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The invisible cuisine: why Filipino food has gone unnoticed
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Content
THE INVISIBLE CUISINE:
WHY FILIPINO FOOD HAS GONE UNNOTICED
by
Lexie Barker
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM)
May 2014
Table of Contents
The Invisible Cuisine: Why Filipino Food Has Gone Unnoticed 3
References 22
2
One uneventful Wednesday night I found myself watching re-runs of Bizarre Foods on
the Travel Channel. The show’s host, Andrew Zimmern, whose bald head never fails to capture
my attention, was making his way through the crowded aisles of Manila’s Central Market.
He eyed one vendor and the camera zoomed in on the woman’s shrimp cakes. Looking at
the wheat-colored patties, I could make out tiny fish exoskeletons and a couple pairs of beady
eyes. Zimmern dipped the fritter in fish sauce and lime juice and, after a satisfying crunch,
described the experience of eating it to his viewers: “It’s like cornflakes with little eyes.”
1
As he continued to eat his way around the Philippines, enjoying crickets cooked adobo-
style in Pampanga and deep fried banana skewers in Palawan, I wondered why I had never heard
of Filipino food before. I’m a pretty curious eater and have dined in a whole slew of east and
southeast Asian restaurants, but couldn’t recall a single Filipino eatery.
It’s quite the cultural paradox given the size of the Filipino population in the United
States. The 2010 Census revealed that 3.4 million Filipino immigrants and Filipino-Americans
live in the U.S.
2
Their numbers continue to grow steadily: Filipinos are now the fourth largest
immigrant group in the U.S.
3
3
1
“Philippines,” Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, Travel Channel (Chevy Chase, MD: February 26, 2007).
2
U.S. Census Bureau, “Race Reporting for the Asian Population by Selected Categories: 2010,” 2010 Census
Summary File 1, http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?
pid=DEC_10_SF1_QTP8&prodType=table.
3
Sierra Stoney and Jeanne Batalova, “Filipino Immigrant in the United States,” Migration Policy Institute, June 5,
2013, accessed June 22, 2014, http://migrationpolicy.org/article/filipino-immigrants-united-states.
So why isn’t Filipino food a bigger deal?
Some internet research for news about Filipino food uncovered an article from NBC’s
The Today Show website featuring the Bizarre Foods host Zimmern. He talked about the fusion
of cuisines present in Filipino food, noting Chinese and Spanish influences. Zimmern speculated
that the marrying of techniques, ingredients, and recipes had produced a cuisine with unrealized
potential for immense popularity, boldly predicting: “two years from now [2012], Filipino food
will be...the next big thing.”
4
Two years have come and gone and this food had yet to take the spotlight on America’s
culinary stage. If it was so good, how had it flown under the radar for so long?
I met Michelle Vargas, an employee of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
who emigrated from the Philippines when she was 21, through a mutual friend. Vargas, now 37,
agreed to take me out for my first taste of Filipino food and share her ideas about why it remains
on the fringes of mainstream cuisine.
We went to Max’s of Manila, a traditional Filipino restaurant, in Glendale. It was a short
drive from Eagle Rock where Vargas and many other Filipinos, live. More than half a million
4
4
Veronica Meewes, “Andrew Zimmern: Filipino food is the ‘next big thing,’” The Today Show, June 12, 2012,
accessed September 9, 2013, http://www.today.com/food/andrew-zimmern-filipino-food-next-big-thing-824655.
Filipinos call the Greater Los Angeles Area home, congregating in Long Beach, Artesia, Cerritos,
West Covina, and other enclaves that dot Los Angeles and Orange Counties.
5
Banana ketchup and Worcestershire Sauce sat in the condiment basket between us. The
chatter of tonight’s diners, mostly big families and the occasional older couple, reached a
crescendo as the dinner rush hit full steam.
The original Max’s opened in the Philippines after World War II. Blown-up images of the
restaurant’s early days, when patrons included American troops stationed in Quezon City,
decorate the back wall. A menu from those early days leads with fried chicken dinners. A whole
order with rolls and butter cost only five Philippine pesos in 1945. Fried chicken is still one of
the most popular items today. As an homage to its bread and butter, Max’s nicknamed itself “The
House That Fried Chicken Built.”
