This was a fun question to investigate. It required me to eat a lot, try everything, meet everyone in our hosts' extended families and chat them up. The Filipino people put both food and family very much out front when they talk with justified pride about what makes their community different from those in other nations.
Our daily eating routing included breakfast at the hotel, a morning 'snack' and drink, a lunch feast often at a community member's home, an afternoon 'snack,' a huge communal dinner, and possibly some late night treats at a bar or in the hotel.
I put quotation marks around the word 'snack' because each of these sit-down occasions was meal-sized in its own right. Often in a school principal's office, my colleague Dan and I were presented with two drinks - coca-cola or Nescafe plus a whole coconut - and four to six rice or fruit themed treats. There were always cassava cakes and often delicious burnt sugar bananas on skewers called Banana Cue. Usually there was a square made with beautiful purple ube. Obviously we couldn't eat them all. But, despite my iffy stomach, I tried to make a good show of eating some of everything and complimenting what I ate. That was easy - the food was so good!
Lunch was often at the home of a family in the community. On one typical day, our host drove us to the house of a young family. The mother prepared food along with a kitchen helper in their beautiful home. We ate upstairs on their balcony. There were plenty of flies that we tried to ignore and our hosts politely shooed away. The table was absolutely crammed with food including: soup with shrimp, cassava, and greens; fried fish chunks; grilled head-on shrimp; veggie and fish stew; tiny bananas; cucumber and dip; papaya; cassava cakes; yellow watermelon; grilled milkfish (my favorite); steamed okra; grilled eggplant; and a local green I can't name. There were just six of us at the table! After we stuffed ourselves silly, to bring the whole experience to a real Filipino apex, teenage daughter Ycel brought out her guitar and played for us a mix of charming K-pop and traditional Filipino favorites. It was moving and inspiring. The mother was so proud and the daughter was not at all shy about sharing her gifts with us.
Sometimes afternoon snack was halo-halo or "mix-mix." Halo-halo is a real treat that you can put together yourself or have made for you at a restaurant. Take a bowl and add some shaved ice. On top of that mix in every color in the rainbow (artificial as heck, but still delicious) in the form of sweet beans, jellos, coconut cubes, ubes, fruits, agar jellies, and tapioca pearls. Drain it all in evaporated milk and then - if you are a gauche foreigner like me, start eating or - mix it all up so no single component remains independently recognizable. What's fun about halo-halo is that it isn't just a yummy food, it is a communal experience. No one should eat halo-halo alone. Sit with friends, talk while you mix, share, overdo it together.
And then there was dinner. Like lunch all over again, possibly with even more family members, always with a lavish spread. Sometimes this meal included neighbors and other visitors. Families seemed to give to the very edge of their means.
Meals aren't rushed through and they aren't simply to replenish lost nutrients. Instead, Filipinos take their time to talk, share and build community. It is at the dinner table that a guest starts to realize that everyone is related through formal and informal connections. There are 'aunties' everywhere. Food is a conversation starter and its quality helps build a sense of communal pride that deepens even more around the high level of hospitality that Filipinos learn to share starting as children. In school lessons explicitly teach that Filipinos are hospitable and generous. I think this is a self-fulfilling prophecy: students hear this and they set out to make it true.
One more note: awards and recognition are important here. Each school hangs a banner out front with giant photos of their top students, and high-achieving test-takers. There doesn't seem to be much competition or envy; instead there is a great deal of public praise and a shared sense of family and community accomplishment when a child succeeds. This sets a high bar that others can aim for.
Our daily eating routing included breakfast at the hotel, a morning 'snack' and drink, a lunch feast often at a community member's home, an afternoon 'snack,' a huge communal dinner, and possibly some late night treats at a bar or in the hotel.
I put quotation marks around the word 'snack' because each of these sit-down occasions was meal-sized in its own right. Often in a school principal's office, my colleague Dan and I were presented with two drinks - coca-cola or Nescafe plus a whole coconut - and four to six rice or fruit themed treats. There were always cassava cakes and often delicious burnt sugar bananas on skewers called Banana Cue. Usually there was a square made with beautiful purple ube. Obviously we couldn't eat them all. But, despite my iffy stomach, I tried to make a good show of eating some of everything and complimenting what I ate. That was easy - the food was so good!
Lunch was often at the home of a family in the community. On one typical day, our host drove us to the house of a young family. The mother prepared food along with a kitchen helper in their beautiful home. We ate upstairs on their balcony. There were plenty of flies that we tried to ignore and our hosts politely shooed away. The table was absolutely crammed with food including: soup with shrimp, cassava, and greens; fried fish chunks; grilled head-on shrimp; veggie and fish stew; tiny bananas; cucumber and dip; papaya; cassava cakes; yellow watermelon; grilled milkfish (my favorite); steamed okra; grilled eggplant; and a local green I can't name. There were just six of us at the table! After we stuffed ourselves silly, to bring the whole experience to a real Filipino apex, teenage daughter Ycel brought out her guitar and played for us a mix of charming K-pop and traditional Filipino favorites. It was moving and inspiring. The mother was so proud and the daughter was not at all shy about sharing her gifts with us.
Sometimes afternoon snack was halo-halo or "mix-mix." Halo-halo is a real treat that you can put together yourself or have made for you at a restaurant. Take a bowl and add some shaved ice. On top of that mix in every color in the rainbow (artificial as heck, but still delicious) in the form of sweet beans, jellos, coconut cubes, ubes, fruits, agar jellies, and tapioca pearls. Drain it all in evaporated milk and then - if you are a gauche foreigner like me, start eating or - mix it all up so no single component remains independently recognizable. What's fun about halo-halo is that it isn't just a yummy food, it is a communal experience. No one should eat halo-halo alone. Sit with friends, talk while you mix, share, overdo it together.
And then there was dinner. Like lunch all over again, possibly with even more family members, always with a lavish spread. Sometimes this meal included neighbors and other visitors. Families seemed to give to the very edge of their means.
Meals aren't rushed through and they aren't simply to replenish lost nutrients. Instead, Filipinos take their time to talk, share and build community. It is at the dinner table that a guest starts to realize that everyone is related through formal and informal connections. There are 'aunties' everywhere. Food is a conversation starter and its quality helps build a sense of communal pride that deepens even more around the high level of hospitality that Filipinos learn to share starting as children. In school lessons explicitly teach that Filipinos are hospitable and generous. I think this is a self-fulfilling prophecy: students hear this and they set out to make it true.
One more note: awards and recognition are important here. Each school hangs a banner out front with giant photos of their top students, and high-achieving test-takers. There doesn't seem to be much competition or envy; instead there is a great deal of public praise and a shared sense of family and community accomplishment when a child succeeds. This sets a high bar that others can aim for.