One of the things in Philippine culture that I take pride in , is the fact that the country is one of the top 10 countries in the world most accepting of LGBTQ .
In fact, my parents were surprised ( when we immigrated to the US ) that America had issues with the LGBTQ community. In the Philippines, it is a non-issue.
Here’s something fun to watch…….. just 2 minutes , folks.
And,
Another 2 minutes of your time for an Uber Philippines commercial. Fun !
I hope you can watch another Philippine commercial. This one was an ad for Star Wars: Rogue One , shown on Philippine TV in December , 2016.
Just a 2 – minute viewing , folks, in lieu of my mindless blah- blah =blah.
Even a movie promo is making me an emotional wreck. I need to stop watching Philippine commercials. First, fast food commercials, now a Star Wars ad….. what is wrong with you, Filipino admakers ?
Okay, so last Saturday, I was watching some Philippine stuff on You Tube when I came across another Jolibee commercial, this time for Mother’s Day. I don’t know if you’ve seen the Jolibee Valentine commercial called DATE that I posted in February. Hold it right there, Ren, what’s a freakin’ Jolibee ? Well, Jolibee is the largest fast food chain in the Philippines. ( there are Jolibee franchises already here in the US, there are 2 where I live ). If you haven’t seen it, here it is. Those who have seen it, I hope you still remember that particular commercial ( I posted a series of 3 commercials )
Then last Saturday, I saw this, a Jolibee commercial for Mother’s Day ( You need to watch both , otherwise, this post is pretty pointless. )
Just a question for my Filipino readers……. are all commercials in the Philippines like these ? This is a fast food chain that sells fried chicken and hamburgers and targets human emotions in the most profound way. Kind of weird.
After watching this most recent Jolibee commercial, I had a sudden craving for Jollibee burgers and fried chicken , and invited my parents to a Jolibee lunch, my treat, of course.
Then at Jolibee, I saw this.
On my post, Philippine Blood Soup, I tackled the Filipinos’ love affair with corned beef, potatoes and cabbage, very Irish , and so not typically Asian. Even here in the US, we eat that for breakfast , with rice and egg, or corned beef sandwich, or corned beef stew with potatoes and cabbage for dinner. So, can you see the Jolibee menu of corned beef breakfast with fried rice and egg and corned beef sandwich on the menu panel ? ( You can also see breakfast hotdogs with fried rice and egg ). These are typical Filipino breakfasts. Is that weird ? Hotdogs with fried rice and egg ? Or bacon. Guys, you should try this.
Our lunch at Jolibee.
We had ” pancit palabok ” ( noodles with shrimp sauce), a bucket of ChickenJoy, with gravy, Aloha burger, and Mango Peach Pie.
I just put my email folder on sweep- to- zero mode once a day, at exactly 12 midnight. I just don’t have time to read blogs anymore. At most , I can read 20 a day, and that’s it. I work from 12:30 PM to 9 PM, sometimes beyond that, and that’s okay because I get paid double an hour. I once called myself the Goddess of Insomnia. Cassie, my blog buddy, can attest to that. It’d be 6 AM at Harrisburg, and 3 AM here in California, but we always got to chat at that unholy hour, and that was almost everyday. Three hours of sleep was enough for me. But then, real time in my real life has abruptly changed my biological ‘clock. Nowadays, I can barely open my eyes at 10 PM. Drinking a cup of strong coffee doesn’t work on me anymore. To make the story short, I’m sorry if I don’t get to read your posts . I try to catch up on my off days ( Tuesday and Saturday, or any scheduled days in a week…. they vary ) .
With that off my chest…….
I promised I’d talk about a Filipino delicacy called Balut and chocolate rice called Champorado.
