I would like to inform people that “nothing is set in stone” because we are constantly gathering information and learning about our history, somethings may change in the future, but for now the things that I publish are the things that we currently perceive to “know about.”
Honestly as a Filipino, I love Filipino food, because I’m obviously used to it… yes, I know that a lot of people from other cultures may think of Filipino cuisine as an “acquired taste”… but I could also say the same thing about their cuisines. I’m not really fond of most foreign dishes aside from the most basic and most prevalent ones… Ex: Italian, Japanese, American, Middle Eastern, Indian, Spanish, Korean, Thai etc… Most of these foreign cuisines taste bizarre to me, unless they’ve been “Filipinized” to adapt to the Filipino palate.
- A lot of Filipinos would consider “authentic” American, Korean and Japanese food to be bland… those “authentic” American burgers gave me nightmares… while Italian, Indian, Spanish, Thai and Middle Eastern cuisines would be considered to have bizarre flavors, mostly due to their herbs... I also find most of those Italian cheeses to be unappetizing.
- Some Filipinos may argue in the comments that they like foreign cuisines because they love the food in __________________ restaurant. The thing is, most restaurants in the Philippines that offer “foreign cuisines” don’t actually serve authentic flavors. Most of them have altered the flavors of their dishes to adapt to the Filipino palate, so what you’re actually getting is the “Filipinized version” of foreign dishes.
- Lastly, to answer your question… the only reason why Filipino cuisine isn’t (“IN”) is because the country is not wealthy and influential. We could observe this phenomena with Korean cuisine. What did people actually know about Korean cuisine before the country became wealthy and popular?… (Nothing), most people would probably even find their dishes to taste quite bizarre. That’s the thing, when a country becomes more wealthy and influential, the more “acceptable” its culture becomes. For example, if Japan became poor, it’s culture including its cuisine would quickly go out of fashion, and in a few generations it would no longer be relevant outside of its own borders.
By the way, let me address, Mr. Christopher Stanton’s answer.
- He claims that Filipino food is “horribly sweet”… but what he doesn’t realize that the dishes that he mentioned are either Spanish influences or Childhood comfort foods.
- Sweetened cured meats such as glazed Ham and Sausages came from the Spanish colonizers… I mean, who owned the sugar plantations in the Philippines when it was still a Spanish colony? and who could also afford to eat ham and sausages during those times?… definitely not the native peasants… so yes, it was the Spaniards who made these cured sweetened meats, it's just that these dishes eventually got carried on and incorporated into the general “Filipino culture.”
- On the other hand, “Filipino Spaghetti’ is not a formal dish… it’s childhood comfort food. I mean imagine what a child would cook of you left them to their own devices. Filipino spaghetti is sweet and has hotdogs for crying out loud… as a child I remember liking this flavor, but I don’t like it now... I personally find sweet flavors to be repulsive nowadays.
- For context Filipinos have a tradition of eating pancit/noodles during our birthday parties, this is to symbolize longevity, but due to American influence, a lot of Filipino kids wanted to replace their birthday noodles with birthday spaghetti, however they didn’t like the taste of the original tomato sauce, so parents made it sweeter… basically, the reason why Filipino spaghetti looks and tastes “childish” is because it’s actually geared towards young children. As the years have passed, these children have now grown up and some of them still crave this flavor, like I said Filipino spaghetti is treated like a “nostalgic childhood comfort food”… it’s not a “formal dish.”
To wrap these all up… authentic Filipino cuisine has a lot of salty and sour flavors, from ingredients like shrimp paste, soy sauce, fish sauce, tamarind and vinegar… our main cooking methods are also boiling and grilling because we love broth soups, stews, and grilled dishes, these methods are how we traditionally cook… so if a dish is fried, it’s either a Spanish/American influence or a recent development, I'm saying this because some people seem to think that Filipino food is very oily, when in reality those dishes are most likely foreign influences. I can't help but notice that some of the most "hated" Filipino dishes are actually the ones that are of Spanish and American origin… below are images of authentic Filipino cuisine.
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