‘Sinigang’ and ‘asocena’ aren’t exclusive to Filipinos Reggie Aspiras Philippine Daily Inquirer
October 07, 2009
RICARDO SOLER, caterer, food expert and writer, is the man responsible for bringing to light the origins of kare-kare that saw print on Kitchen Rescue a few years ago.
Having just arrived from Singapore, Tito Ricky called to say he had a copy of Metro Cuisine-Cosmopolitan Finger Foods for me. (“An insightful compilation of some 65 recipes contributed mostly by Filipino alumni of UP now based in that city state.”) The introduction to the book was written by Soler.
While in Singapore, he participated in a panel discussion on the parallels between Singaporean and Filipino foods.
During our conversation, I asked him to do a “Did you know?” trivia. No one could answer better than he.
Soler wrote: “I have always been fascinated about bits and pieces of information that in part make up our foodlore and provide answers to probing or teasing ‘Did you know?’ questions about our culinary culture. Over the years, I collected some of these morsels and, as you suggested, am now sending you a few of those I have come across mainly from contact with friends and people who are similarly interested in foodlore. I imagine that much of what I am submitting can be Googled on the Internet and I admit doing this many times, but it seems learning things directly from people actually in the know make my findings more personal and privileged.
“Here are a few answers to “Did you know?” questions I either gathered or confirmed during exchanges in Singapore or collected from other sources.
Malay connection
“Among the culinary scholars I met was Christopher Tan, a highly talented Singaporean writer, stylist and consultant on food who helped a great deal in the preparation of ‘Metro Cuisine.’ Chris has written half a dozen books or so on Asian cuisine and knows so much about Filipino food that he is considered by the book’s authors as being more Filipino than anything else.
“Among his favorite Filipino dishes is sinigang, the similarities of which to Thailand’s tom yum, canh chua from Vietnam and Indonesia’s sayur asam are striking enough. But Chris points out that sinigang is probably closer to a Malay soup than these three parallels are – not only from the similarity of its ingredients, how it is prepared and how it is normally added to rice when eaten but also from its name; the Malaysian parallel to our sinigang is called singgang. It is most popular in the state of Terengganu on the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia, which has a large number of fishing villages, making the most common version there ikan singgang, the one with fish. But singgang of shrimp [udang], chicken [ayam] or beef [daging] are dished up elsewhere.
“From what I found out, however, Malaysians do not make singgang with pork [daging babi], which next to fish is our most popular version of sinigang. Being Muslim mostly, they do not eat pork as their religion forbids it. Pork is difficult to obtain in Malaysia; stalls selling it are usually tucked away from view since openly displaying pork may offend people. Malaysian hotels, with a few apparently officially sanctioned exceptions, do not serve pork dishes.
“Moreover, one will have a hard time finding singgang in the more cosmopolitan Malaysian cities. For example, I don’t think it is available in Kuala Lumpur.”
About dog cuisine
“One of the most preponderant negative images about Filipino dietary culture, and there are a few, is the implication that we eat dog meat – as though we are the only people who do. It is such a reprehensible insinuation that asocena, a form of roasting dog meat, originated and is practiced only in our country. This is absolutely false; the only truth about it being that the name is a Filipino term that may have been derived from combining aso, our term for dog, and cena, Spanish for dinner, thus a dinner of dog meat. Alternatively the term may have derived from the utterly sweet fragrance of a flower common in the country, the azucena, which is bizarrely opposite the unpleasant aroma of the dog as it is being roasted, usually for consumption as bar chow [pulutan] during drinking sessions.
“The whole truth is that dog meat is common fare in many countries, some of which even have farms for raising special breeds of dogs for consumption of their meat. The Chinese have been eating and raising dogs for thousands of years, stewing it in gravy with vegetables or roasting it like Filipinos do. Chinese ascribe medicinal properties to dog meat and there have been no known legal strictures against eating dog meat. Dogs for human consumption are normally bred for the purpose and, these days, few Chinese eat dog meat. Those who do don’t eat dogs raised as pets.
“Dog farms are illegal in Korea but still exist even as the laws against it now dissuade most Koreans from eating dog meat. However, as many as a third of the population have at least tried eating it, certainly more than the number of Filipinos who have done so. One of the delicacies for East Timorese is dog meat.
“Except for the English and the Americans, some people in the western world have a history of eating dog meat. During the late 1800s, the French lined up to buy dog meat from butchers who continued to sell dog meat up to the beginning of the 20th century. Some Swiss, to this day, not only eat but also make sausages out of dog meat. In wintry countries where dogs are used to pull sleds over ice, these are eaten at least in times of great need due to lack of other food sources.
“The reality is that only those cultures who think dogs are only meant for pets loathe eating dog meat. Jews and the Muslims also don’t eat dog meat but this is because their religions prohibit it.”
(To be continued)
My New Holiday Cooking Class Schedules, including the Holiday Gourmet Cocinera Series for household cooks and beginners, are out. Call 9289296, 9273008, 6474744, 0908-2372346.
