); anything cooked with
coconut milk; anything KINILAW; and anything ADOBO. And it’s hard to beat
the sheer wanton, cholesterholic frenzy of a good old-fashioned LECHON de
leche feast. Dig a pit, light a fire, add 50 pounds of animal fat on a
stick, and cook until crisp. Mmm, mmm… you can actually feel your arteries
constricting with each successive mouthful.
I also share one key Pinoy trait —a sweet tooth. I am thus the only
foreigner I know who does not complain about sweet bread, sweet burgers,
sweet spaghetti, sweet banana ketchup, and so on. I am a man who likes to
put jam on his pizza. Try it! It’s the weird food you want to avoid.
In addition to duck fetus in the half-shell, items to avoid in the
Philippines include pig’s blood soup (DINUGUAN); bull’s testicle soup, the
strangely-named “SOUP NUMBER FIVE” (I dread to think what numbers one
through four are); and the ubiquitous, stinky shrimp paste, BAGOONG, and
it’s equally stinky sister, PATIS.
Filipinos are so addicted to these latter items that they will even risk
arrest or deportation trying to smuggle them into countries like Australia
and the USA, which wisely ban the importation of items you can smell from
more than 100 paces.
Then there’s the small matter of the blue ice cream.. I have never been able
to get my brain around eating blue food; the ubiquitous UBE leaves me cold.
And lastly on the subject of weird food, beware: that KALDERETANG KAMBING
(goat) could well be KALDERETANG ASO (dog)… The Filipino, of course, has a
well-developed sense of food.
Here’s a typical Pinoy food joke: “I’m on a seafood diet. “What’s a seafood
diet?” “When I see food, I eat it!”
Filipinos also eat strange bits of animals—the feet, the head, the guts,
etc., usually barbecued on a stick. These have been given witty names, like
“ADIDAS” (chicken’s feet); “KURBATA” (either just chicken’s neck, or “neck
and thigh” as in “neck-tie”); “WALKMAN” (pigs ears); “PAL” (chicken wings);
“HELMET” (chicken head); “IUD” (chicken intestines), and “BETAMAX”
(video-cassette-like blocks of animal blood). Yum, yum. Bon appetit.
Created On: 07/02/2009 21:16:51 Mabuhay ang lahat ng Pilipino maliban sa salot na si pokenkoy…!!! Malaki ang kaniyang ulo maliit ang katawan kung maglakad siya parang matutumba nakakatakot nga parang bangkay na humihinga.Nagmamagaling pa akala mo mabait subalit salot siya,,maraming pangalan ang nadelete dito kagagawan ng pokenkoy sapagkat talunan siya.Siya na rin ang maysabi matatalino ang viewers alam nila kung paano dumanas ng maraming kahihiyan ang pokenkoy na malaki ang ulo,palagi kase siyang natatalo.Dahilan kung bakit dinidelete nya mga names ditto. Mabuhay ang mga matatalino at sa salot na si pokenkoy kapag nakita nyo pagsisipain nyo!!
Created On: 06/12/2009 22:09:43 There is so much wit in the Philippines because "We are a country where a good sense ofhumor is needed to survive". We have a 24-hour comedy show here called the government and a huge reserve of comedians made up mostly of politicians and bad actors.Now I ask you where else in the world would one want to live?
