Auditioning for the Mafia

One weekend in April, I attended a Filipino Heritage Session.  I don’t want to talk about the session really, but suffice it to say that I ended up pumped with patriotic juice (maybe I was homesick) that I got inspired to actually get involved and volunteer at the Filipino Community Centre in town. Naturally I wanted to find out what I’m getting myself into so I decided to invite the board members of the Filipino community for dinner. At lunch time the conversation naturally veered towards food. These after all, are the people who cook for the traditional Sunday lunches served at the Centre. They know their stuff. They have Filipino recipes imbedded in their genes. They cook without following a recipe or exact timing, they rely on experience, their memories and their senses. These people live and breathe Filipino food. I don’t know about you but they sound like a tough dinner crowd. I was doomed!

Somehow I have this fantasy that once they sampled my cooking, they will let me join the secret society of the Filipino Community Centre’s Sunday lunch cooks so I thought I better take their visit seriously.  My husband jokingly referred to the Filipino Community as the mafia hence the title. It’s not because the community is involved in criminal activity but because it is like a tightly knit self-sustaining family that looks after the welfare of its members. He meant it as a compliment.

Being a cookbook collector (read: hoarder), I’ve trained myself to cook just about any cuisine and if I were to believe the people who had a chance to try my cooking, my food is either really good or just passably edible bordering on poisonous, however they are probably too polite to tell me. These damn Canadians! No, I haven’t killed anyone from food poisoning yet and some of them actually keep coming back for more. But then again it might just be the polite Canadian thing; you know, take a second helping and not turn down a dinner invitation. 

Anyway, as Saturday, May 14th got closer and closer I was completely at a loss for ideas and I was getting really desperate. Chicken adobo? Pansit? Lumpia? Nah, I am pretty sure they eat those at least once a week. Balut? I wouldn’t touch the stuff with a ten-foot pole. Oh crap! I’m screwed!

In sheer desperation, I decided to take the shortcut and go with something deep-fried and roasted. I know taking the shortcut or pushing for something deep-fried specially pork, doesn’t really speak well of my character because Filipino home cooking is all about slow-cooking, lovingly spending hours and hours bent over the stove kindling the fire to coax every bit of flavour out of the ingredients. Yes, Filipino food is fundamentally simple but labour intensive. Because we don’t use a lot of herbs and spices, we tend to rely on the integrity of the ingredients, letting them shine and speak for themselves. Of course this can also be achieved by adding MSG. Enough said, I digress.

So I made lechon kawali that is pork crackling to the Anglophones, lechon manok or roast chicken and pinakbet, our version of the Provençal ratatouille only with shrimp paste and pork. I have never in my entire life made lechon kawali and lechon manok. I thought I was taking a shortcut, I mean seriously, how hard could it be to fry the life out of big hunks of pork until the skin is all golden and crispy and shove a freaking soy sauce soaked chicken in the oven? So I phoned my mom (5:00 a.m. in the Philippines) greeting her with, “I know you told me this already but how do you make lechon kawali and lechon manok again?” As she described the process on how to make the skin all crispy and golden brown (it’s what makes or breaks a lechon kawali), I was ready to start making the phone calls telling my guests I unexpectedly contracted Ebola virus. Anyway, I decided against it and went ahead with dinner as planned. Let me just say though that making lechon kawali was an ordeal I wouldn't want to go through again. Unless of course it's for a special occasion so if you want my mom’s lechon kawali recipe, you either have to get me drunk or bribe me; your choice. Oh by the way, lechon manok is not just chicken soaked in soy sauce, it’s so much more complex than that. Again, get me drunk or bribe me and I’ll tell you how to make it.

The thing is, I don’t really cook a lot of Filipino food at home. Besides the physical demand, admittedly I have unrealistic expectations about Filipino food. It’s the food that I grew up with; all of my fondest memories and recollections of my family and my country are steeped and simmered in its flavour. If I make it, I want it to taste just like my mom and dad made it for me. I know I’m making it sound like Filipino food is the food of the gods but I’m not delusional, of course it’s not, otherwise it will be on every street corner of the world.  My relationship with Filipino food transcends the physical need for nourishment, it is beyond emotional, it is metaphysical.


Did I pass my initiation for the Filipino Community Centre's Sunday lunch cooking mafia? I don't know, I have to find out but all I know is it was lots of fun and I enjoyed meeting all of these wonderful people who have given so much for the sake of their community.