In addition to the house special fried chicken, Vargas and I ordered pork adobo, two sides
of garlic fried rice, and laing, a vegetable side of taro leaves stewed in coconut milk. The chicken
didn’t have the flour coating and excessive crunch of other versions I’ve tasted. It was good,
though a little bland. As I pulled pieces of meat from the carcass, Vargas instructed me to dip
them into a banana ketchup - Worcestershire mixture.
5
5
U.S. Census Bureau, “Asian alone or in combination with one or more other races, and with one or more Asian
categories for selected groups Universe: Total Asian categories tallied and people with no specific Asian category
reported,” 2010 Census Summary File 1, http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/
productview.xhtml?pid=DEC_10_SF1_PCT7&prodType=table.
Fried chicken may be the dish to order at Max’s, but Vargas explained adobo is more
representative of Filipino cuisine. It’s not a dish per se, but a cooking method where pork,
chicken, shrimp, or vegetables stews in a broth of vinegar, garlic, bay leaves, and peppercorns.
Each region of the Philippines, each household even, has its own variation. The prolonged
exposure to heat compounded by the vinegar’s acidity ensures tender meat that falls off the bone.
Tonight’s pork adobo does just that and the garlic fried rice is a perfect complement. Pork and
rice are staples of the Philippine diet; Filipino cuisine has been dubbed “pork on pork” and it’s
not unusual to have rice with every meal.
I was amazed watching Vargas put away the food. She is all of 90 pounds, but peeled
piece after piece of chicken off the bone, deftly dipping it in a little of this and a little of that,
chewing, swallowing, and all the while engaging me in an animated discussion about her native
cuisine.
We spilt buko pandan, a smorgasbord of a dessert. It was mix of gelatin buko pandan-
flavored cubes tossed with jellied pandan, coconut strips, doused in cream and evaporated milk.
Buko is young coconut, pandan a grassy plant widely used in Southeast Asian cuisines. It was
reminiscent of melted ice cream, though even more decadent.
I told Vargas about Andrew Zimmern’s unrealized prediction about Filipino food and
wondered why, given the delightful meal we were enjoying, it was not a choice “ethnic” cuisine
in the same way that Thai, Vietnamese and Italian food were. There are only 240,000 Thai
6
immigrants and Thai-Americans living in the U.S., yet Thai eateries abound in cities from Los
Angeles to New York City and everywhere in between.
6
Who hasn’t had a craving for pad thai?
“Filipino food is too fatty to break into the mainstream,” explained Vargas. It was a
strange thing to hear from someone who remained quite slim despite an unmistakable appetite
for such food.
It’s true the menu at Max’s was full of fried selections - chicken, pork belly, spring rolls -
but there were also a number of lighter soups and vegetable dishes. What cuisine doesn’t have
high-calorie specialties? Cheese is a pillar of French cuisine after all. Charles de Gaulle, first
president of the Fifth Republic, once quipped: “How can you govern a country which has 246
varieties of cheese?”
What interested me most looking at Max’s menu were the Chinese-inspired dishes,
Spanish names for some of the items, and then the attention given to fried chicken, a dish I
considered as American as apple pie. It was an unlikely combination. To understand why Filipino
food has so many other culinary influences, I decided to seek out someone who had a very deep
understanding of the cuisine.
7
6
U.S. Census Bureau. “Race Reporting for the Asian Population.”
Food blogger Jun Belen lives atop an Oakland hillside stacked with houses. When I
arrived on a foggy San Francisco morning, he was working in the garden, an impressive home
project that included rows of vegetables, fledgling fruit trees, and a chicken coop.
The chemical engineer, who considers his highly acclaimed Jun-blog: stories from my
Filipino kitchen a mere hobby, insists on sourcing ingredients from his backyard whenever
possible. The blog’s encyclopedic approach to Filipino food - indeed there is an alphabet of
Filipino ingredients and recipes from achuete (annatto) to zamboanga (a region in the southern
Philippines with its own version of shrimp paste) - offers a comprehensive overview, delving into
the foreign influences and regional differences within Belen’s native cuisine.
