When it comes to international cuisine pageants, the Philippines keeps making the mistake of entering the rather safe, tried and true, Miss Adobo, as I argued in an earlier post. Miss Adobo is from everywhere on the islands and in the end maybe, nowhere. I’d argue that if the Filipinos are really serious about winning the Miss Universe of cuisine, they need to go with Miss Bicol, also known as Miss Bicol Express. The beauty of Miss Bicol Express is fiery and smooth and just a little funky. Beauty is never perfect, after all, but Miss Bicol Express is the pure and original tropical flavor. (And no offense to the meztizas, but she isn't named with a confusing Spanish misnomer for the actual Spanish speakers of the world.) Though her roots are in Bicol, she went to the big city of Manila but never forgot where she was from. By the time she came home again, she was still embraced by the locals as one of their own. She’s now loved by many in the Philippines, and soon, the world!

Bicol Express for home cooks is made of pork or chicken stewed in a sauce of coconut milk, chiles, and bagoong or shrimp paste. But Bicol Express can be made as a sauce separately from any protein. In the Bicol region, diners often order it as a side dish or sauce, like salsa to put on any dish of the meal. And in Bicol, the sauce comes in jars which you can buy at the grocery store. Bicol Express is an authentic recipe that should be tried by anyone who wants to cook Filipino food. Besides the fact that it's delicious, there are a number of reasons why:

Bicol Express’s Filipino-ness Is in its Regional Roots
The story about the dish's origins claim that Ms. Cely Kawlaw, a restaurant cook in Manila, had spent part of her youth in the Bicol region of Luzon and took her inspiration and the main ingredients for Bicol Express from that region's cuisine. She named the recipe after the train line from Manila to Legazpi City in Bicol. And though the three flavoring ingredients of Bicol Express are typical in many Bicol foods—coconut milk, spicy chiles, and bagoong—all are available and used in other dishes throughout the archipelago. In cooking a regional Filipino dish, though, cooks acknowledge a distinct characteristic of the Philippines: the nation is made from a diverse collection of many ethnic groups, languages, and cuisines. There isn't really one Filipino dish. The legend of Bicol Express's migration from its ancestral roots in Bicolano cuisine to Manila back to Bicol shows it’s ability to cross borders of cuisine within the country.

Bicol Express Is Mistake-Proof
Bicol Express is easy to make and even initial attempts that may turn out to be first-time flops will probably still be pretty delicious. I know from experience! Unlike other dishes, adobo for instance, there's not really a way to mess this up because all the ingredients are so singularly yummy.  

A Filipino Dish that Expands the American Palate
Bicol Express is sufficiently original and challenging enough to the non-Filipino palate. This ultimately is the most important reason to make it. The inclusion of bagoong is the ingredient that really makes the dish distinctive and amazing. 

Though I made Bicol Express first without shrimp paste (because Joseph is allergic to shellfish), I realized on our food trip to Legazpi City that it's an important component and shouldn’t be left out. Bagoong—or a substitute that gets at the sea brine flavor and texture of fermented shrimp—is a necessity.

If you are scared of the idea (or smell!) of fermented shrimp paste, Bicol Express will probably change your mind.  The Spanish colonists had an outsider’s prejudice against the stuff, but had they tried it in Bicol Express, things might have just turned out differently for the locals. Ambeth Ocampo, the popular Filipino historian relates a sixteenth century Spanish lieutenant-governor's negative comments on bagoong.

The Spaniard Antonio de Morga wrote of the early Filipino’s cuisine: "Their daily fare is composed of: rice crushed in wooden pillars and when cooked is called morisqueta (this is a staple throughout the land); cooked fish which they have in abundance; pork, venison, mountain buffalos which they call carabaos, beef and fish which they know is best when it has started to rot and stink." 

Ocampo goes on to note that 280 years later, Jose Rizal (who would later write revolution-inspiring novels and be killed by the Spanish, turning him into a martyred national hero) read of Morga’s words in the British Museum and responded:  “This is another preoccupation of the Spaniards who, like any other nation, treat food to which they are not accustomed or is unknown to them, with disgust…The fish that Morga mentions, that cannot be good until it begins to rot, all on the contrary, is bagoong and those who have eaten it and tasted it know that it neither is or should be rotten.”

In other words, eating bagoong—the bacon of the Philippines!—is an act against cross-cultural prejudice. Eating bagoong shows anti-colonial solidarity to the Filipino people. In Bicol Express, the triumvirate of flavors--coconut milk, chiles, and bagoong--do more to challenge and develop America’s taste buds than a bit of vinegar and soy sauce adobo. 

Here's a tasty recipe from Vanjo and Dey Merano of Pansalong Pinoy for Bicol Express. The food bloggers also include more explanation of the history or legend surrounding the creation of Bicol Express.

Notes about Ingredients and Substitutions for the Recipe
Hossannah Asuncion, previously of Brooklyn, New York, reports that many Asian grocery stores in the U.S. sell bagoong, but they often lack a wide selection. My internet searches show that most often only the fine- ground shrimp paste versions, such as the Lee Kum Kee brand from Hong Kong, are available. Ideally Bicol Express calls for a bagoong alamang in which the the shrimp or krill isn't ground up, but is more chunky and still textured. Joseph says his mother typically uses the Kamayan brand, which may be only available in Fil-Am grocery stores. If you can't find chunky bagoong or need to make a shellfish-free version, you are in luck.

