Let’s begin with something controversial: not everyone likes chocolate. Some people can't even physically eat it. While Valentine’s Day began as early as the 1300s, its association with chocolate happened in the 1800s. By the 1840s, the Cadbury family had just...
No other food is more universally beloved than chocolate. In the Philippines, our local chocolate bars, tsokolate drinks, and chocolate-flavored deserts have always been part of the local food culture. Here is a list of local chocolate brands to satisfy your sweet...
When you say tea, it exclusively refers to the dried leaf and stem of one plant: Camellia sinensis. All the other variants—white, black, and green tea—are based solely on this plant. In the Philippines though, tea has been used as a catch-all to any plant used for hot...
Now that restaurateurs and diners have figured out the compromise between eating in restaurants and the new normal, the dining scene is experiencing a revival. Once again, Filipinos are looking at each other on Friday nights asking, “Where shall we eat?” While the...
There’s cochinillo, chicken galantina, or even a whole roast turkey, but there’s nothing like a big ball of ham to steal the spotlight on the Christmas dining table. Filipino Christmas ham comes in all shapes and sizes and flavors: there’s bone-in and boneless;...
It’s hard to beat a classic like fruit salad, the ubiquitous Filipino holiday dessert enjoyed by both the young and old. It’s a simple medley of pantry staples that add color to the season’s festivities. A fruit salad starts with a can of fruit cocktail, with its...
No Filipino celebration is ever complete without food. Birthdays are observed with Pinoy-style spaghetti and hotdogs on sticks with marshmallows. On All Saints Day, families feast over bowls of ginataan after visiting their loved ones in the cemetery. Whenever there...
Cookbooks are not only collections of recipes but also repositories of culinary wisdom, gustatory history, and communal stories. In many ways, cookbooks reveal realities about a particular culture, period in time, and notable individuals. They give a glimpse of flavor...
Pancit is a general term to describe a wide variety of noodle dishes from the Philippines, and in this noodle-crazy country, nobody loves pancit more than transportation and logistics professional Marvin Gaerlan. This family man and rom-com fan has made it his mission...
Pancit came from the word pian-sit, which means “fast food” or a dish that can be prepared in no time. It started as a poor man’s fare, but over time has become not just a party favorite, but everyday fare for a handful of reasons—it’s easy to cook in big batches,...