Kitchen Kwento

Foodstories on Filipino/American History Month

It's Filipino/American History Month. To some this month is about celebrating and about making visible the histories that have been made invisible. I'm reminded again of the importance of being a student of history, and taking to heart both the bitter and sweet. From the Philippine-American war, the Delano manongs, to that dog-eared copy of Carlos Bulosan's America Is In the Heart, these are stories of survival, and their legacies live on today.

And, this is a history that continues to be in the making. I love to turn to the incredible array of Filipino/American food blogs out there as a part of celebrating and reclaiming our food traditions. So many read like close companions, whether sharing recipes, documenting gastronomic adventures at Filipino festivals, deconstructing racism and cooking shows, to ruminating on the experiences of young farmers. Food is at the heart of Filipino culture in the diaspora, and the blogosphere is one place to witness evolving traditions document themselves as they unfold.

There is KapaMEALya's community-building meals, Jun Blog's feast for the eyes, Burnt Lumpia's mouthwatering ube experiments and culinary shenanigans, Ground Theory's reflections on land, foodie adventures with Jo Boston, Words and Nosh's forays into history and halo-halo, and many, many more. Feast your eyes (and mind and heart). These are our foodstories in the making. Get cooking, get reading!

I'm happy to say that at the start of Filipino/American History month, I finally came to the end of the Kitchen Kwento Alphabet! Tired of reading it in reverse? Here you go:

A is for Atomic Foods
B is for Bittermelon
C is for Collards and Coconut
D is for DNA circa 1980
E is for Eggplant
F is for the Filipino American Farmer
G is for Gulay
H is for Hilaw, Perfectly Unripe
I is for Itlog
J is for Jeepnified
K is for Kamayan
L is for Lupa
M is for Manila Galleons
N is for New Year's Abundance
O is for Oh My Gulay
P is for Palengke
Q is for Queen of Hearts
R is for Recipes to Remember
S is for Songs of Sustenance
T is for Tools of the Trade
U is for Under the Cover Crop
V is for Voyage to the Root
W is for Water is Life
X is for Xylem
Y is for Youth Transforming Food
Z is for Zenith

R is for Recipes to Remember

This is the cookbook that started it for me:

Never mind that its cover features a tired ham, maraschino cherries, imported grapes and red delicious apples instead of foods remotely native to the Philippines. If I met Ms. Enriqueta David-Perez, I'd tell her that her cookbook was picked out from Manila's National Bookstore by my mother's 22-year-old hands, packed into a suitcase, flown across the Pacific, schlepped in various cardboard boxes across the continental US, and its recipes re-opened 26 years later, when I was 8 years old. And I'd thank her.

We lived in the Mojave Desert then. Summers were hot, dry, and boring. On days so hot even the ants stopped crawling across the pavement, the kitchen was my solace, and I pored over barely touched French and Moosewood cookbooks, trying to match recipes that called for truffle oil with our pantry's Spam, corned beef, rice, canned corn, spaghetti, and Pop-tarts. A true geek, I used a dictionary to decipher terms like "whisk" and "mince," cooking terms that were a language I had not learned to speak.

Home and homeland, bridged by recipes.

I remember the day I first dug out Recipes from the Philippines from between the shinier cookbooks. Paperbound, with frayed pages and a taped-together cover, it was like finding the dead sea scrolls misplaced among new edition bibles.

The recipes were different, sparse. In fact, they seemed to be missing directions completely. How much was a "bunch" of green beans? A handful? Although the cookbook was in English, I didn't understand it. Raised without the language of my parents, words like sitaw, kamote, or sili had no definitions. I had to ask my mother to remember. And so, this is how the rest of the summer went:

Mom, what's atsuete?
Um...Aileen, I didn't cook so much growing up, that was your titas. Let me think...

What's bibingka? What's espasol? What's kamoteng kahoy? What's MIKI BIHON? Where can we find pig ears?
Hmm, let's try here...

