This is my second entry for the month’s Is My Blog Burning? with the theme I Can’t Believe I Ate Vegan! hosted by Sam at Becks and Posh.

What I’m presenting is a twist on an old family favourite, my grandfather’s original spicy chicken recipe which he called Lutong Bombay (Hi Nupur!). In a way, it is also a continuation of my Lolo’s tinkering in the kitchen to come up with original recipes. His grandchild has now improvised on it to come up with something new yet old, different yet similar. It is actually the garlic and ginger base which lends a very distinct flavour to the dish that made me decide to cook it with tokwa (also tau kwa, firm soy bean cake - tofu will do too).

This entry is also meant to prove that with a little ingenuity, meat dishes can be transformed into vegetarian/vegan recipes.

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Sam at Becks & Posh is hosting this month’s edition of Is My Blog Burning? with the theme I Can’t Believe I Ate Vegan! Much as turning vegan has never entered my mind - I’m too much of an ecology empiricist - I have to admit it wouldn’t be such a radical change in lifestyle if I decided to. I grew up in a very traditional household, culinary-wise. This means we ate rice, mostly fish and vegetables on regular days. Since I am a vegetable lover, I later found myself experimenting with all-vegetable meals.

Modesty aside, my dishes have always been successful that even avowed carnivores and vegetable haters have eaten them with gusto. Vegan is but a step further. One of Sam’s stipulations is “conjure up some Vegan food so fantastic that anyone who eats it won’t even be the slightest bit aware that absolutely no animal-derived produce has passed their lips.” A big problem since almost everyone I know doesn’t have qualms about eating vegan. They just don’t call it that. This is Asia after all.
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In the run-up towards the launch of Lasang Pinoy, one of the discussions between Filipino food bloggers centred around why Filipino food is not popular in the U.S. In analysing this, we tried to look at Filipino-American history and realised that (proto-)Filipinos have been one of the earliest migrant workers in the US mainland with farmhands in California brought in by the missionaries in the 1600s and “Manilamen” fleeing to the bayous of Louisiana in the 1760s.

In the wake of typhoon Katrina, I can’t help but remember how the Manilamen lived on marshes which may as well be wiped out now. In today’s edition of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) is the article History of ‘Manilamen’ of New Orleans lost to ‘Katrina’ which touches on food these men from the Philippines brought to their new home.

These Filipino settlers built their houses on stilts above the water and worked as shrimpers, fishermen and trappers and left their mark in the local culture. They taught the Americans how to drink tuba (coconut wine) and dance “the shrimp,” a way of stomping on sun-dried shrimp (hibe) to remove their heads.

In addition to tuba and hibe, the Manilamen, who used vinegar and garlic to make fish last for days, also introduced paksiw to the local cuisine. The dish continued to be served in New Orleans restaurants right up to the time Hurricane Katrina struck.

It seems these men were not just passive shrimpers.
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