Tocino and kiddie or more appropriately Pinoy spaghetti, are just some of the examples of curiously caramelized delicacies on the Filipino menu. When you think about it, it truly is sick. Yet what drives me to attend children’s parties is not the sight of little tots with their backstabbing yayas fighting to bash the piñata. It’s that sugared dish inspired by the Italians that makes me excited at any Saturday afternoon bash. I fight my fear of clowns and three-year-olds just to have some of that sweet spaghetti – overcooked noodles bathing in sauce garnished with quick-melt cheese. It’s not like I can’t do it on my own, but somehow dumping half a cup of sugar into my meat sauce makes me queasy. I just want to pretend that it really just tastes that way.
When I bring my foreign friends home to taste my beloved sweet spaghetti, they start to question whether I’m a Scientologist or not. However, sweet spaghetti is only a mutt compared to the purebred strangeness of Filipino food. Foreigners, in general, try to be nice and say they love adobo. If something so sour can also be so oily yet be so good, then any food conundrum is an adventure. Many are shocked by our adventurous palate. I mean, who can forget that Fear Factor episode when contestants had to eat balut? One guy looked like he was really going for gold as he gobbled with disgust my favorite hangover cure. I just wanted to tell him to quit spitting out the juice. It’s the best part. Alan Richman, the famed food writer, once tried the world’s 10 oddest delicacies. From the 10, he chose the balut as being the strangest, beating out a vacuum-packed guinea pig.
Nine out of 10 friends agree that the reason why Filipino food stays in the Philippines, despite many attempts to go worldwide – remember Cendrillon in New York? – is because it really is a medley of acquired tastes. Add to this is that it all looks brown and mushy. One friend declared, "It’s not photogenic." My friend DJ said that Filipino food has not been standardized. He points out that Thai food really took off when it was standardized in a world-renowned cookbook. But is this not the fun of Filipino food? The arbitrariness of it? Like my tocino is better than my cousin’s, but my best friend Wendy’s sinigang beats anything on the menu any day. They also all pointed out that like its people, Filipino food is flat-out strange. Every cuisine has its exotic dish just to jar people, like snake for the Chinese or angler liver for the Japanese. However, the Filipino menu boasts a handful of culinary curiosities as everyday food, the candied spaghetti being tame in comparison. Let’s take kare-kare, a really heavy dish that has of all things peanut butter in its sauce. Traditionally, ground peanuts are used to thicken the sauce and to provide a nutty flavor to the salty sauce, as the ox tripe and whatever else simmers in it. Of course, now, thanks to our processed food culture, peanut butter has taken over. I love kare-kare, and yet as I mush up my rice in it, I remember that it’s not exotic spices but peanut butter that made this dish happen.
Laing, ginataan and, most especially, dinuguan (basically coagulated pig blood) are all eyed with caution by many visitors. Even the most delicious dish, sinigang, is greeted lukewarmly, making me think people are just hating Filipino food for fun. I mean, how can you not like sinigang? I put my foot down on burgers with citrus fruits in it, although my friend loves it more than his own son. Filipinos, by the way, like oil, fat and salt, and have a thing for pineapples.
What’s annoying is when an old Filipino recipe gets swiped by some celebrity chef and calls it his discovery. One chef featured in GQ called his deep-fried pig’s trotter an unexpected masterpiece. In the Philippines, it’s called crispy pata, dude. Then, in one feature on secret things that chefs like to eat, they unanimously said they eat bone marrow, like they’re doing hardcore drugs. While bone marrow is hard core on your cholesterol levels, it’s simply bulalo here!
Anyway, I live for Filipino food and all of its unhealthy yet interesting aspects. Ever since I said to goodbye to the Mischa Barton life and kissed and made up with carbs, it’s never been more splendid. Which brings me to a memory where Johnny Carson asks Banig (Whatever happened to dear, old Banig?) in The Tonight Show what her favorite McDonald meal was, and she gamely answered, "McSpaghetti!" much to Mr. Carson’s confusion. Sweet spaghetti, peanut butter on my ox tripe, and aborted ducks, this is why the Philippines will always be my home.