Basic Filipino Foods

Philippines are part of the rice culture countries therefore the staple food here is rice. There are a few bakeries that sell sweet soft bread, buns and few other sweety-spongie things. Healthy breads, such a rye or multi-grain is rarely found. White rice is served 3 times daily hot of cold with a few fried fish or beans. The diet of the average person is very basic due to poverty. For the richer Filipinos, supermarkets offer numerous products common in first world countries. Although there are many customs that are the same as other countries in Asia, there are a few radical differences.

Eating Dog

As a traveler hungry for experience, I try to be open on new things and habits wherever I go. I don’t look down on people just because their customs are different, rather, I try to be part of the group and see the world through their eye.

When I came to the Philippines, I didn’t know that killing an chicken, duck, dog or cat for dinner is a common event. It is common to see someone carrying a live chicken to be slaughtered and cooked at home.
Dog eating which is hideous to most westerners is an accepted part of the Filipino culture. Many Filipinos don’t own up to it but with a little digging, I discovered that plenty of them have eaten a dog. It’s perceived as last resort meal for the poor, and frowned upon by wealthier Filipinos.

My first introduction to eating a dog was during Easter Sunday when the leader of a Filipino group that I was with suggested killing a dog in order to celebrate rebirth of Jesus Christ. The dog was  purchased from the neighbors, brought in a sack and slaughtered by the barbecue. The village dwellers, burned off the animal’s fur, (photo above) chopped it into pieces and started preparing meals from it. It was a drinking event with 80 proof Gin being offered freely that sells for about $1 for a 26 oz bottle. I tried a bit of the meat, and found it hard and disgusting.  The locals laughed at my expressions.  A few hours later, I was told to try it again as it was properly cooked.  It tasted like or rabbit.

Cat as a meal

I love cats and always considered them as great friends. We, in the western world cannot even imagine our furry companions as food. Yet to another culture a cat is the same as a chicken.

Eating a cat in the Philippines is not so widespreaded as eating a dog, many of locals refuse to do it because of strange beliefs that eating cat meat makes you behave like a cat and instead of fighting off a attacker you will try to scratch them to death. Traveling the remote province of Masbate “cat meat” was part of the dinner. It tasted no different than pork.

Frogs and Filipino Barbecue

Amphibians Filipinos gather frogs after rain in the meadows and ricefields.  You can easily avail them in the markets of rainy areas such us Baguio or other mountainous regions.

BBQ Other interesting thing that you will find in the Philippines are local barbecue businesses. Yet it is another example of Great Filipino Adaptivity. Genesis of these bbqs are when U.S. military bases were selling scraps of meat to locals and they learnt how to prepare them in the delicious way. What you can find in these barbies are pig’s skin, ears, intestines, chunks of blood, heads and claws of chickens, fish and others. After painting with sauce, grilled it is served hot on the side of the road.

Balot and One Day Old Chicks

Eat one day old fertilized chicken eggs is a popular Filipino snack. It is called “Balot”.  What looks like a normal chicken egg is a partially developed chicken’s embryo still encased in the shell.  Locals describe it to foreigners as an “abortion egg”. Balot vendors wander through urban areas carrying a basket full of balot covered with towels in order to keep them hot, and shouting: Baaaloooot, Baaaalooot. It’s served with either salt or a bit of vinegar.

To eat it, you first break the shell, drink the liquid from inside and then after removing top part of the shell, slowly start to eat the inside of the egg. The egg doesn’t have it’s usual yellow yolk inside. Instead, a chicken embryo.  There will be some egg white although much less of it. Filipinos believe that it is good for potency and call it a “Filipino Viagra”. I personally love this snack and find it tasty. Although, considered as a national snack the Balot has it’s genesis in 13th centuries Chinese emigrants that brought it here with them.

Fried Chicks. The snack consists of two or three fresh hatched chicks without any feathers which are fried and eaten with a wooden stick. They taste good with some vinegar on them. It can really disgust Western tourists, but for those few able to break from Western cultural conditioning, you will experience the tastiest chicken ever eaten.

Right or Wrong?

Some say it is immoral to eat dog, cats and chicken embryos, but to me, culture is what we are used to. Most Westerners that consider eating cat of dog very offensive, line up for hamburgers and chicken wings with a clear conscious.  In India the cow is sacred and are harried by a McDonalds hamburger. Traveling is invigorating as it breaks is free of cultural conditioning and challenges us to see the world anew.

Much of the Philippines is modern and similar to western society in look and value, yet the people of the outlying regions live as their ancestors without electricity, refrigerators, stoves, TV’s or radio living of the land or sea.  In this region, of the Philippines, there were incidences of  cannibalism up to the year 1991 when the volcano Mt. Pinatubo erupted and wiped them out.  Traveling the back woods of the Philippines is like going back in time a journey not for the weak at heart, yet for the braver of heart and the more open minded an incredible experience.

Jozef Gorka