I would pick a recipe, demand my mother's help, and we would talk it through, call relatives for ideas, or drive miles away into the Mojave to the one Filipino/Pan-Asian market for ingredients. Some of our trials tasted good - like the tender espasol cut by hand into tender logs. Others, like bibingka using spoiled rice flour, were an epic failure. I'm just grateful my mother was patient through it all, digging back to recall childhood memories and become a living dictionary.

It was imperfect, floundering, and we made things up when we didn't know the "right" way to do it. But these attempts to channel Philippine flavors to a kitchen in the Mojave awakened a hunger for something I couldn't name. Heritage? History? In my child's mind, I simply knew there were recipes asking to be unlocked, and so turned to those pages - and my mother's memories - again and again.

What recipes do you remember?

Some Favorites:

J is for Jeepnified

The art of re-purposing

I'm writing from Seattle, with just a moment to pause from the Filipino American National Historic Society's (FANHS) national conference. In the midst of workshops, storytelling, reunions, and bites of food, this colorful assortment at the FANHS national archives caught my eye.

Now stuffed with markers and pens, those familiar cans of Ligo sardines, Philippine Brand mango nectar, San Miguel beer brought back remembered meals. Re-purposed into beautiful and practical containers, they were a heartwarming sight, a reminder of how many Pinoys follow the "3rs" - reduce, reuse, recycle -  as a way of life.

Call it "jeepnified" - in the same spirit of Filipino innovation, reclaiming WWII US military vehicles into colorful public transit, the famous jeepney. In that mode, there's no such thing as waste.

I is for Itlog

"There was nothing...which did not understand the wonderfulness of what was happening to them...the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking beauty and solemnity of Eggs." - Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

Yes - eggs, or itlog, can be beautiful, solemn, and innocent. Not to mention creamy, versatile, and tasty with nearly everything. Burnett's reverent language about eggs was paired with a love of eating them. Her child characters Colin, Mary, and Dickon spent pages feasting on roasted eggs with clotted cream and crumpets.

If there's just one thing in common between The Secret Garden's English country food with Filipino cuisine, it could possibly be a love for the many ways of itlog.

Eggs make their presence known in Filipino home food, eaten as tapsilog (a breakfast or anytime pairing of tapa meat, rice and egg), tortang talong (eggplant with eggs), bittermelon and eggs, and straight up eggs over garlic fried rice. When I cook up a red chard fritatta topped with long slices of golden fried garlic and green onions, I like to imagine its a Fil/Am itlog dish, too. 

Chilling with the chicks.

Maybe I am also writing about eggs because I have yet to unpack a defensive pride about eating what could be the most Filipino of eggs, balut. With a quick Google search, there are dozens of articles about balut, many of them from the "dang-I-just-vomited-in-my-mouth" level of cultural sensitivity as NBC's Fear Factor. The show called balut a Filipino "horror" with a "terrible stench that just won't let go." One contestant claimed they would never replicate the experience again, even for $50,000.

If only every balut-loving Filipino could win $50,000 for every balut we'd ever enjoyed...

Its true that balut is delicious to many and that it is a cost-effective alternate source of protein also eaten in other places including Vietnam and China. And its also true that at the most basic level, people won't always "get" each others' food. I mean, as a kid, when I roasted eggs in our family's toaster oven ala the Secret Garden, my dad joked that the slightly sulfurous smell was making the house into a giant utot (fart).

But the dig on Filipino food on network TV brought up the remembered shame of being the POC kid who had anything but PB&J at school lunch and hearing "eeww" all around. I think I actually brought balut to school for lunch once - and then got scarred for life.

Some may argue towards culinary racism, others may say all foods are fair grounds to praise or diss. As for me, I'll just let Doreen Fernandez take it home - and say please pass the balut.

"Whoever discovered balut stumbled onto the fact that food has changing excellences (taste, texture) as it evolves and develops. Thus between the egg and the full-grown duck, there are stages that bear exploring-and eating. And the Filipino has explored them." -- Doreen Fernandez in "The World of Balut"

More On Eggs:

How Does the Filipino Breakfast?