Balut is a delicacy in the Philippines. According to Wiki, it is a partially fertilized duck embryo, incubated for 14 to 21 days , boiled or steamed , and eaten from the shell, like hard boiled egg. It does taste like hard – boiled egg, except that, we get to see the duck embryo , the beak, eyes, etc. I know, it’s gross. My Mom and I had eaten it once when we were there in 2014, out of curiosity. My dad said he had eaten it maybe 6 times, and only when he was drunk. ^_^ Balut eggs are usually sold at night, and I can understand why. But, contrary to what is bandied around , i.e., that it is a Filipino staple food……. well, it isn’t. Only few Filipinos like to eat balut, (usually the menfolks), and they are actually hard to find. The only source of this delicacy is a place near Manila (the capital city ) called Pateros ( I assume from the Filipino term for duck, which is ” pato” , and pateros means duck raisers. ) Balut became infamous when it was used as a scary thing on the TV show Fear Factor. I’m a bit annoyed at that. I mean, the contestants dealt with snakes, cockroaches, etc, and then , balut was lumped together with these agrhcjkf ! ( I have snake phobia, and I’m not saying this lightly ) . I mean, really ????? Balut is that scary ? * Help me out here, Andy ! ! ! * Andy is another blogger who visited the Philippines 2 months ago, and had eaten lots of baluts , and liked them , too. * Tell them, Andy. * It just tastes like hard-boiled egg, but with natural broth inside. Okay, the problem is , I don’t like to eat it, either. The sensation of eating a duck fetus kind of grosses me out. I salute you, Andy.
Oy ! ! ” runs off ”
About Champorado…….
It’s just rice cooked with chocolate. It’s a very hearty Philippine snack, and breakfast food. Hey, what can go wrong with chocolate, yeah ? Have you eaten chocolate rice cereals ? Champorado tastes something like chocolate rice cereals with milk. I eat this at breakfast , like , 3x a week.
I’ll just give you the recipe. Guys, try this, specially at winter time. Hot champorado is delicious, and so easy to make ! !
You can use sweet sticky rice ( or if not available, regular rice ). Cook the rice normally. Water is added , and amount depends on how you like the champorado, very liquidy or a bit thick. Normal water/rice proportion is 1 is to 1, right ? In Champorado, add about 4 or 5 cups of water, boil , them simmer, then , when the rice is almost cooked, add cocoa powder ( Nestle or whatever …… in the Philippines, pure , unprocessed cocoa they call tablea, which is in solid form , is very much preferred ), then cook some more while stirring. Then add sugar, to taste. Or, you can add sugar in your bowl. Note : Never add sugar before the rice is fully cooked. In your bowl of champorado, add sugar to taste and MILK ! ! ! ( Evaporated milk is preferred, or Half and Half ) Kids will like this, I hope.
Pure, unprocessed cocoa in the Philippines is called tablea . I saw this product at the Filipino store …….expensive , so Nestle is fine. But this tablea is the preferred chocolate for Filipino traditional hot chocolate beverage drink………. superior taste than regular hot chocolate drink. I had this in the Philippines… it is thick, and has that smoky flavor, and Filipinos in olden times drink this with churros, or pan de sal ( like mini French bread ,which is dunked into the hot cocoa drink..)
800 words……. This is all for now. Thank you for reading.
I mentioned a Philippine dish called Chocolate soup/blood soup, or in Filipino language, Dinuguan, on my previous post. I need to clarify what this blood soup is exactly. It comes from the word ” dugo” ( pronounced doo-goh ), which means blood , and dinuguan means made bloody ( ? ). It’s not liquidy like chicken soup. The liquid is basically thick, and the dish is stewed pork , with sautéed garlic, onions, tomatoes, lots of chiles, a pinch of oregano , vinegar, and of course, pork blood. Vinegar is added to neutralize the blood taste, and maybe , you won’t believe me, it actually tastes amazing. Yes, it is. It’s eaten with steamed rice, bread or steamed rice cake they call ” puto”. ( pardon me, puto in Spanish is a bad word. hahaha ) The white muffin in the picture below is puto.( pronounced poo-toh ) Puto is a delicious snack and usually eaten with coffee, or hot cocoa as breakfast meal.
The English, Irish, Germans, Spaniards ( morcilla ) have their blood sausages, …..Poland, ( Czernina ) , Italians, Romanians and Greeks ( melas zomos , and just like the Filipino way, has pork, vinegar and blood as primary ingredients ) have their blood soups. So, Filipinos are not the only people with ” bizarre ” taste, thank you very much.
I do sound defensive , don’t I ? So, okay, I got to watch a few videos on YouTube, of non- Filipinos taste -testing dinuguan , and I found some of their reactions a bit offensive . There ‘s one done by BuzzFeed where one guy thought the taste was good, and when told it was blood, he immediately said YUUUUUUCK, and spat out the food, and looked as if he was about to vomit. It was so unprofessional, childish, immature, moronic, and very insulting to a group of people who love the dish. I’m sure that video got a ton of vitriolic comments , unlikes, and un – subscription, and perhaps, to correct a mistake, they are now more polite and respectful.
