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By Gilda Cordero-Fernando in Manila / Philippine Daily Inquirer | ANN - Sun, Sep 4, 2011
Manila (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN) - It has been claimed in scholarly papers on food that sinigang is the national dish of the Filipino, like the sampaguita is our national flower and the monkey-eating eagle is our signature bird, and therefore sinigang is known all over the Philippines.
In an extensive food research trip I made in 1990 (covering the Tagalog provinces as well as the Ilocos), it was interesting to note that sinigang, so much a part of Luzon’s barrio cooking, is virtually unknown, at least in several municipalities of Ilocos Norte. What may pass off as sinigang could be what a restaurant cook learned during a vacation in Manila.
In the roadside eateries, sinigang was an unrecognizable concoction with carrots in a somewhat sour broth. Some had cabbage or potatoes floating in it. Abaws gid, lahing tinola!
Since I have low self-esteem, I ran to a Ph.D., Dr. Fernando “Butch” Zialcita, who had stayed in Ilocos for months on end on study grants. He had the same observation. No sinigang there!
What then is the “national” dish? Adobo? Adobo is known all over the islands, north to south. And if I go by another Ph.D’s (Arsenio Manuel) study on folktales, anything that is widespread and has many, many versions (like the Monkey and the Turtle) must be an old, old thing. Food writer Nancy Reyes Lumen has found so many variations of adobo that she has been able to write a whole book on it.
But, nationalists cry, adobo is not indigenous-it was introduced by the Spaniards! Buti na lang I have enough doctor friends to run to even if they can’t cure a single bukol! Hindi! said Dr. Ambeth Ocampo. The adobo has been with us even before the colonizers came.
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