The Pilgrim’s Pots and Pans

This was another IMBB of many options. So many noodle dishes, so little time!

For this month’s theme, Amy chose Use Your Noodle to make us think and improvise around a food article beloved the world over. I am already looking forward to reading the other entries during the round-up.

It is still cold even in this tropical country. There are nights when one wishes for a nice steaming bowl of something, anything to keep down the chill. Oh the possibilities one can think of! But then a hearty noodle soup was right up there on top of the list!

Although it wasn’t easy choosing my entry for the month, I knew I wanted something I haven’t had for sometime like mami (pronounced ‘mah-mee’). This is a noodle dish innovated by a migrant Chinese entrepreneur who started out very humbly in the late 1900s then was so successful he was able to build up a chain of eateries in Manila. In fact, the word mami is a combination of his name, Ma Mon Luk and the word for noodle – mi. Kirk over at mmm-yoso!!! has even had an encounter with his descendants in the US and writes about it in Asian Noodles – I Want My Mami. What Ma Mon Luk pioneered has since then become very popular and can now be found almost everywhere – from respectable restaurants, makeshift eateries and even as street food!

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Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) are hardly a new phenomenon. Historical documents note that in 1600 Filipinos arrived in California, way before it was part of the United States. They were among the first agricultural workers or field hands in the mission areas. Today, like their contemporaries of centuries ago, most OFWs – whether manual labourers or salaried professionals – are well-liked by their employers because they are conscientious workers who will try to learn new skills to cope or just to be better at their jobs.

This versatility is also found in adapting to different tastes in food. Although there is a propensity for sweet-salty-sour dishes and to always look for rice, the Filipino palate can adapt well to any prevailing culinary conditions be it sushi, hamburgers, shawarma, sauerkraut or whatever is available. With stable work difficult to come by in the Philippines, it is also not rare to find many Filipinos of different vocations to transform into cooks in many ships and restaurants abroad, most especially in the Middle East. The father of a close friend was originally a skilled carpenter/house painter in the Philippines but became head cook in one of the Emirates in the 1980s. I have also heard of similar situations before. It is perhaps only now that the situation has changed since the food industry has become more specialised with culinary schools being established in most major cities worldwide.
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In one of my previous incarnations as a junior government bureaucrat, I was travelling all the time yet hardly saw the places that I went to. However, not having enough time to go around did not stop me from visiting the marketplace or the grocery just to have a feel of the daily life of the populace. I would also eat where locals go and sample their fare. If I only knew then that I would be maintaining a food blog! Sigh!

Among the places that has my heart (and stomach) captured is Rome. Whether in the office canteen, the trattorias or ristorantes, I was fascinated with the simplicity and freshness of the cuisine. Even as I was preoccupied with work, at the back of my mind I was trying to dissect what I was eating such that I could cook them myself. I’ve always been partial to red sauces for my pasta and in Rome I learnt of combinations that I wouldn’t have come up on my own. Returning home, I recreated some of the recipes which I now regularly cook. Following the same principles, I have also come up with my own recipes.
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Or how to come up with something tasty even under pressure…

The Filipino sweet tooth is reflected in our cuisine – from a multitude of kakanin (usually rice-based snacks) to mouth-watering confections that leave everyone asking for more. There’s also the other side – how the popular palate demands to sweeten almost everything – even that which is supposedly not meant to. Established transnational companies have to come up with sweet versions of catsup and sauces for the Philippine market. A Japanese friend noticed how our Japanese restaurants serve good food up to her standards, except that it’s sweet and I didn’t even notice. We also horrify purists with our sweet spaghetti sauce. But then, each culture adapts imported food to its local conditions. Not even established food staples are spared a local interpretation. For commercial institutions most especially, what is of utmost importance is to satisfy their customers. Though not commercial in scope, I also had some satisfying to do two Sundays ago.

Late on a Saturday afternoon, I found myself having to do some cooking the following day even as I had to attend a godson’s first birthday party and fulfil previous commitments. If I hadn’t come home from the city the night before, it would have been easy to make excuses but right at that moment, I was in the centre of it all. I couldn’t refuse any task as they were of equal importance. My godson is the first child of one of my best friends, M, who’s also a classmate from kindergarten till high school. Only a matter of life and death, or extreme forgetfulness, could make me miss his party.

The cooking duty was mainly my own doing when I found out Sunday was also the little girl next door L’s fourth birthday. She is the only child of a couple my mom and aunt recently took in. More than just hired hands, they’re almost like relatives.
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This is another very simple dish. I intended to post a Mediterranean recipe, specifically hummous, but that entails tahini or sesame seed paste. Hummous is not very difficult to make but it’s not a one-pot dish. I’ll post that sometime in the future. In the meantime, I’d like to cater to the neophyte cooks reading this blog while still keeping with the Mediterranean theme. So friends, let’s start with our lesson for the day (tee hee hee, once a teacher, forever one!).

Soups are an important part of any cuisine. Can one imagine Filipino cooking without sinigang? Thai without thom yum soup? Chinese without nido soup? French without hearty consommés?
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