You plan to move to the Philippines? Wollen Sie auf den Philippinen leben?

There are REALLY TONS of websites telling us how, why, maybe why not and when you'll be able to move to the Philippines. I only love to tell and explain some things "between the lines". Enjoy reading, be informed, have fun and be entertained too!

Ja, es gibt tonnenweise Webseiten, die Ihnen sagen wie, warum, vielleicht warum nicht und wann Sie am besten auf die Philippinen auswandern könnten. Ich möchte Ihnen in Zukunft "zwischen den Zeilen" einige zusätzlichen Dinge berichten und erzählen. Viel Spass beim Lesen und Gute Unterhaltung!


Visitors of germanexpatinthephilippines/Besucher dieser Webseite.Ich liebe meine Flaggensammlung!

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Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Why are Filipino foods not that popular, even though most of them are good?

 

Profile photo for Dayang C Marikit
By Dayang C Marikit
I’m a Philippine history professor and my Quora account is mainly focused on promoting and educating people about the pre-colonial period. Below are some of my articles and as well as some informative videos.

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.”
Christopher Stanton
 · Answered April 19
Why are Filipino foods not that popular, even though most of them are good? Have you ever tried Philippine-style spaghetti? How about longanisa sausage? Compared to American spaghetti or sausages their Pinoy cousins are horribly sweet. This is a deal-breaker for most Western diners who prefer savory m…

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.

Prayer keeps our love burning






By Fr. Roy Cimagala *


          IF we understand that prayer is what keeps us always in

contact with God who is the very essence of love, then we should

realize that we indeed need to pray all the time. Prayer should not be

understood merely as some spiritual exercise that we do only at

certain moments of the day.


          It has to be our very life itself. Everything in our life

should be an act of prayer, including our sleeping. Our very

consciousness, our breathing and heartbeat should be converted into

prayer.


          Obviously, we need some training for this. But it should be

a training that would enable us precisely to convert everything into

prayer. Even when we work, whether of the white-collar or blue-collar

type of work, whether intellectual or manual, etc., we should be

praying. That is to say, we should maintain our contact with God and

channel what he has, his will and his ways, in all our daily affairs.


          In that way we can reflect God’s love in all the situations,

circumstances, predicaments, challenges in our life, etc. This love,

of course, is concretely shown to us by Christ whose life and teaching

we should truly learn and assimilate. Not only is Christ showing or

teaching it to us. He is giving it to us by giving his own self,

especially in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, if we also

understand well the significance of the sacrament.


          When we pray, we are actually assuming the very mind and

heart of Christ who is the personification of prayer himself. His life

was fully offered to the Father, spending it entirely in obeying the

will of the Father who wants us to return to him, since we are his

image and likeness that was damaged by our sin.


          In other words, we can say that we are truly praying when we

would have the same sentiments of Christ. His desires, his mission,

his ways of doing things, especially in loving everyone, including the

enemies, his willingness to bear all our sins through his suffering

and death, should also be ours.


          So, if we want to be truly in love and to keep that love

burning, we need to be authentic persons of prayer. We need to be like

Christ, to be “alter Christus” (another Christ) if not “ipse Christus”

(Christ himself). And that is not a fantastic, baseless assertion,

because that is what is truly meant for us. There is no other formula

for love.


          We need to understand very well the intimate relation

between praying and loving, and between our loving and becoming

Christ-like. That is where true love can be found, and no other. We

may have to do a bit of explaining for this, but I think it is all

worthwhile to do so, especially these days when many people,

especially the young ones, have a very deficient understanding of

love.


          We have to reassure everyone that when we actually learn to

truly pray, we will enjoy the ideal condition of our life, and such

condition will remain so whatever the situation and circumstances of

our life would be or wherever our life would lead us.


          Prayer keeps us in contact with God who will empower us to

love truly. It would help us keep a right focus and sense of direction

and purpose of our life.


* Chaplain Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com