Upon arriving at the open area on Federacion Drive and 9th Avenue, we saw a tract of unbuilt land—but in the middle proudly stood the World Street Food (WSF) Jamboree. Music thumped from one side of the field as families, friends, businessmen, and casual visitors moved to and fro. Entering the tent area meant diving into a sea of customers, all from different walks of life, either queuing up or rushing to their tables with some richly-scented dishes.
As we made our way through the throngs of people and the occasional puffs of smoke, we finally reached the stalls that had their names and specialties propped onto white sintra boards. Among the dishes featured at the event were har cheong kai (fried bagoong chicken) burgers, satay beehoon (rice noodles in peanut sauce), mee siam (spicy seafood rice noodles), radish cake, golgappa (fried unleavened bread stuffed with potato and chilli), aloo chop (Indian potato croquette), and hoy turd (mussel omelette pancake), to name just a few.
International street food has never been this close to the heart of the Filipinos. Street food favorites the world over have been making it to Manila; and just like that, the time seems about ripe to talk about what this could all mean from the point of view of our food.
The food fighters
On a podium stands Singaporean chef KF Seetoh, dexterously stirring away at a stockpot and adding various ingredients while answering questions from the crowd in front. “[Have] you had bah kut teh in Singapore? Pepper, garlic, pork ribs, and lugaw. That’s street food, man. You can eat it after a long day—it warms up your stomach,” he says, referring to the specialty porridge he was serving to onlookers.
Once recognized as Singapore’s Food Ambassador, Seetoh is also the man responsible for bringing the Jamboree from Singapore to Manila. While the cooking and selling may seem simple, he says that putting up a hawker stall entails commitment. “It’s a very viable business,” he says. “Some of the hawkers sell one dish all their lives.”
At another stall, chefs were carving out thin slices of lechon from a roasted pig. Standing close by was Dedet Dela Fuentes-Santos, the owner of Pepita’s Kitchen. According to her, their lechon was quite popular in Singapore. The stall is known for its lechon de leche served with stuffed truffle rice. “Last year, [the WSF Council] invited me to Singapore and we were the top seller. People lined up for three hours,” she shares.
Bringing together such passionate food enthusiasts like Seetoh and Dela Fuentes-Santos, among others, would never have been possible without the WSF Council. The Council is dedicated to promoting food culture around the world.
Saying that “street food is cheap” is a misnomer. Dela Fuentes-Santos believes that it is also the Council’s objective “to elevate Filipino street food.” She asserts, “Street food does not mean ‘cheap.’ It means traditional food that will be easily available for everyone.”
As the Congress is only on its third year, this is the first time it has ventured beyond the Singapore Strait. “Street food needs to evolve. People change. Times have changed. So we want to cater to a new market,” says Dela Fuentes-Santos. Food enthusiasts from different countries have become more open to the thought of expanding their food businesses in Manila as a response to the open and eager palates of many Filipinos.
Passing the plate
It is impossible to talk about Filipino food without touching on our colonial history. “When you say Philippine food—we are a mix, we have been influenced by many different cultures,” says Dela Fuentes-Santos. And we know this all too well.
The earliest inhabitants of the archipelago are known to have been the pioneers of some of the preservation techniques we still use today. From salting, drying, smoking, and fermenting, our forefathers had lived from day to day using these techniques mostly on seafood, only consuming livestock during feasts and special occasions.
But with the advent of Spanish colonialism came a whole new world of ingredients, approaches, and dishes altogether. Among the meals that were easy to teach and make that are still widely appreciated today are adobo, menudo, and afritada. Likewise, there’s no escaping the influence of oriental traders who brought with them the likes of pancit, bihon, lomi, and misua.
With this in mind, how do we pin down what Filipino street food consists of? The long and short of it is: It is food that is served as part of different yet continuous traditions. Seetoh explains, “Heritage street food is what your mother cooked for you, what your mother cooked for the hawkers once upon a time… [It’s] food that is served with traditions. It wasn’t invented [out of nowhere].”
He continues, “We’re trying to say that heritage food is not cheap food. They buy the same chicken and pork ribs as five-star restaurants. Their techniques are very sophisticated but they’ll sell you cheaper than what restaurants are also selling.”
This adapting of dishes is two-fold: On the one hand, the recipes can be traced back through the centuries in terms of our shared history, though on the other hand it could also be seen in terms of a passing down between household generations. Dela Fuentes-Santos explains, “I’d like to think that Filipino street food continues to evolve, just like Filipino food. Like lechon in the olden days—it has changed. Like what we’ve done; we have made a different take on Filipino lechon.”
A taste of your own heritage
Of course, one could argue that the Jamboree last April was a controlled environment—and that perhaps the street food on the actual streets would tell a different story. After all, it’s not uncommon for someone to think twice about just how clean a batch of isaw or squid balls really is.
“It stands out because it’s cheap,” says Aly Yap, John Gokongwei School of Management Student Enterprise Center (JSEC) coordinator, explaining how street food is usually the go-to food of most people of low-income brackets in the Philippines. He adds that people have come to associate it with uncleanliness, like in the phrase “dirty ice cream,” even if these foods aren’t dirty per se. Instead, he points out that even if we use that term, we still eat it—in our minds, it’s not really dirty, as its appeal, more often than not, overpowers reluctance or aversion.
In more ways than one, our attitude towards street food says something about how we relate to our culture and heritage. Be it with taho or Betamax, precisely how we appreciate the nuanced flavors of local street food can be complemented by seeing its richness in terms of history and growth through the generations.
And more than this shared backdrop of heritage, food continues to be a rallying point for our present, personal web of relationships. “I think Filipinos as a nation, we enjoy eating,” says Dela Fuentes-Santos. “It’s a social thing for us. That’s why if you look at the tables usually—this weekend it’s families, the past few days they were officemates and friends. So that’s how we socialize: Through eating.”
There’s no doubting that there’s a lot to be gained from understanding our street food through the lens of history and heritage. But at the end of the day, our experience of street food will be the one that will speak the most. As Seetoh puts it, “Filipinos like good food, just like we [Singaporeans] do. There’s no such thing as a [definitive] Filipino palette. There is only good food and bad food. If it’s good, everybody will like it. It has nothing to do with race or where you’re from.”