Anthony Bourdain Eats Balut (B for Effort)

Fried quail egg, or Kwek-kwek 

Is this Culinary Racism?

G is for Gulay

  Tasty fresh bawang (garlic)

My first words and phrases in Tagalog were (not necessarily in this order): please, thank you, water, pee-pee, poo-poo, hungry, love you, full...and winged beans, tomatoes, garlic, and peanuts.

Our trilingual parents spoke their tongues to each other and to relatives, deftly code-switching from one conversation to the next. But in America, they were advised that teaching English only to their children would make things "easier," although the loss of their syllables felt far from easy for my sister and I.

But still, languages and stories won't be silenced completely. When I turned 8, my mom decided it was time for our family's first balikbayan - a cinematic-worthy return to the homeland after 25 year away. This meant that a little lesson in Tagalog was in order, all leading towards the inevitable talent show (you know, when the parents ask you to sing/dance/etc on command for anyone and everyone?).

And thus the gulay (vegetables) song. What better way to pass on the beginnings of a language. Remember this, anyone?

Bahay Kubo

Bahay kubo, kahit munti
Ang halaman doon ay sari-sari.
Singkamas at talong, sigadilyas at mani
Sitaw, bataw, patani.
Kundol, patola, upo’t kalabasa
At saka mayroon pang labanos, mustasa,
sibuyas, kamatis, bawang at luya
sa paligid-ligid ay puro linga.

I remember twisting around the unfamiliar syllables, eager to learn, each one like a new taste in my mouth. I had a vague idea that the song was about a hut and various vegetables, but even translated, I wouldn't have known a winged bean from a cucumber.

Thankfully, I can return to this song with a new appreciation for what it was: a fledgling gift of a language, a lifelong love of vegetables, and a childhood recipe set to music.

My Nipa Hut

My nipa hut, although it’s small

The plants are diverse

Turnips and eggplants,

Winged beans and peanuts,

 String beans, edible pots, lima beans,

White melon, gourd, white pumpkin and squash,

And still there are more, radish, mustard,

 Onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger,

All around are lush sesame plants.

sibuyas = onion

patola = loofah (in its ready-to-exfoliate-you mature stage)

singkamas = jicama

More On Gulay:

Centuries of galleon trade between Mexico and the Philippines opened an exchange of languages, culture, people, and agriculture: check out this article on the origins of sayote

Alamat ng Amapalaya - a children's book

Indespensible, petite cookbook on gulay

F is for the Filipino American Farmer

Filipino farmers in the asparagus fields of Stockton, California. Image from Little Manila Foundation.

Four years ago, I was asked a question I still seek the answers to. "When was the last person in your family a farmer?"

I didn't know what to say...and felt a little ashamed. Sure, I loved reading Carlos Bulosan's America is in the Heart. I chose produce from farmer's markets, not just because they tasted good but because the food came directly from a person, from a place. But I never heard stories of our family's farming history, and conversely, never asked. All I knew was my family's "white collar" history of immigration - how my parents, my titas and titos had crossed the Pacific as nurses, technicians, and teachers. It felt like a kind of amnesia. Who were - or are - the family farmers?

While I may never learn the names of direct farmer ancestors, my life would not be the same without the legacy of farmers in this country and their experiences, struggles, and hard-won triumphs carved into the land. When I look at photos documenting the waves of Filipino farmers in the 20s and 30s, I see my grandparents and great-grandparents in their faces, and my heart rises.

From Seattle to Stockton, Waipahu, the San Joaquin Valley, to Fruitvale, Filipino farmers were among those who worked the earth, harvested apples, cut cane, built thriving communities, survived the spiritual pains of loneliness and racism, and shaped the long, beautiful, and painful history of this country. There are vital lessons to be learned from the Delano manongs, whose efforts united Filipino and Mexican agriculture laborers and birthed the UFW movement, to farmers in the Philippines, where rapid climate change is ravaging crops and people, and many work without owning the land they till.

