Just in case you find some posts down or without pictures, don’t be surprised as I’m doing a bit of spring cleaning. I realised how my earliest posts were meant for friends abroad - mostly cooking for the first time out of necessity - and see how my initial recipes were tailored for them. These were simplified versions of classics they requested.

This blog is not exactly meant for just that anymore and so I’m revising the recipes to reflect how they are supposed to be cooked in a traditional kitchen, with my usual rambling annotation if time permits. Notes for the harried cook will be provided towards the end.

By the way, I’ve also updated the second duman post with a link to the video of pounding the roasted rice. Click on this link to view. Make sure to turn on your speakers! I hope you like it!

Trust Ting over at World Class Cuiscene to come up with a catchy phrase. She was the one who coined Lasang Pinoy after much brainstorming on what we’d call the Filipino food blogging event a few of us were then planning. This time around, she couldn’t but help herself to Yemagate! Tiresome affair! I never in my wildest dreams imagined this blog would get into a controversy!

It’s only been a little over a year since I had a blog dedicated to food but it seems like it’s been a long time. So many things happened, mainly nice and wonderful. I love interacting with the international network of food bloggers and readers, who so generously share their culture, life and passion with us who read them. How fantastic to know we also share many things, mainly foodstuff, in common.

Early in the summer, from our mirth (Stef’s and mine - we do nothing but laugh) came the seeds of an online brainstorming session with other food bloggers to what eventually will become Lasang Pinoy. Just a little after we launched the project, it gained a mention in Newsbreak with the story A Taste of Culinary Identity in between Bird Flu and the Kamikaze Memorial. We must be nationally significant then!
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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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