I also watched some You Tube videos of some Irish folks taste tasting Japanese and Korean dishes. Five out of 6 taste testers’ remarks were very rude , too. Yuck, do Koreans actually eat this ???? They even disparaged the tofu in Japanese Ramen. Eeeeew,, slimy , eeeew, fishy, they said. Okay. Sure. I understand their palate’s range is limited and confined to potato, cabbage and corned beef……. so much so that when their potato crops were ravaged by potato fungus, they had to mass migrate to other countries to escape mass starvation. So, did I just write something ignorant and inappropriate ? Of course . It’s nasty and mean and I apologize for that. But, you know, tit for tat, ignorance for ignorance.
It is funny and very ironic because, unlike other Asians, Filipinos eat a lot of corned beef , cabbage and potatoes…. corned beef sandwich, corned beef in baked bun, sautéed corned beef with potatos,( eaten with garlic fried rice for breakfast ), soupy corned beef with cabbage/potato soup for dinner, corned beef empanada, and corned beef spaghetti. Yes, corned beef spaghetti ! Open the pantry of a Filipino household, you’ll find a dozen cans of corned beef , ( and sardines and Spam ) and packs of whole corned beef in the freezer. ( bought on sale after St. Patrick’s Day ) .
ponders *
I am clueless as to when Filipinos started their love affair with corned beef. Hmmmm. Maybe, the American soldiers who came to the Philippines when the country was colonized in 1898 were mostly immigrant Irishmen who couldn’t find work in the US so had decided to join the US army ? And, were they selected to go to the Philippines because the Philippines was a Catholic country , and the Irish were Catholics too ? Well, you won’t find this in any Philippine history book, because, who would write about corned beef in a country’s history ? Most probably in Argentina’s history books, yes. Argentina produces a lot of corned beef. And Ireland , of course..
Where was I ?
Well, never mind. I’ll just end it here, and write about BALUT and Chocolate Rice snack ( Champorado ) on my next post. I’m looking at you, taste testers.
Thanks for bearing with me and my meandering and wandering thoughts. I leave it up to you, my dear, smart readers, to make sense of what I just posted. And please , don’t hate me. I love corned beef , too. And the Irish.
Ah, Philippine cuisine ! Where do I even begin ? Last week, a friend of mine ” ordered ” lumpia ( meat eggrolls ) from yours truly, good for 20 people. She’s Guatemalan. The truth is, friends and co-workers have been ordering trays of food from me for several years now, including 2 Persian friends whom I have been cooking for, for their Thanksgiving, and believe it or not , Christmas parties. The Persians usually order fried , vegetable rolls, beef stew ( caldereta ) , chicken adobo, leche flan ( egg custard ) and a few desserts and salads. It’s my underground business, but I don’t think the government will be interested in taxing my $ 75 earnings. I do it as a favor. In fact, I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s labor intensive, And if it’s just one tray of dish, forget it. I mean, after deductions, I get what, a $ 5 profit ? I loath myself when that happens.
Oh, wait, before anything else , here’s a video that I hope you can watch. I find it funny because I noticed it too when I was in the Philippines. Just 3 minutes, folks, so please click, and be educated.
Compress ! ! I often heard that word in the Philippines. Ha ha ha !
Anyway, this is not what this post is all about. It’s Filipino cuisine. Again, where do I begin ?
To start off……. I’ve been wondering why there are so few Filipino restaurants here in the US. Filipinos are the second largest immigrant minority group in California,( after the Mexicans,) and the third largest in the US, so where are the restaurants ? My mother and I have been discussing the possible reasons and have come up with 1 million reasons for this anomaly.
a) Filipinos who come to the US are not risk takers. They do not come here to the US to open restaurants, in the first place. I can say with almost 99 % certainty that Filipinos who come here are mostly professionals and college educated……. doctors, nurses, engineers, accountants, healthcare professionals, chemists, etc. Filipinos do not consider being a ” chef ” as a career or a profession. Besides that, even with considerable savings at their disposal, Filipinos do not like to lose it all on a venture that has a short lifespan, 5 years at most , if you’re lucky. It’s preferable to toil away at a safe 9 to 5 job for a house, 2 cars, the kids’ education, maybe for some rest and recreation in Rome and Paris , and a lifetime pension where they can spend the rest of their lives smelling roses ………….instead of worrying about their restaurants going under, for the rest of their lives. Filipinos are what my mother calls ” segurista ” ,meaning a person who makes sure things happen according to plan………… which is, oddly enough, the complete opposite of the more common trait of Filipinos, the ” bahala na ” attitude, which means, whatever, come what may, if it will happen, it will happen. ( this comes from Filipinos ‘ response to numerous yearly natural disasters….. volcanic eruptions, eathquakes, off- the- chart typhoons, floodings, dictators, colonizers, ( Spain and US ) you name it, Filipinos get it. It’s fatalistic, but at the same time, having a positive attitude. Filipinos do not mope ! I guess Filipinos accept events that they cannot control….. but segurista for things they can .
