48 Fun Facts About Filipino Food

Adobo, often called the national dish, is a stew based on soy sauce and what?

Vinegar was the islands' own way of preserving meat, and the Spanish later labelled the native dish 'adobo' after a Spanish word for marinade.

What is the fiesta centrepiece known as lechon?

It is the centrepiece of fiesta tables, served with a sauce made from the pig's liver.

Kare-kare is an oxtail stew cooked in which kind of sauce?

Peanut sauce takes real work, from toasting and grinding rice and peanuts to tenderising oxtail, so kare-kare is mostly saved for fiestas and holidays.

Sinigang is traditionally soured with which fruit?

Guava or miso are used in some seafood versions; it rivals adobo as the national dish.

What does the word pancit refer to?

Noodles of many kinds count as pancit, and Filipinos serve them at birthdays because long noodles are believed to symbolise a long life.

Fresh lumpia, or lumpiang sariwa, derives from which Chinese dish?

It is served with a sweet peanut and garlic sauce.

Dinuguan is a savoury stew made from what?

Pig's blood gives dinuguan its dark gravy and its nickname, 'chocolate meat', and the stew is often eaten with little rice cakes called puto.

Champorado, the sweet chocolate rice porridge, is traditionally eaten with what?

Salted dried fish is the classic partner, and the porridge descends from Mexican champurrado, with Filipino cooks swapping its corn masa for sticky rice.

Bibingka, the Filipino Christmas rice cake, is traditionally cooked with hot coals placed where?

Above and below it: coals under the clay pot and on top of it make it work like an oven, giving the cake its charred surface.

Which people built the Banaue Rice Terraces?

The Ifugao built them, and although an early archaeologist guessed they were 2,000 years old, recent digs suggest they rose around the time the Spanish pushed into northern Luzon.

The Manila galleon trade linked the Philippines with which port?

Acapulco galleons carried American crops such as maize, tomatoes and cocoa to Manila, and Mexican traders also brought the know-how behind chocolate rice porridge.

Which small, sour citrus fruit is served in halves with almost every pancit dish?

Calamansi is naturally very sour, so diners squeeze it over their food or mix its juice with soy sauce for one of the most common Filipino dipping sauces.

Before it is baked, pandesal dough is coated in what?

Breadcrumbs coat each roll, and despite a name that sounds salty, pandesal actually tastes slightly sweet.

Which nut, grown mainly in the Bicol region, is used in Filipino candies?

Pili kernels sit inside a shell so hard that Bicol shellers traditionally split it open by hand with a bolo knife.

What is kamayan?

Eating with the hands was discouraged under colonial rule, but Filipino chefs at home and abroad have revived it as a proud communal feast.

A "boodle fight" feast is served on what?

Banana leaves serve as the platter, and the military custom has soldiers of every rank eat together to build camaraderie and equality.

Filipino diners typically hold a spoon in one hand and what in the other?

A fork goes in the other hand, and because the dishes arrive all at once, diners help themselves to soup, meat and vegetables in any order.

In breakfast names like tapsilog and longsilog, "si" stands for sinangag, which is what?

Tapa, longganisa and tocino supply the tap-, long- and toci- parts.

Kapeng barako, a strong coffee variety, is grown in the mountains of which province?

Batangas coffee helped make the Philippines one of the world's top coffee exporters, until insect pests and coffee rust ruined the industry at the end of the 1800s.

Chicken inasal, grilled chicken basted with its marinade, is a famous specialty of which Visayan city?

Bacolod made chicken inasal famous, and annatto in the marinade gives the grilled chicken its orange colour.

Pulutan, the word for finger food eaten with drinks, comes from a word meaning what?

It is roughly equivalent to tapas.

Before frying, the boiled pork rinds for chicharon are first what?

Dried out rinds puff up and turn crisp once they hit the hot oil.

Sisig is made mainly from which parts of the pig?