I've found a little thread that ties my family to farming. Before our lolo (grandfather) became a pilot in WWII, he studied agriculture. His family line, my mother's side, grew mangoes, cacao, rice, and raised fish, and I had the chance to visit those fields and fishponds with my mother. It's small, but it is a beginning. There is more to uncover, reclaim and understand.

Looking deeper, I can only feel more respect for all farmers here at home. Their legacy is relevant to all of us - as people with Filipino roots, as Californians, as those who have ever eaten a peach or stalk of asparagus, as those connected to US history. We are part of this legacy.

More: there are amazing resources, organizations, on this rich history past and present. Please suggest more to add to this list, look them up, and thank a farmer near you.

Little Manila Foundation 

Delano Manongs: Forgotten Heroes of the UFW

My Soil

Asian Farmers Organization

Poster from the multi-awarded "Romance of Magno Rubio," based on Carlos Bulosan's plays

D is for DNA circa 1980

Heirloom corn on the Native Seeds/SEARCH farm, Patagonia, AZ

Q: What's something that connects an ear of corn, a taro root, you and me?
A: DNA. Not just deoxyribonucleic acid, the inner blueprint, code, recipe for life. But DNA as a link of past to present, from what we eat to what we are, to what is seen and unseen. And its what some, including poet-activist John Trudell have reworded as "descendant now ancestor."

Yet from an entire ecosystem, to a living organism, down the molecular level, DNA has become a battleground and figures in the story of getting food and medicine from the farm (or forest) to the table.

I can vividly remember the summer of 2005 in Hawaii, and the protests at the UH Manoa campus to stop the proposed patent of taro, or kalo, a traditional crop and part of Native Hawaiian cosmology. Taro also figures deep in traditional Filipino foods (gabi) and across the Asia-Pacific. It took serious opposition from the community to lift the patent. But it still raised the question - how could any one person, corporation or institution "own" taro, whether in whole or in part? How can there be a patent on ancestral foods that have sustained countless generations - and are even what some consider a living ancestor?

How did we get here? In 1980 the US Supreme Court upheld the "patentability" of living matter. In basic terms, a patent would define companies or researchers as the "inventor" and the living thing or its extract subject to ownership. This opened a doorway to controversial issues of intellectual property rights, questions of profit, and a disturbing trend of research and extraction from biodiverse Global South and indigenous communities.

Writer, activist and physicist Vandana Shiva breaks this down:

Seed has been brought into monopolies. Cells have brought into monopolies. Genes have been brought into monopolies. Animals have been brought into monopolies...A seed cannot reproduce without permission of the patent holder and the company. Knowledge cannot be transmitted without permission and license collection. It’s rent collection from life. It’s rent collection from being human, and thinking, and knowing.

From the smallest level, there are big consequences for food and survival, where it comes from, who can grow it, and how we as a people can sustain ourselves. Let's support those who are protecting the living biodiversity and foods that link ancestors to descendants. Its a food heritage we are all connected to.

Some more on DNA and Food:

Filipino scientists devise system to stop biopiracy

Ricekeepers in Minnesota

In Motion Interview with Vandana Shiva

Taro patenting in Hawai'i

What would our great-grandma and great-grandpa eat?

The Challenge - 26 Days, 26 Letters, 26 Kwentos

Abundance.

Its the middle of the summer in Oakland, with ripe red strawberries, shiny blackberries, and early tomatoes bursting out of boxes at the market. So it seems only right to bring some of that abundance to writing!

Inspired by the' "poem-a-day" challenge, I've embarked on a challenge over the next 26 days of July to write a kwento-a-day, one for every letter of the English alphabet (yes, there's 26 letters and I counted).

Some kwentos will be pretty, others scrawny, but they will BE THERE, so stay tuned! Got ideas? Looking for recipes? Love it or hate it? Send your kwento over!