When foreign guests are asked what do they like best in the Philippines, the majority would say it’s the Filipino people themselves. Visiting tourist could just not help getting fascinated by the Filipinos’ friendliness manifested through their charming smiles so spontaneously flashed even to practical strangers.
Other than the people’s congeniality, visitors to the country would rank second the Philippine recipe in preparing delicious foods next to the Filipino cheery personality. After all, serving delectable Philippine cuisines go side by side with pleasantness of the Filipino smile to comprise the overall Filipino hospitality.
Smiles deliver practically the common message of joy for all people from every country and culture. Food, however, is another story because citizens from various nations and tribes have naturally different tastes.
So how come visitors from various countries find Filipino cuisine in general commonly likable? One reason for this is the fact that the Philippines has been a melting pot of cultures for the many centuries of her existence.
Just as the Filipino people comprise a beautiful blending of races ranging from white to black with the yellow and the brown in between so also is the Philippine cooking a sumptuous mixture of the influence of the spicy east and the refined west and also everything in between. So it is not a wonder why people from western countries would like in general Philippine recipes though they are cooked on the other side of the globe.
One basic difference perhaps in the general pattern of cooking in the Philippines compared to western nations is the tendency to mix all the food genres in one recipe. Americans and Europeans would usually separately cook and consume the soup, meat, vegies and fruits.
Filipinos would mix all these in the pot and come up with a cuisine locally known as “pochero” which is a beef or pork stew mixed with cabbage, green beans and potatoes with banana blended in soupy tomato sauce. So it would be a mixture of salty, sour and sweet taste garnished with other basic spices like black pepper.
This common type of Philippine mixed food preparation is somehow a manifestation of the value of “unity in diversity” prevalent in the country’s multi-ethnic culture. The way Filipinos cook reflects their ability to bring different people into a harmonious relationship of mutual respect and understanding, one reason perhaps why foreign visitors keep coming back to this exquisite country.
The ultimate Philippine recipe then is the kind of cooking that beautifully blends a variety of food tastes and textures to come up with a cuisine that provides a sumptuous overall taste of harmony found only in the Filipino hospitable community.
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