Where was I ? Oh, yeah, Filipino food…..
b) Filipino food sucks. Not true, not true at all. Filipino food can be a bit funky, but oh, so flavorful and savory , umami ! ! The taste is bold and audacious. Example : Chocolate soup, or blood soup. I mean, who will order that in a restaurant, besides Filipinos ? Filipinos eat that with gusto, with, of course, rice or , believe it or not, bread . They dunk the bread in the soup, folks. Oh, do I hear , Eeeeeew ! My breakfast in England for 3 days included blood sausage, and in Spain, morcilla . In Romania, they also have blood soup, just like in the Philippines which Bizzare Foods show’s Andrew Zimmern duly noted. Oh, wait, they eat blood in Romania ? Just kidding. Thumbs up to you, Romanians.
c) Filipinos prefer to cook at home, and family home-style cooking. Why will they go to a restaurant to eat food they cook at home , everyday, and swearing, their moms cook it better, anyways ? They prefer to eat something different. Don’t get me wrong…. Filipinos love dining out…. in fact , in the Philippines, restaurants are always full, diners wait to get seated, or they just make reservations ( 2 weeks at Vikings ) if they don’t want to wait.. Food courts are everywhere, not to mention, the ubiquitous street food , and numerous ” carinderias “. ( Carinderias are low – tiered eateries , usually located at low- income areas , schools and universities, where customers point at the food they want to eat. They also call them ” turo – turo“……… turo means point, so it’s point-point . ( Have I mentioned Filipinos like to repeat words ? ) Unfortunately, most Filipino restaurants here in the US are turo-turo style, with food Filipinos cook at home, and to be honest, they don’t look appetizing , especially to non – Filipinos. Blood soup, anyone ? What in the world , is that mud-looking dish ?
Below is a carinderia in the Philippines. Not much to look at, but the food is soooooooo delicious ( and cheap !!!!!!! )
842 words…… time to sign off, and to be continued …… 9, 997 reasons to go.
And please check out my anime/manga/video games blogsite @ http://2megaworthitwordpresscomblog.wordpress.com/ I have new entry, a review of RWBY, an anime created by an American developer, Rooster Teeth. Yay, homegrown.
In all the years I have been blogging here, this is the first time I have posted on Mother’s Day. It’s so ironic because my mother is my very best friend in the world, and we have been together so much I feel I have become like her. I have come to like her kind of music ( LedZep, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, ie, classic rock ) , her politics, her civic consciousness, even her taste in movies and books ( mystery, thriller , crime stories , and believe it or not, musicals ) so much so that I ended up majoring in forensics. She is a recycling Nazi. I am, too. She loves the arts..,.. my sister had her piano lessons, went to a ballet school…. I had my violin and tap dancing lessons , as well. ( I readily quit the tap dancing thing… Eh ! ) She did her own thing , too. She took up ballroom dancing and brought me and my sister to her dancing lessons and we watched in awe middle aged ladies dancing with so much gusto it was almost embarrassing…. I remember one who looked like she was 100 years old dancing with handsome young DIs ( Dance Instructors). Mom had her own favorite DI . ( Uhm, hi , Dad, nothing went on there, I assure you , he he ) Don’t get me wrong. My Mom was not a social butterfly. She was a political and social activist who fought bravely and without fear the brutal Marcos dictatorhip and kleptocracy in the Philippines. Read about it here. She was, in fact, on the list of people who would get arrested just before The People Power Revolution happened, literally saved by the bell. ( My sister and brother were shuttled from one house to another to keep them safe …. so yes, it was like that ……. her activities were definitely not a walk in the park )
These are the only available photos that I have on WordPress. She looks like my sister. I look like Dad.
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Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I will buy your favorite orchid, 2 pots, I promise.
Am a Molecular Microbiology student, love to read books, and I play the violin. 
dreamsending
renxkyoko