Unity in Diversity
Would anyone happen to know a Mexican food blogger I can contact? Why? Here’s another long-winded explanation and my way of asking for suggestions.
I don’t intend to make it an event in the tradition of the Is My Blog Burning? spin-offs but the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that IMBB? is the perfect venue for this project, especially with the theme on the portal masthead “recipes of the people, by the people and for the peopleâ€.
It is interesting how we relate to each other through food. Sometimes a few ingredients are universally familiar and at times some are quite exotic to many. There are times when we use different names for the same ingredients or use the same name for different ones. I’ve noticed this when I started reading food blogs, even before I had a first-hand experience.
Then one day a college friend, who is now in the US, and I were talking about our lowly singkamas which we take for granted in the Philippines. All along I thought this was an indigenous root crop since it can be found all over the country and is eaten in many ways - as a snack dipped in shrimp paste, vinegar or salt, sautéed as a vegetable, pickled, fried and included in spring rolls. When Catsudon pointed out that our singkamas looks and tastes exactly like the Mexican jicama, I realised that it could be a migrant food. Singkamas doesn’t sound much different from jicama and in Pampanga, whose food culture is heavily Hispanised, it is even sicamas. Perhaps it came to the country through the galleons. After all, Spain ruled us through Mexico for 250 years. Obviously, neither of us read any of Doreen Fernandez’ Filipino food anthropology books for when I finally got Tikim, she does mention it as a Mexican root crop.
On another plane, I have always thought that food should always be considered against the context from which it developed, such as culture and natural environment. Since this is a very broad canvass, so to speak, I had to limit my scope to the physical environment, at least for the meantime. Much of our respecitve cultures is discussed by our many blogs anyway. I am also coming from the experience of having taught many freshmen university students who grew up in the cities and seemed alienated from their surroundings. In one of our on-site field activities, one of them, a very macho, strong silent type pranced around singing “The hills are alive with the sound of music†and when he saw me and his classmates astounded, he explained that it was his first time to be in ‘touching distance’ with a mountain and not just passing by in a car. The whole experience overwhelmed him. In the same way, many children and perhaps even adults nowadays only know that the produce they cook and eat comes from the marketplace or even just supermarket shelves. The affinity with nature is lost since they have not seen how a plant grows and bears fruit. There is no longer the anxiety felt when a vine seems to be wilting or a bush infested with aphids.
So, I broached the subject to Ronald, our IMBB? administrator. He was receptive to the idea even when I said I still had to think of the format. Now that I have the basic outline, something like a working paper, let me have your thoughts. Let’s call this a draft which will be revised time and again. I’m posting the sample format below.
Basic:
Common English name: Cucumber
and then in as many languages as possible: Pipino (Tagalog and Kapampangan from Sp.), pepino (Spanish)
Scientific name: Cucumis sativus L.
Type of plant: vine
Parts of the plant used: fruit
Uses (food, medicinal, whatever): fruit as vegetable, cooked and uncooked
Description: yellowish to dark green tubular fruit (expand description as we go on)
Origin (if possible): East Indies (?)
Currently cultivated: temperate regions, tropical areas
I am trying to build up my photo library of how the plants start out as seedlings, grow into mature plants, their flowers and fruits (like those in the Stringbeans-Long Beans entry). I have also taken pictures of fruits, both whole and some cross-sections to show their internal structure plus their seeds, like of the courgette/zucchini below. My taxonomic botany knowledge is nil yet someone who is capable may just drop by and give us a layperson’s explanation.
The idea is, someone introduces a fruit, vegetable, spice, or whatever ingredient and others can add on to that, for example, by saying that is called such-and-such where I am and it comes in these varieties or used in these recipes. Even readers who don’t have blogs can contribute with pictures and descriptions. The initial entry may be posted in the respective contributor’s blog, perhaps after revising the article based on the comments, it shall have a mirror site on the IMBB? Portal. Being a resource, I think this is best because some blogs go offline or they delete their posts so I really think it best to centralise the entries. I welcome suggestions on how to make this more efficient.
As to the reason for the search for a Mexican food blogger, I wish to collaborate on a blog project that traces the pathways of foodstuff transported through the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade. There are a lot of Mexican plants which have been indigenised in the Philippines – to the point of them seeming native – and I wonder if there is such reciprocity.
Hello,
Very interesting topic :lemon:
I think i will start with posting what cucumbers and aubergines are in Lebanese (variation of Arabic).
Cucumber: Khiyar “khi-i-aar” (The KH is like the Russian X or the German CH)
Aubergine: Lebanese Batenjen “ba-te’n-je-en”, Arabic Bathenjan “baa-the-nja-an” (th as in THen)
Hope this was clear enough :lemon:
Such a scholarly approach, I like it!
So cucumber is called huang-gua in Mandarin Chinese and kyuri in Japanese. They are much skinnier than the North American kind and pricklier. My grandmother always said that a fresh cucumber should still have all its thorns and the yellow flower intact.
