From Slavery to Savory: Food’s journey to freedom

FILIPINO food is disgusting.

At least that’s what foreigners say when they see us eating isaw—skewered chicken intestine, dinuguan—pig innards drenched and simmered in pork blood, lengua—a Spanish-Filipino stew made of ox tongue, and other visceral dishes.

The idea of eating the insides of an animal and actually taking delight in it can be repulsive for the unfamiliar tongue. That is, of course, until they actually try it and end up eating almost half of the serving plate.

But why is it so much of our dishes—street food or fine dining—consist of guts and blood?

Food folklore

Elders say that aside from our natural desire to not let anything go to waste, the odd ingredients of our dishes are the result of the Spanish colonization in the Philippines.

Philippine history states that Filipinos were heavily discriminated in the Spanish era, those who belong to the lower class even more so.

The lower class Filipinos worked as slaves for the illustrados and principalia.

Word of mouth says that, for food, slaves were given whatever was left from their masters’ meals or the discarded organs of the slain animal—an old version of pagpag. From what was given to them, they made something edible and easy to digest by experimenting with all kinds of herbs and spices. This paved the way to the unique Filipino dishes we all love today.

No guts, no glory

Although there is no solid document supporting this claim, I think it is rather romantic to think that a moment of versatility despite of great oppression is the reason why we have the food that give us Filipinos so much pleasure today.

Our visceral dishes such as dinuguan, igado, and bopis are no longer degrading left-overs for us; they are now savory dishes that we serve during gatherings, simple or grand.

I think it reflects how Filipinos are as people. We are people capable of making good out of bad situations—bendable and unbreakable.

Food, after all, reflects culture. And isn’t it a Filipino attribute to be always happy, to always endure?

We were thrown guts and blood. From it, we made masterpieces.

#food #filipinofood