Once settled inside on his white sofa, he began sharing his insights on Filipino food’s
relative obscurity. When Belen launched Jun-blog in 2009 he wanted to create a platform for his
food photography. Perhaps because he maintains such an attention to aesthetics, Belen puts the
blame for Filipino food’s failure to engage non-Filipinos on presentation.
“It doesn’t look pretty. It’s a stew. It’s a beef stew that’s brown, there’s fat and oil. That
makes it tasty, but [Filipino restauranteurs] can present it in a way that would make it appealing
to [them].”
It was true. The pork adobo at Max’s was a sepia-hued stew. Kare-kare, the one-pot meal
I tried on a return trip to the restaurant, was bright orange. What was a fitting shade for butternut
8
squash bisque belied the dish’s key ingredients - oxtail and peanuts. Dinuguan, or pork blood
stew, is also traditional fare for Filipinos. It looks like chunky chocolate pudding, not at all
appetizing really. Without a knowledge of the recipes behind these dishes, you wouldn’t know
what was in them, and there is little in the way of color or texture to entice you to try them.
Belen photographs the individual ingredients used in each recipe. His blog gives readers a
visual progression from parts to finished product, revealing the freshness of his ingredients in the
process. The final frame captures an artfully arranged display served up on Belen’s blue-rimmed
white china.
His thoughtful presentation couldn’t be more different then what passes for presentation
at most places serving adobo. These no-frills joints promise a lot of food for a little money. Belen
noted the traditional mom-and-pop restaurants enjoy a steady clientele of mostly older Filipino
immigrants; they don’t reach very far - if at all - beyond the Filipino community.
“That’s [what] I cringe about whenever I go to restaurants like that. I’m like these folks
don’t put an effort. Like put your food in a real plate, and not in a styrofoam plate,” he said.
“When you go...there is a plastic vase with a silk flower on the tables. I’m like why can’t you
even cut fresh flowers. That’s so cheap. They don’t do the extra effort.”
While newer and more hip eateries featuring Filipino food surfaced in San Francisco in
the early 2000s, their tenures were short-lived. One of them, Poleng Lounge, impressed The
9
Chronicle’s restaurant critic Michael Bauer with, among other things, its adobo wing and
eggplant adobo appetizers.
7
Bauer awarded the part-restaurant, part-nightclub three stars and
Poleng enjoyed lines around the block until the Great Recession forced its doors shut in early
2010.
8
The fleeting success of Poleng and several other Filipino eateries failed to ignite a lasting
interest in Filipino food.
Maybe the recession wasn’t the only reason. Belen believes it was the fusion of cuisines
Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern thought would be Filipino food’s very ticket into the
mainstream that prevented it from doing so. “Filipino food is not very distinct,” he said. “You see
different pieces in our dish from all these different cuisines so it’s hard to pinpoint, ‘oh that is
Filipino.’”
It is difficult because the island nation’s location in the South Pacific made it an early
destination for explorers and merchants from mainland Asia and later a colonial outpost for
Western powers. Looking at the menu in a Filipino restaurant, it’s easy to see the influence of
Chinese traders, Malay neighbors, Spanish colonizers, and American occupiers.
The Chinese were the first to arrive, sailing across the South China Sea to the
Philippines and back as early as the 7th century. The indigenous people learned the art of stir
10
7
Michael Bauer, “Poleng Lounge pulls off great food in a nightclub atmosphere,” SF Gate, September 24, 2006,
accessed January 21, 2014, http://www.sfgate.com/restaurants/diningout/article/Poleng-Lounge-pulls-off-great-food-
in-a-nightclub-2300560.php#page-1.
8
Michael Bauer, “Poleng Lounge.”
frying from these traders and incorporated their noodles into a slew of dishes reminiscent of lo
mein they called pancit. Their spring rolls inspired lumpia, a popular fried appetizer.
Mindanao, the southern-most region of the island nation, is just 400 miles north of
Malaysia; roughly the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Curries, copious
amounts of spices, and the practice of using coconut milk as a cooking liquid characterize Malay
cuisine. Natives in Mindanao absorbed these influences, the laing I shared with Michelle Vargas
at Max’s was a Malay-inspired dish.
