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Filipino Cuisine Wows Spanish Chefs
MADRID FUSION MANILA’ OPENS — Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Ramon Jimenez (fourth from right) is joined by (from left) Philippine Airlines (PAL) Chairman Jaime Bautista, SM Supermalls SVP for Marketing Perkins So, DOT Director Verna Buensuceso, Tourism Promotions Board COO Domingo Enerio III, Spanish Ambassador to the Philippines Jesus Garcia, fellow Spanish Ambassador Luis Calvo, Floro de Debate Director Lourdez Plana, and Turkish Airlines General Manager Erhan Balaban at the opening of the ‘Madrid Fusion Manila’ at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City yesterday. The three-day event promotes cultural exchanges between regions and brings together 20 of the world’s top chefs.
April 8th, 2016 | 11:28 AM | 14920 views
MANILA, PHILIPPINES
Madrid Fusion Manila (MFM) isn’t about making Filipino adobo the world’s favorite dish. That would have been so last “millennium.”
Now on its second year, MFM’s main objective is all about promoting the country’s rich culinary tradition, including world-class Filipino chefs, said Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Ramon Jimenez.
Whether Filipinos like it or not, the country’s culinary vocabulary is largely influenced by Spain and, by extension, Mexico.
“But if you look closely, Europeans are picking up ideas from Filipino cooking that they wouldn’t have encountered otherwise. The Spaniards attending this event are overwhelmed. They have never seen this kind of creativity even in their own home,” said Jimenez.
Jimenez, with Spanish Ambassador to the Philippines Luis Calvo and Philippine Airlines chair Jaime Bautista, formally opened the three-day annual event promoting cultural exchanges through food yesterday at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay.
In keeping with this year’s theme, “The Manila Galleon: East Meets West,” organizers invited 20 of the world’s top chefs, including Mexican Enrique Olvera, Spaniard Joan Roca, and New York-based Filipino couple Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan of Purple Yam, to give a series of talks and cooking demonstrations.
“If adobo is going to be popular, it would have been popular by now,” said Jimenez. “That’s not the point of Madrid Fusion. It’s about promoting the Filipino chef, Filipino culinary tradition, and invariably the Philippines.”
As a brand, the country must have more than just a two-dimensional image to the rest of the world. For foreigners to appreciate and understand the Philippines better, it should be viewed in three dimensions.
“One of these dimensions is cuisine,” said Jimenez. “Can you imagine going to a place just to see something? To complete the experience, one has to eat the country’s homegrown cuisine.”
Yesterday’s opening also marked the start of the back-to-back gastronomy congress program wherein featured chefs do live cooking demonstrations while talking about their respective experiences and philosophies on food and running a restaurant.
Mexico City-based and New York-educated Olvera, who runs a Mexican restaurant dubbed Pujol, voted by food critics as one of the 50 best restaurants in Latin America, kicked off this year’s congress by talking about European and Asian influences in Mexican cooking.
Manila, he said, is poised to become the next “epicenter of Mexican cuisine.”
Based on what Olvera has tasted so far, he finds also Filipino cuisine teeming with various influences. The same is true with Mexican cuisine.
“The influences from other cultures are so deep that ordinary Mexicans don’t know anymore, which is Mexican and which is Asian,” he said.
On top of influencing each other’s food, he credits the galleon trade between Manila and Acapulco in promoting exchanges in the arts like wood-carving techniques practiced in Talavera, which is very Asian.
“Compared to other forms of impositions, food is responsible for peaceful and quiet assimilations between countries. In the case of Mexico and Europe, it was something that just happened,” he said.
Chefs of contemporary cuisines, he added, should not be too preoccupied with where an ingredient or even an influence came from. Instead, they should ask themselves if a certain dish or ingredient is important to their restaurants’ present context.
“Is cilantro Mexican? Yes. But did it originate here? No,” he said.
The same can be said of broccoli, which isn’t native to Mexico, but has resonated so well over the centuries with Mexicans that it’s now the second most grown vegetable in the country.
Olvera also scoffed at the concept of a national dish as “stupid.” Even Mexican dishes as essential as tacos and mole are made differently in Mexico depending on the region’s topography and its people’s traditions.
And unlike high fashion, which emanates from the rich before it trickles down to the poor, a country’s cuisine is first developed by poor people and later adopted and reinterpreted by everybody else, including the rich, he said.
In the case of a poor country like Mexico, Mexicans have learned to find uses, say, for an entire cow. Functionality and practicality have led its people not to adopt the practice of cutting beef in squares. They grind it instead.
“Square-cut pieces are not only wasteful,” he said. “They also tend to fall off the tortilla.”
When he moved to New York sometime ago, Olvera found himself catering to a completely different clientele with different demands and expectations.
Despite taking a slightly different approach, Olvera claims that he didn’t get swallowed by his new surroundings. As a chef, wherever you go, it’s important to be true to yourself and your roots, he said.
WELCOME DINNER
Meanwhile, Michelin-starred chefs, foreign dignitaries, and VIP guests had a taste of traditional Tausug and Maranao-inspired dishes at the Department of Tourism (DOT)-hosted Madrid Fusion Manila 2016 welcome dinner Wednesday at the Bonifacio Hall of Malacañang Palace.
On the menu were Maranao Palapa-crusted Slow-roasted Wagyu Short Rib with Junay, Chicken Pianggang Sisig, and Prawn Satti Peanut Sauce and Cassava Dips, prepared by Chef Tatung Sarthou, one of Madrid Fusion’s rock star chef speakers from the “East.”
Palapa is a Maranao condiment – made from a mixture of Mindanao scallion, luya tiduk or Philippine bird’s eye chili, ginger, and burnt coconut – that is a staple in Maranao cuisine; while chicken pianggang sisig is an updated version of the Tausug classic chicken cooked in coconut milk, flavored with a Tausug spice paste made from fresh aromatics.
For his presentation at Madrid Fusion, Chef Sarthou said he is stepping up to the plate in telling the “story of Philippine cuisines,” in the hope to “deepen the discourse on what Filipino food is all about in the global context,” implying that he will not only talk about the Galleon Trade but also indigenous Filipino cookery, to “understand where we came from and to know where we are heading to in the next generations.”
Chef Sarthou has been known for his straightforward, no-nonsense approach to elevating regional heirloom dishes such as Mindanao food and coconut cookery, as seen in the widely diverse, all-Filipino menu of his restaurant, Alab.
In a previous interview with Manila Bulletin Lifestyle, Chef Sarthou said the [most] interesting cuisine for him is the food of the south. “It’s very interesting to go deeper into indigenous and tribal cultures because they are the untouched. People don’t dare try other food simple because they don’t know them. Food can become a barrier,” he said.
This is probably why when tasked to cook for a room full of Michelin-starred chefs and the who’s who of the Western and Eastern culinary scene, Chef Sarthou chose Mindanao. A recurring theme for the night, as guests who had earlier met with President Aquino were welcomed by musicians from Mindanao.
Source:
courtesy of MANILA BULLETIN
by Alex Y. Vergara
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