Lynn sent the cookbook meme along my way and though I made a promise not to ignore the memes that I’m tagged with, I almost wanted to hide because I’m not in a position to say anything about cookbooks. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: among food bloggers, I feel like a pariah. I don’t watch cooking shows and don’t follow food trends. I don’t buy cookbooks although I browse when in the bookstore.

The other day, I laughingly referred to myself a barrio cook. To non-Filipinos, a barrio (currently called barangay, reverting from the Spanish to the Malay term) is the smallest unit of local government, a nondescript village. Several barrios make up a town or municipality. Although we now refer to them as barangays, the term barrio still retains certain connotations, both negative and positive. If someone is from the barrio, he or she is seen as naïve and unsophisticated, even callous. Thus came about the term “barriotic” or almost primitive (in this sense a “barrio” is a far-flung community of considerable distance from the town proper). But as cooking goes, a barrio cook will know how to produce culinary gems from what seem to be ordinary ingredients and will spare no expense especially during fiestas. But this is only as far as traditional recipes cooked in the locality for decades is concerned. Present a new recipe with unfamiliar ingredients and procedures, a barrio cook will be at a loss. I may be more adventurous but I can still relate because I still have more cooking techniques to learn.
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In yesterday’s online and street editions of the Manila Bulletin, Ajay’s weekly column Blog-o-Rama featured Into The Savory World Of The Food Blogs, which starts a series of roundtable discussions among Filipino food bloggers. She sent us a set of questions and as JMom said, we got a bit “carried away” writing down our answers that poor Ajay must’ve spent long hours abbreviating them. Not surprising - happens a lot when one puts together Filipinos and food.

This first roundtable discussion has Celia Kusinera of English Patis, JMom of Our Kitchen, Stef of Stefoodie, Ting Aling of World Class Cuiscene and yours truly as participants. Read our thoughts on food and food blogs. I was especially amused with our recounting of our most memorable kitchen adventures. Priceless! Hehehe!

Thank you for having us Ms. Annalyn Jusay!

Ajay also posts her food adventures in her other blog Munchin’ in Manila.

Update: The second part of the Blog-o-Rama roundtable with another batch of food bloggers is now online.

They don’t look much (especially with a bad photo) but trust me they are worth their weight in gold. Those are what I unexpectedly received last Easter while my auntie was cleaning out her cabinets. One by one the books came out. And these were not just cookbooks! They’re cookbooks that seem to have been written specifically for this blog.

What am I talking about this time? Within the pages float such exotic words: Baguisen, Bisukol, Nilaneg, Binagis, Sinukmani, Kandinga and Binakol. If you don’t recognise any of those dishes, how about Sagaksak, Lauout-lauot, Tiolah Sapi, Tangkong Linambonan, Paklay and Nilubihang Munggo. These are recipes from the Filipino Food Festival series published by the Department of Agriculture in May 1990. The booklets are on mimeographed white-wove paper but they’re precious! They are supposedly representative of food from the different Philippine regions.

On the Foreword, the then Director of the Bureau of Plant Industry, Nerius I. Roperos wrote:

“The traditional Filipino foods have been slowly disappearing in the Filipino food pattern and gradually being replaced by foreign food products.

“It’s a pity indeed and to think that they are as nutritious and are easily available to feed a nation.

“The series of publications of the regional traditional foods hope to bring back into focus the revival of our native dishes. So, that in so doing, even our children’s children will still be aware of what is truly the Filipino palate.

“Food experts from the bureaus and agencies under the Department of Agriculture met several times to make a compilation of the recipes indigenous in different parts of the country.”

There’s more! From one of her uncles, auntie inherited a 1926 vintage Mrs. Morton’s Cook Book. How’s that for an authentic relic from the American occupation? It’s now mine.

Aside from the above, auntie thought I could make use of several other cookbooks and a scrapbook of recipes handwritten and clipped from newspapers that spans several decades. Who’s the lucky one?