When the Spanish colonized the islands in the 16th century - naming them, and in turn its
people, for King Philip II of Spain - they affected change in many areas of the natives’ lives,
especially where food was concerned.
9
They brought with them olive oil and chocolate, sweet
potatoes, and tomatoes from their New World colonies. They introduced the freshly-minted
“Filipinos” to elaborate preparations of pork, like the spit-roasted suckling pig - lechón - which
still remains the centerpiece of many Filipino fiestas. Like lechón, adobo, and the most-liked
Jun-blog recipe, pan de sal, the infusion of Spanish and Mexican cuisines into Filipino fare is
evident in the names of many dishes.
“It’s a fusion of different things,” Belen continued. “A perfect example of what Filipino
food is about...is arroz caldo. It’s Chinese, but it has a Spanish name.”
11
9
Note: After 300 years of colonial rule, the Philippines emerged as the only Catholic country in Asia.
Arroz caldo is a gruel, similar to the porridges served at Dim Sum restaurants, and its
name means “hot rice” in Spanish. Belen was quick to note, however, that Filipinos have adapted
ingredients from the Chinese version and added new ones to create a hybrid that’s uniquely
Filipino. His recipe for Chicken Arroz Caldo includes a dash of saffron (a Spanish influence) and
a squeeze of calamansi (a native citrus fruit), and a sprinkling of fried garlic on top, adding
layers to the dish that are absent in Chinese renditions.
10
The final foreign imprint on Filipino cuisine came from the Americans. Three hundred
years of colonial rule ended with Spanish defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898. The
empire in decline ceded the islands to the U.S. for a paltry $20 million. The Americans
overhauled the education system, making English the national language, and overnight found
itself with a huge new market for U.S. manufactured goods. Spam and condensed milk are still
staples in most Filipino kitchens.
The American period lasted half a century and the effects of U.S. occupation linger today.
“There’s this kind of colonial mentality that everything that’s made in the States is good,” Belen
said. “This concept of state-side, that it’s made in the States, it’s very prevalent when you go
back to the Philippines. They want to go to American chain restaurants, they want American-
made food and American-made products...And I think that part of it is carried over when
Filipinos immigrate here in the States.When they celebrate birthdays, they want a big American
steak because that’s considered a luxury. So they have this kind of mentality, ‘oh they’re not
12
10
Jun Belen, “How to Make Chicken Arroz Caldo,” Jun-blog, November 4, 2010, accessed January 21, 2014, http://
blog.junbelen.com/2010/11/04/how-to-make-chicken-arroz-caldo/.
proud of their food, they would rather have American food, or Spanish food or anything else
besides Filipino [food].’”
The flip side of wanting American products is not wanting Filipino products, or at least
seeing them as inferior. Belen asked if I knew Amy Besa, the owner of a successful Filipino
restaurant in New York City, one of the few catering to non-Filipinos, and an outspoken
commentator on the effect of American occupation on Filipinos’ perception of their own cuisine.
Could this historical framework explain Filipino food’s absence from mainstream
cuisine? I needed to get in touch with Besa.
“I hate you,” Amy Besa said on the other end of the telephone before laughing with a
very pronounced “Ha - Ha - Ha.”
She was jealous hearing that I was in sunny Southern California while she struggled
through yet another miserable day in New York City. The winter had been awful and she
lamented that her husband needed to shovel twice after each snowfall, once outside their home
and again outside the couple’s Ditmas Park restaurant. Besa and Chef Dorotan, both in their
mid-60s, own Purple Yam, a Filipino restaurant with neighborhood appeal and a place on
Michelin Guide’s “Bib Gourmand” list for quality dining at lower fares.
11
13
11
Richard Vines, “Michelin Picks 138 New York Restaurants Offering Value,” Bloomberg, September 25, 2013,
accessed June 9, 2014, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-25/michelin-picks-138-new-york-restaurants-
offering-value.html.
