Our childhood involved routine visits to see our family in Pampanga, Philippines. Baryo life in the province was a hot, tropical escape from California urban living. Each day was greeted with the syncopated crows of the neighborhood roosters, and the melodic calls of Taaahhoooo, bellowed into the air by the local street vendors. What always followed was the clapping of tsinelas smacking the heels of children who craved the warm snack of silken tofu, brown sugar syrup, and tapioca pearl.
Ep. 2, Barkada: L.A.'s Exploding Filipino Food Movement
In Del Pilar, San Fernando, at my grandparents' home, our morning breakfasts were of local sweet pork longanisa sausage, torta talong (which is akin to an eggplant omelet), pan-fried bangus (milkfish), endless bowls of garlic-scented rice, and chili-spiced vinegar. On one particular morning, I recall my grandmother asking me, Have you ever had a tamale before?
Memories of home in California raced through my head, envisioning the steaming cornhusk-wrapped Mexican delicacy I first tasted at a neighbor's party. Of course! I responded, but she abruptly cut me off before I could continue, calling over one of the local kids to fetch us some tamales. In a heartbeat, the child returned with a steaming wrapped package in what looked like a green banana leaf. I gave my mother a perplexed look, to which she responded with a telepathic death stare that said, Just eat.
I got the message loud and clear, and began unwrapping this foreign treat. As I opened the banana leaf, the sweet aroma of coconut milk, rice and annatto engulfed the dining table. Inside, coconut-marinated ground rice served as the base, and in the center were slowly stewed onions and carrots, chicken, chorizo and a sliced hard-boiled egg. The mixture of ingredients looked familiar, but I couldn't recall ever seeing a tamale using this type of preparation.
Patis and the making of pochero. | Photo: Oriana Koren
I took a breath and went in for my first bite. I never felt so much cultural and gastronomic confusion in one morsel. My taste buds couldn't make sense of it. My palate yearned for the combination of spice, warm masa and succulent chicken - what I thought was a real tamale. Instead, the rich flavors of coconut, onions and carrots coated my mouth. The texture of ground rice was more delicate than the masa I was accustomed to. The chicken marinated in annatto oil, and bits of chorizo tasted foreign. As I took several more bites, I hid my confusion deeper into my belly and I looked at my family with a false joy. Delicious! I exclaimed, and reluctantly continued eating.
More From The Migrant Kitchen
Ukoy: A Filipino Fritter Side Dish
How We Know Who We Are : A Reflection on Preserving Culture with Chef Isa Fabro
Chirmol Recipe: Guatemalan Salsa, a Perfect Compliment to Carne Asada
1 of 3
next
The Filipino and Mexican tamale conundrum was one of many bewildering food experiences I've had in life. Researching for LASA, our team sought recipes, memories and experiences like this to learn the foundations of our rich, complex (and sometimes confusing) cuisine. During our developmental process for LASA, we constantly uncover numerous cross-cultural flavors and preparation techniques found in dishes from the Philippines. Those culinary connections of various dishes in Filipino cuisine can be found across different continents and oceans.
From a gastronomic perspective, throughout its history, the Philippines acted as a large stop for cultural food exchange. The Manila galleons of the Spanish Colonial era brought ingredients like chayote, avocado and papaya along with culinary ideas like the Mexican tamale to our shores, ultimately integrating these overseas food customs into our cooking. Over time, we replaced ingredients of the tamale with what was abundant in our native soil to make it our own. Filipino cuisine evolved by the intermixing of food brought along by traders, merchants, travelers and colonizers who passed through the island chain over the centuries. It is a melting pot and cross-cultural mash-up of Indonesian/Malaysian, Chinese, Spanish/Mexican and American food culture incorporated into local food traditions. Although centuries have passed, outside influence remains in our cuisine, ultimately adding depths of flavors and techniques unique to our culinary story.
Prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, the 7,641-island nation was never ruled by one homogenous group of people or culture to establish a society with shared foods, customs and traditions. Instead, several tribes, maritime states and kingdoms such as the Tondo Kingdom of Luzon, Rajahnates of Cebu, and Islamic Sultans of Mindanao ruled independently from each other carving out their own territories in the region. Maritime Southeast Asia was based on customs of seafaring, trade, cultural exchange and migration. During this time, culinary practices in the region began to be established. Remnants of these food exchanges can still be seen today.
Indo-Malay Impact
A Filipino daily food custom, merienda, is a small mid-day snack or meal before dinner. Often you will find Filipinos having coffee and snacking on a warm savory empanada pastry or a pork bun siopao. Some seek something sweeter like my personal favorite snack, puto bumbong. This rice cake is made out of glutinous rice that is often a dark purple color due to the local black rice and ube (purple yam) in the dessert mixture. The rice is first ground, soaked and dried. It is then shaped and placed in a bamboo tube to be steamed. Coconut oil is used to coat the steaming bamboo vessel so the rice cake can be easily shaken out of the tube and still retain its cylinder shape. Once out of the bamboo tube, the puto bumbong is topped with muscovado sugar and freshly grated coconut. The result is a warm, so
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Our childhood involved routine visits to see our family in Pampanga, Philippines. Baryo life in the province was a hot, tropical escape from California urban living. Each day was greeted with the syncopated crows of the neighborhood roosters, and the melodic calls of Taaahhoooo, bellowed into the air by the local street vendors. What always followed was the clapping of tsinelas smacking the heels of children who craved the warm snack of silken tofu, brown sugar syrup, and tapioca pearl.