So that’s my two cents. :cheese:
Jicama (Pachyrhizus erosus) is also known as yam bean, dou shu and sha got (chinese), chopsui potato (Hawaiian). A member of the Leguminoseae family and a native of Central America. It was introduced to the Philippines by the Spaniards in the 17th century and has thrived ever since. From here it went on to Indonesia where they serve it with chillies, Thailand, Vietnam, China, etc. Jicama is also used to describe a fruit in Ecuador and Perubut it is actually something that is better known as Yacon. Chillies, breadfruit, cacao are but a few examples of other things brought over by galleons…
Thank you for your comment re “eggplants” on my site. You are correct that we have taken on the American nomenclature. As for most things foodwise, they have originated elsewhere. Even pako, which local foodies will swear is indigenous, is not. Indonesia has over 20 varieties of fiddlehead ferns and the malay word for ferns is paku. Kinilaw appears to be all ours until you read about seviche or other similar dishes in literature that dates it way back…
Thank you for the common names! That’s a good start. Let’s see if I can get pictures of the dark green cucumber.
Thanks Bassam, got that, since it’s not in Arabic script, hehe!
Lynn, more of obsessive-compulsive rather than scholarly. :chickenrun:
Hi Marketman! Thanks for the visit and for the jicama info. Would you like to do the feature?
What you say about our local food originating elsewhere is most probably right but I wonder if it is still true far from the city. For a country very rich in endemic species, both for plants and animals, don’t you find it strange that we do not seem to have “original food”? So, I’m still not discounting the possibility that our local edible ferns, among others, could be indigenous and endemic although we call them by the same Malay name.
hi karen! i can’t tell the difference between the cucumbers here in belgium and those in holland, but the words used in neighbouring countries are different.
in holland, “komkommer”. (thess, tama ba)
in belgium, “augurken”. tadan!
Wow this is so educational. I’m gonna keep checking back for more knowledge power, ika nga ni Ernie Baron!
Svelte: dat klopt, hier noemen wij cucumber ‘komkommer’ , maar wij zeggen ‘augurk’ for pickles
Karen, do you think courgette/zucchini and our own ‘patola’ are from the same family?…they differ in skin but inside, they’re quite the same (imo)
Hi Karen!
Very interesting indeed! In Danish, cucumber would be “agurk” - the g is pronounced like that in guitar. I can’t wait to see how this woll be getting on the road…
Thanks Svelte and Thess! Now the nuances between adjacent areas are coming out. I wish we had pictures too.
Hey Toni! How about contributing pics? :blooms:
Thess, I believe that the courgett/zucchini, the patola and cucumber are all from the Cucurbitaceae family. That’s the reason why I’m so insistent on the scientific name. It’s easier to trace the relationships of what we eat in different parts of the world.
Hello Zarah! Thanks for the contribution. Now I’m wondering if this hare-brained scheme of mine will not end up being a Babel of sorts, hehehe!
hi karen.
informative and great read, as usual.
off-topic though, do you know of a place in metro manila where i can get mole poblano? tangential thought that popped into my head when i read the mexican blogger part. unfortunately it stuck.
Aya! Naku, I missed several comments. May utang pa ako sa iyo! :cat:
There’s this Mexican restaurant that I forgot. Morato? Yikes! It’s been so long. Let’s see if I can try re-creating the mole recipe instead, hehehe!
karen, this may be what you’re looking for:
http://www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au/Sorting/List_bot.html#sec.02
i’ve been using this database a lot in researching for and writing my cookbook. especially since some of the old cookbooks i have as reference say things like “otong” from your beans post, i need to know exactly what it is to find out what the equivalent is here in the US and elsewhere. this link is by no means complete, there are several other sites that have done this but i’m pretty happy with what they’ve got so far.
i can’t believe how similar our thoughts are on this, although our endgoals may be different — you a blog, me a cookbook! there’s also The Seed Site that takes pictures of seeds and seedlings. Mostly flowers nga lang. I use that site extensively esp. with my gardening obsession. Then there are davesgarden.com and gardenweb.com that have built plant databases with pictures; you might want to join and contribute! (and everyone else here). you can find me at gardenweb as stefoodie:) that’s where i’ve found pinoys to trade seeds with. i LOVE that there are pinoys i can learn and grow with! i can also help you with your database, just let me know. i’m growing all kinds of veggies this year and i can send you pics. see, necessity is the mother of creativity. i have to grow our own veggies para makapagexperimento ng recipe para sa cookbook. ngek, ang haba na nito, sens’ya na. para ‘kong nasa e-mail ano.
may nakalimutan pa pala akong isang link na peyborit ko rin:
http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/gallery/gallery_query.htm
sa texas ‘to so hindi complete, pero they have things like ampalaya (momordica charantia). pictures nga lang, hindi sorting ng names.
Stef! Yes, thanks for the links. There are several good ones out there but I thought it would be good for bloggers to collaborate into doing a compilation.
Sige, let’s collaborate. You got me all excited, you Stefoodie you!