The couple must work well together, for their earlier collaborations enjoyed similar
success. First there was Cendrillon, awarded one star in The New York Times by the infamous
restaurant critic Ruth Riechl shortly after opening in 1995.
12
Unlike hotel reviews where one star
is a good indication of where not to say, when it comes to restaurants even a single star is much
desired since most eateries don’t receive any stars at all. Memories of Philippine Kitchens, the
beautiful cookbook I flipped through with Jun Belen, came a decade later. It won the
International Association of Culinary Professionals (ICAP) 2007 Jane Grigson Award for
scholarship in the quality of its research and writing.
13
The book teased the threads of fusion within Filipino cuisine, separating the food that
“was always ours” from the food that “was borrowed and made our own.”
14
In doing so, Besa
and Dorotan argued for the distinctiveness of their native cuisine, rather than merely a melange -
a combination - of Chinese, Malay, Spanish, and American cuisines.
In reality, though, what cuisine is not a fusion of foreign elements? Noodles come from
China, tomatoes from the New World, yet what could be more Italian than spaghetti with
marinara sauce?
14
12
Frank Bruni, “Cooking Without Concessions,” The New York Times, August 3, 2014, accessed June 9, 2014, http://
events.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/dining/reviews/03rest.html?scp=1&sq=cendrillon&st=nyt.
13
“Book,” Purple Yam, accessed June 9, 2014, http://www.purpleyamnyc.com/book/.
14
Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan, Memories of Philippine Kitchens: Stories and Recipes from Far and Near (New
York: Stewart, Tabori, and Change, 2006).
“To me food by itself is really boring,” said the cookbook author. “If you really want to
write to about the food, write about the history of whoever is doing that food. Then that dish
becomes much more interesting.”
Besa sees food as more than the sum of its parts; beyond offering nutritional value and
sensory pleasure it is a window into a community’s past and present. For her, the reason Filipino
food has remained invisible so long is due to an inferiority complex Filipinos developed living as
colonial subjects for centuries.
The Spanish and the Americans drastically changed the islands’ religious, economic,
political, cultural, and culinary landscape with their presence. Catholicism replaced tribal
worship. European concepts of commerce introduced the island’s inhabitants to money; the
Philippine peso is still the nation’s currency today. The American public school system made
English a national language alongside Tagalog; the result being two-thirds of Filipino immigrants
coming to the U.S. speak English fluently. Sculpting the Philippines in the image of Spain and
later making it an extension of the United States buried elements of what was inherently Filipino,
causing Filipinos to think their culture inferior.
As evidence, Besa mentioned the work of Alex Orquiza, a postdoctoral fellow in
American Studies at Wellesley College, whom she mentored while he finished his doctoral
dissertation. Through an in-depth analysis of magazine advertisements, cookbooks, and
15
textbooks, Orquiza’s research revealed a systematic effort on the part of the Americans to
denigrate Philippine foodstuffs in the face of so-claimed superior American products.
“The goal was really to develop markets...by saying that instead of eating the fresh fruits
in your backyard - because that is inferior - you have the wonderful opportunity to taste cherries
from Michigan.”
The result of which is that many older Filipinos lack pride in their native cuisine. They
don’t think non-Filipinos - namely white people - will like it. In fact, my interview subjects were
consistently surprised to learn I am not Filipino; to them, it was unusual for a non-Filipino to
take an interest in their food.
Even today, in the Philippines, American fast food joints and chain restaurants are
popular eateries. Besa told me when IHOP opened last year in a wealthy area of the Bonifacio
Global City in the Philippines there were lines outside the restaurant for six months. For
pancakes!
“So what I’m doing ... is I’m leading this movement to make people appreciate what is
theirs,” Besa said, and she’s been leading by example since opening Cendrillon in 1995.
Before Cendrillon there was little, if any, attempt by Filipino restaurateurs to reach a
mainstream audience. Besa and her husband chose Lower Manhattan’s up and coming SoHo
16
neighborhood, somewhat removed from the epicenter of New York’s Filipino community in
Woodside, Queens, to showcase the food from their home country.
