The Next Asian Trend
I was food editor of the Honolulu Advertiser as the Vietnam war drew to a close. Having been exposed to the proliferation of Vietnamese restaurants in Paris, I fully expected an immediate onslaught of Vietnamese restaurants to blossom across the Hawaiian Islands. So I rushed out to do my Vietnamese food story, interviewing native food experts to give my readers a taste of the cuisine to come. I waited…and waited. I was young — in my 20s — and didn’t have enough seasoning or sense of history to realize that such anticipated bounty doesn’t happen overnight.
However, I have been intrigued by why Filipino food hasn'’t caught on. Preparing to speak at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone’s first Worlds of Flavor conference on Asia in 1997, I researched demographic trends to gauge which Asian immigrant groups would likely have the biggest impact on American food marketing in the years ahead. I was surprised that in the period 1981 to 1995, the largest group of Asians immigrating to the U.S. hailed from the Philippines.
While we were seeing a proliferation of Vietnamese restaurants (second largest number of immigrants in this period) and Indian restaurants (fourth largest), where were the Filipino eateries?
Under the radar screen until now, Filipino food is finally strutting its stuff. The International Association of Culinary Professionals, the largest professional food group in the United States, bestowed one of its coveted cookbook awards to a book exploring Filipino cooking, Memories of Philippine Kitchens: stories and recipes from near and far, by Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan. It won the Jane Grigson Award for distinguished scholarship for the quality of its research and presentation.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco at least, chefs of Filipino heritage are winning accolades. Tim Luym, the talented young chef of Poleng Lounge, who is Filipino-Chinese, was named a San Francisco Chroncle 2007 Rising Star Chef. Tim is cooking up superb Asian street food.
In the Presidio, executive chef Kelly Degala is preparing fabulous global small plates, including foods from his Filipino-Spanish-Chinese roots. Kelly says that “Filipino food is not pretty but has big flavors.” So he takes these tastes that he remembers from his childhood and plates them in appealing ways. Lumpia, adobo and fried rice are among the popular Filipino dishes menued at the sophisticated Pres a Vi.
Last month in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, Michael Bauer reviewed favorably a restaurant serving contemporary Filipino and Asian cusine called Bistro Luneta in San Mateo. And today’s Chronicle reported in The Inside Scoop that a new restaurant to be opened next month called Palencia, will be serving contempory versions of home-style Filipino food.
And lest we forget, the White House executive chef, the first woman to hold that position, is Manila-born Cristeta Comerford. Filipino chefs are gaining recognition and going places.
INSIGHT: I can remember when all Asian food was lumped together as “Oriental,” and non-Asians didn’t know or care about the heritage of the dishes. We’ve come a long way in exploring and differentiating cuisines of Asia, which only leads to a richer appreciation of global food and culture. Food manufacturers who want to stay ahead of the curve might consider a Filipino flavor profile for a new food product — a melding of Spanish, Chinese and Malaysian influences — as this cuisine becomes more visible across the country and continues to grow in popularity.
