THE PHILIPPINES'
Tasty Little Secret
BY AARON GULLEY
A warm welcome in the
Northern Luzon city
of Tuguegarao; (below)
pandan chicken with
turmeric rice.
Filipino cooking is virtually unknown in the Western world, but a
toothsome tour of Luzon island – from peanut-oxtail stew and roast
suckling pig to flaming prawns – reveals that the country's cuisine
might be the next big thing.
T
Watch online: Westworld
cooks adobo.
ama.ab.ca/Westworld
Jen Judge
p22-41_Food_Package.indd 35
his is chicken as
I' ve
never
dreamt it: braised with homebrewed vinegar, crunchy plantains, violently green tendrils of
chilies and coconut cream freshly squeezed
from a fire-charred husk. The secret to the
dish, called adobong manok su sinunog
na niyog, is the open-pit fire. "In the U.S.,
you might add smoke flavour," says Pia
Lim-Castillo, culinary author and matron of
the South Forbes Park kitchen, in Manila,
where we are cooking. "Here you make your
own." Out back, in stark contrast to the
obsidian counters and stainless appliances,
the coconut shells used to prepare our lunch
smolder in a firepit in the dirt.
"This is the challenge for Filipino
cuisine," says Beth Romualdez, a food consultant and friend of Lim-Castillo's. "How to
appeal to a modern taste but preserve the
traditional ways."
From my perspective, the bigger hurdle
seems to be that the Philippines are never
invited to the world table. The country has a
deep culinary tradition, including a compelling menu of vinegar-soaked meats called
Westworld
>>
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13-01-16 11:59 AM
