Exotic Food

Filipinos in other countries must be really home sick, for Anthony Bourdain's post on the Philippines episode for the No Reservations show got 407 comments. Who gets 407 comments on one post? While going through the latest tweets tonight (or this morning, or whatever), I hopped on several links and ended up at his blog. It's crazy and the conversation even extends to Colin Devroe's review of the show. I guess it was expected, what with all the lechon, sisig, kare-kare, adobo, fishballs and other food that all reminds us of home. These are the food that our grandmothers cooked for us, our mothers served us, our comfort food. Maybe even fiesta food.

Some friends once described how kare-kare is cooked to an American friend, and they had a hard time describing the dish. It's ox tail cooked in a sort of soup with peanut butter and local vegetables, and then it's eaten with bagoong (fish sauce?). So imagine describing that to someone who grew up in the U.S., someone who cannot imagine an ox tail being cooked, let alone with peanut butter. Let's just say, they were hooting with laughter that ended with the friend describing it in the end as (forgive my "French") "peanut butter and ass".

The show could have featured many other dishes. I haven't seen the Philippine episode of No Reservations yet, but since the show is about exotic food, there are a few dishes that they might have also liked to try like ox tongue (cooked all over the country), diwal (I don't know if they have it also in Luzon but I saw this in the Visayas; it's a "longish" shellfish that is usually baked or boiled with just salt, red pepper and green onion leaves to top it off), and maybe some roasted goat.