It is boiled, grilled, then minced with onions and chillies; a Kapampangan classic.

Sisig and kare-kare are signature dishes of which regional cuisine?

It comes from Pampanga and parts of Tarlac in Central Luzon.

What cheese stars on the Noche Buena Christmas table alongside ham?

Queso de bola is a popular corporate giveaway in the season.

Puto bumbong, the purple Christmas rice cake, is steamed in what?

It is sold outside churches along with bibingka.

Okoy, the crispy Filipino fritter, is traditionally packed with which seafood?

Shrimp go in whole with their shells on, and small ones fry up so crunchy that the shells get eaten too.

Bicol express is a spicy stew of pork, chilli and what?

Bicol is the region with the hottest appetite for chilli.

Laing, the Bicol speciality, is made with the leaves of which plant?

Taro leaves carry calcium oxalate crystals that can make the mouth itch, so cooks wash them well, dry them or cook them thoroughly before making laing.

Kaldereta is often associated with which meat besides beef?

It is a tomato stew with peas, carrots, peppers, potatoes and sometimes liver.

La Paz batchoy, the Iloilo noodle soup, is topped with what?

Pork innards and crushed cracklings go in too.

Filipino-style spaghetti is often made with which sauce and topped with hot dog slices?

It is sweetened with sugar.

Kinilaw, raw seafood "cooked" only by steeping in a sour marinade, is comparable to which dish?

Peruvian ceviche is a close cousin, but kinilaw is more a method than a single dish: cooks use the same souring on meat and vegetables too.

Atchara is a side dish of pickled what?

It is served with fried dishes like tapa and daing, much like sauerkraut.

Sukang Iloko, the essential Ilocano souring agent, is made from what?

Sugarcane also gives the Ilocos its wine, basi, and a Spanish monopoly on basi sparked the Basi Revolt of 1807.

Dagupan City, home of the boneless bangus, is the capital of which fish?

Bangus is the Filipino name for milkfish.

What does the name of the Baguio snack sundot-kulangot literally mean?

The sticky rice-and-molasses sweet is served in pitogo shells with a stick.

Pastillas de leche, the famous milk candy, comes from San Miguel in which province?

Bulacan's San Miguel wraps its pastillas in elaborate paper cuts called pabalat, and in 2006 the town launched a Pastillas Festival to show them off.

Tawilis, found only in Taal Lake, is the world's only freshwater what?

The lake holds 75 species of freshwater fish, including landlocked marine species.

Besides its roast pig, Cebu is known for a preserved form of which fruit?

Cebu-style lechon is prized for its crisp skin and spiced, juicy meat.

Halo-halo is often attributed to migrants from which country in 1920s Manila?

The ancestor dish, mongo-ya, was mung beans in syrup over crushed ice.

Leche flan differs from Spanish flan by using more egg yolks and what?

It is usually steamed rather than baked.

Tuba, the traditional Filipino alcoholic drink, is made from what?

Coconut palm sap starts out sweet and ferments into tuba, which can then be distilled into the strong spirit lambanog.

Turon is a fried lumpia wrapper filled with what?

Sliced plantain is rolled up in a spring roll wrapper with sugar, which caramelises into a golden coat as the turon fries.

Taho, the warm Filipino street snack sold in the mornings, is made mainly from what?

Soft tofu with brown-sugar syrup and sago pearls makes taho, which vendors prepare before dawn and peddle door to door in the mornings.

What is balut?

A boiled fertilised duck egg, balut made Pateros famous, though the town's own ducks died out after pollution killed the river they relied on.

The Filipino street treat sorbetes is jokingly nicknamed what?

Dirty ice cream is the joke name because sorbetes is homemade and sold from street carts instead of stores, not because it is unclean.

Davao City is nicknamed the Philippine capital of which fruit?

Durian is sold at stalls in Davao's Magsaysay Park, and the fruit's pungent smell has got it banned from public transport in some places.