Sarap: Essays on Philippine food

by Doreen G. Fernandez

Wonderful essay on Philippine food and cooking.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Essays

237 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Doreen Gamboa Fernandez (28 October 1934 – 24 June 2002) was a Filipino professor, historian, writer and critic best known for her writings on Filipino food, food culture, and the theater arts. Apart from many books and academic articles, she wrote a regular column on food and dining for the Philippine Daily Inquirer. She taught English at Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), serving also as head of the Communication Department and moderator of the student newspaper.

Reviews

[val · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a couple of Doreen Fernandez's essays for a social history class and I'd had a desire to read her collections since then. I thought this would just be musings on local food, but it's much more bulky than that since it talks about the history, geography, linguistics of food, etc. It was probably a mismatch of expectations, and I am not the audience.

It could've been more polished. The first essay discusses sinigang and how our ancestors settled near water sources and therefore consumed mostly seafood, and how sourness in stews is supposed to be done with natural ingredients and not that dreaded liquid, vinegar. In the second essay, she repeat the exact same things but in more detail. The book is just a compilation of writings over the years but they could've been edited to make them more cohesive.

Some of the essays can be so dry, like "Historias, Cronicas, Vocabularios" and "Culture Ingested." They read more like RRLs, which isn't surprising since I believe they might have presented a few of these writings at conferences. I wish the academe were less intimidating though.

I started enjoying more when I skimmed the majority and read the few that peaked my interest.

"The Chinese Connection" and "The Spanish Legacy" were languid and casual, but still informative without being intimidating. I gasped upon reading about adobo probably having roots with the colonizers. Truly, sinigang is the quintessential Philippine dish. I told my boyfriend and he laughed in victory, because we've always had petty competitions about our favorite childhood dishes.

The best essay in terms of what I was looking for was Edilberto N. Alegre's "Taste as Language," since he references academic foundations from the first part yet relates concepts to readers by narrating familiar experiences we can easily step into. It was 20% academe, 80% personal experience, which I loved because I don't have the time anymore to digest formal texts after I overwork my brain cells at my job.

Another essay of Alegre's, "Poor Man's Fare," had some truly lovely anecdotes, especially about grasshoppers:

Summer was the most adventurous part of my childhood. With Ka Ino's children, I would roam the grassy ground at the back of the church and with bamboo slats in our hands we would catch grasshoppers, remove their legs and wings, and eat their bodies. Near the carabaos' mud pool we would look for a mound of old, dried-up carabao dung, invert it, scratch out a tiny, shallow hole, and light it. After much effort we would get no fire, only an ember glow which we had to keep alive by blowing. We would put our catch on this and have freshly broiled, newly-caught grasshoppers⁠—charcoal-bitter on the outside, marshmallow-mushy inside. A hint of sweetness of newly-cut soft grass. There were summers of many grasshoppers, yet somehow our stomachs were never upset. It must have been the thin crust of charcoal that protected us from our greed.

I like that the book ended with this essay, since it brings in the previous discussions (notably, streetfood) and tackles the political aspect of it, which I didn't expect since they'd managed to keep even the Spanish sections mostly free of it. Throughout the book, Fernandez and Alegre had emphasized that Filipino cuisines developed as they did because survival depended on it; this essay is a reminder that this craftiness borne out of survival is often based in poverty and oppression.

Though I didn't read everything, what I did, I wholeheartedly appreciated. I don't think Sarap got a reprint like Tikim, which is a shame since this I found this collection more value-adding.

[Ako si si Patroclus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is what we do in our quotidian lives. From moment to moment in our social relations, we keep ourselves alert to the minute gradations of flavor, to the nuances of change, and, as needed, we temper, moderate, mitigate, soften. We are not only food-tasters; we are flavor-makers. We are eternally cooking—not only on stoves, but in our pakikisama, which is never a fixed formula like a recipe but an ongoing process of understanding and adjusting, with the other in mind. (p. 65, “Taste as Language,” Sarap: Essays on Philippine Food).

We do not simply ingest our environment. We dance to it, dance with it, sing to it, caress it; we are in awe of it and respectful toward it. Eating is not just ingestion. Eating is the occasion for the rites and rituals of our lives. Eating is praxis in our social amenities. Eating is a language that speaks of the nuances of what we are. Eating is making alive the various and variegated conjugations of our lives. (p. 81, “Eating as Language,” Sarap: Essays on Philippine Food).

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

i was so sad when she died...sinusundan ko pa naman ang articles nya sa PDI. I love her writings! Food and culture are really inextricable! a good gift book even to those who don't read.