The New York Times’ Frank Bruni was impressed: “The food at Cendrillon doesn’t taste
like the food at other upscale Asian restaurants, because...Romy Dorotan, doesn’t follow the
dictates that more cautious restaurateurs do...it's daring, different and a sure remedy for the
malady, too widespread these days, of dining déjà vu.”
15
Not everyone took to the restaurant with the same enthusiasm Bruni did. Many Filipinos
resented the enterprising couple’s efforts. Besa remembers some who would come into the
restaurant and order food they never intended to eat so they might criticize how it was prepared
or how it was presented. They left without paying, the sole purpose of their visit apparently to
cause headaches for Besa and her husband.
“Anybody trying to break out of the enclave, it was taboo. It was like ‘How dare you
think you’re better than all of us?’” Besa said. “Because we were in SoHo and we were
mainstream, oh my God, [there was] so much resentment.”
The animosity and spitefulness were symptomatic of “crab mentality” she explained. It’s
a mindset among a group of ethnically or economically alike people wherein an individual’s
desire for success is demonized by the rest. Jealousy of another’s potential prosperity leads them
17
15
Frank Bruni, “Cooking Without Concessions.”
to sabotage the outlier’s efforts; crabs in a bucket will do the same thing. When one tries to climb
out and seems on the edge of escape, the rest catch him in their claws and pull him back down.
Crab mentality is characteristic of older Filipino immigrants. “You know the young Fil-
Ams - Filipinos who grew up as American - there’s no baggage,” continued Besa.
Perhaps Besa is right. In the past few years several mainstream Filipino restaurants
opened in the Big Apple. “Top Chef” Season 5 contestant Leah Cohen opened Pig and Khao on
the Lower East Side in the fall of 2012 and former advertising executive Nicole Ponseca is the
force behind a pair of trendy Filipino eateries in the East Village, Maharlika and Jeepney.
I went to Jeepney, the self-titled “Filipino Gastropub” on First Avenue between 12
th
and
13
th
Streets,
for a meeting with Nicole Ponseca. It was a cozy space with ambient lighting
revealing a well-stocked bar and tables with green banana leaves in place of table cloths.
Dressed in all black, Ponseca, 37, was playing host to the evening’s first guests. After a
warm welcome, she took me for a tour of the restaurant. The banana leaves were there for the
weekly Kamayan Night when diners eat with their hands as Filipinos did before the Spanish
brought their cutlery and “civilized” manners to the islands. Its metal interior replicated the
exterior of a Jeepney, those colorful buses with kitschy decorations used for public transportation
in the Philippines. Jesus, a cockfight, and the first Filipina pictured in Playboy - all representative
of Filipino culture in some way - were among the images on the back walls.
18
Ponseca insisted I try Binakol na Manok, a chicken soup with green papaya and ginger. It
was served in a young coconut, topped with strips of papaya and sili leaves to hint at the
ingredients below. The waiter told me to scoop some coconut flesh from the hull with each sip.
The creaminess of the coconut was a nice contrast to the ginger’s spice and I thanked him for
such a good recommendation.
Jeepney was certainly no mom-and-pop operation like other Filipino restaurants I’d
explored. Between bites, I circled back to the purpose for my visit: why Filipino food had gone
unnoticed by non-Filipinos and did Jeepney represent a changing tide.
The gastropub’s sister restaurant is Maharlika, Ponseca’s first venture which she opened
in 2011 as a pop-up serving Filipino brunch. In the preceding 12 years, she had visited every
Filipino restaurant in the country, studying what worked, what didn’t, and why Filipino
restaurants failed to attract non-Filipino diners. Working by day in advertising, moonlighting in
various restaurant capacities by night, the California transplant was fueled by her passion to open
an upscale Filipino eatery. Ultimately the belief in her culture and its cuisine was enough to leave
her advertising career with its regular paycheck and risk everything to open a Filipino restaurant.
When Maharlika opened, Ponseca received a letter from a Filipino woman saying:
“Congratulations. Thank you for being so brave. What you are doing for our community is
19
amazing.” The woman never signed her name, but the congratulatory note exemplified how
attitudes within the Filipino community had shifted since Amy Besa opened Cendrillon.
Within two weeks of Maharlika’s debut, New York Magazine gave the pop-up a favorable
review.
16
Within days of publication, Maharlika had a three-hour wait for a table and a two-
month wait for reservations. Wait times decreased, but Maharlika and Jeepney continued
receiving recognition from food publications and rating guides. The gastropub received two stars
from The New York Times last year.
17
Ponseca radiated pride for her restaurant, her culture, and its food. “I think there’s going
to be some really great things we’ll see to make Filipino food like Italian food. [Give it] 10 years.
I think we’re here at Ground Zero.”
Jeepney is building up Filipino food’s reputation in the minds of non-Filipino diners. The
food is presented thoughtfully, showcasing fresh, colorful ingredients, and the decor invites
discussion about elements of Filipino culture, giving guests more than just food to remember.
Some nights the clientele at Jeepney is 80% non-Filipino, Ponseca reported.
20
16
Jenny Miller, “What to Eat at Maharlika, Popping Up to Serve Filipino Brunch in the East Village,” Grub Street,
January 21, 2014, accessed February 2, 2014, http://www.grubstreet.com/2011/01/
what_to_eat_at_maharlika_poppi.html.
17
Pete Wells, “Two Roads to the Philippines,” The New York Times, March 12, 2013, accessed February 2, 2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/dining/reviews/restaurant-review-jeepney-in-the-east-village-pig-and-khao-on-
the-lower-east-side.html?pagewanted=all.
The restauranteur herself, with her forays into the industry as the owner of a higher-end,
trendy Filipino restaurant, represents changing demographics in the Filipino community. Her
parents immigrated to the U.S. in the 70s to ensure their daughter would have opportunities
unavailable to her in a country where government was corrupt and social status was a matter of
birth. But an American-born Filipino also grew up without the inferiority complex that makes
native Filipinos see their culture, especially their food, as second-rate.
“My parents did the work when I was born to put me through school and told me I could
do whatever I want,” says Ponseca. “If I wanted to be a dentist, I could be the dentist and not the
dental assistant. So now I am growing up and I can be an entrepreneur here. So I can open things
like this [Maharlika and Jeepney] because I was nurtured to do whatever I wanted to do in
America.”
21
References
Bauer, Michael. “Poleng Lounge pulls off great food in a nightclub atmosphere.” SF Gate.
September 24, 2006. Accessed January 21, 2014. http://www.sfgate.com/restaurants/diningout/
article/Poleng-Lounge-pulls-off-great-food-in-a-nightclub-2300560.php#page-1.
Belen, Jun. “How to Make Chicken Arroz Caldo.” Jun-blog. November 4, 2010. Accessed
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23
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
Filipinos are one of the largest immigrant groups in the United States, yet their food remains largely invisible in mainstream American cuisine. Embarking on a personal journey from Los Angeles to New York, the author attempts to understand this cultural paradox.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Barker, Lexie
(author)
Core Title
The invisible cuisine: why Filipino food has gone unnoticed
School
Annenberg School for Communication
Degree
Master of Arts
Degree Program
Specialized Journalism
Publication Date
07/14/2014
Defense Date
07/12/2014
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
adobo,Amy Besa,Cendrillon,crab mentality,Filipino cuisine,Filipino food,Filipino immigrants,Jeepney,Jun Belen,jun-Blog,kare-kare,Maharlika,Nicole Ponseca,OAI-PMH Harvest,purple yam
Format
application/pdf
(imt)
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Cole, K. C. (
committee chair
), Kahn, Gabriel (
committee member
), Smith, Erna R. (
committee member
)
Creator Email
alexandra.barker18@gmail.com
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-436660
Unique identifier
UC11286735
Identifier
etd-BarkerLexi-2661.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-436660 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
etd-BarkerLexi-2661.pdf
Dmrecord
436660
Document Type
Thesis
Format
application/pdf (imt)
Rights
Barker, Lexie
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...
Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA
Tags
adobo
Amy Besa
Cendrillon
crab mentality
Filipino cuisine
Filipino food
Filipino immigrants
Jeepney
Jun Belen
jun-Blog
kare-kare
Maharlika
Nicole Ponseca
purple yam