In spite of my singing the praises of bagoong, I cook in a house of the shellfish allergic. Sadly, Joseph, on a trip to Legazpi City, couldn't even sample the local Bicol Express. Poor Joseph! Lucky for him I did, and I came home right away and concocted a viable alternative to the shrimp paste ingredient. I created a bagoong-free Bicol Express that still has the creamy sweet coconut milk, layers of fiery chili heat, and the bagoong's brine and flakey sea-shrimp texture. For the quarter to half cup of bagoong that most recipes call for, I substitute the equivalent amount of cooked and crumbled fish and a few tablespoons of pungent, salty fish sauce. Any flakey white fish will work from tilapia to sea bass. I used marlin here in the Philippines as it was a fish we often grilled. I just saved some left-overs for the future Bicol Express.

Chefs should also note that not all Bicol Express recipes call for ginger and I usually only use about half of what the Merano's recipe calls for. About the pork, Filipinos love their pork belly, which of course is one of the fattiest parts of the pig. I usually use leaner thin strips of pork shoulder steak or even loin chops. Be sure to adjust cooking times accordingly--the tougher shoulder can be stewed longer in the coconut milk than the tender loin cuts. 

About the heat, a crucial element of Bicol Express, I'd suggest using two different kinds of chili peppers to add depth to the spicy hotness. Here in the Philippines we have long green medium-hot finger chiles, sili mahaba, and the smaller, but much much more fiery wild chiles, siling labuyo. I use three or four of the finger chiles and one or two of the small but powerful wild chiles. Adjust according to your taste, of course. 

Finally, as I mentioned in my post on adobo, most meaty Filipino main dishes can withstand the addition of vegetables such as green beans, sweet peppers, and carrots. Bicol Express is no different. 

Once you've tried Bicol Express, I hope you'll agree that it's a Filipino winner. In an international cuisine competition, its sure to be crowned Miss Universe--finally, FINALLY! beating out Colombia's Miss Bandeja Paisa.

Though I haven't written about the legacy of colonialism in Southeast Asia, it is an inescapable issue throughout most of the region. With the exception of Thailand, not a single country in Southeast Asia escaped European or American colonial control in the past 500 years. In early May, we spent a week in Hong Kong. Because Hong Kong got rid of its British colonizers only eight years ago and because unlike other place, Hong Kong did not assume complete autonomy, rather it went back to being a part of the Chinese mainland, the post-colonial narrative is bound to be different than any other Asian country.

Hong Kong is made up of many islands and a peninsula containing Kowloon and the New Territories--all off the southeast edge of mainland China. It is a thoroughly modern and global city, a center of trade and finance for the entire region. Hong Kong city is located on the north shore of Hong Kong island and because there are steep mountains in the middle of the island, there is little land for building. Thus, the city is one of the most vertical in the world. Residential towers--cement and glass buildings, most very plain, bordering on ugly--occupy the land abutting the hills while the commercial buildings--sometimes architecturally interesting--tend to be closer to the water. 

In the past sixty years, because of the growth upward, there isn't a lot of traditional Chinese or even 19th century colonial British buildings left. The Man Mo Temple, built in 1848 is one of the oldest temples in Hong Kong.  It's located on Hollywood Road in the neighborhood of Sheung Wan. (The names of neighborhoods, streets, and even buildings tell you a lot about Hong Kong. The next major thoroughfare down from Hollywood Road is Queens Road--both distinctly colonial English names, of course.)

Inside the temple, the devoted burn incense coils hanging from the ceiling. The temple is named for and houses statues of the two primary gods worshiped there: Man Tai or Man Cheong, the god of literature (dressed in green in the picture below), and Mo Tai or Kwan Tai, the god of war or martial valor (dressed in red). 

Though the neighborhood of Sheung Wan is known for its concentration of stores selling products for traditional Chinese food and medicinal tonics, dried goods from roots to fish to lizards, I confess, working in Chinatown in New York City, the scene didn't really capture my attention. Thus I have no pictures. Ho hum. I see this everyday in New York City. 

The path from small southern Qing dynasty port town to modern global post-colonial British was long and winding. In the Hong Kong Museum of History, the exhibits focusing on the colonial era begin with the following placard:

The British arrived to China in the nineteenth century. They sought silk, porcelain, and tea in China and to keep trade balanced they sold the Chinese opium procured from their colony in India. When the Chinese cut off British imports of opium (in a move reminiscent of Indonesia's recent executions of seven foreigners and one Indonesian accused of drug crimes), the Brits fought back by invading Hong Kong. In 1842, the Treaty of Nanking was signed handing over control of Hong Kong to the United Kingdom.

Subsequent treaties with China later in the ninteenth century leased the Kowloon peninsula and the New Territories from China until 1997.  Fast forward a few decades and in 1985, the Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom and Zhao Ziyang of the People's Republic of China agreed to the terms of the handover of Hong Kong back to the People's Republic of China. 

On the July 1, 1997, the People's Republic of China assumed control of Hong Kong under the Hong Kong Basic Law, also referred to as "one nation, two systems." In effect, capitalism remains intact in Hong Kong and a number of freedoms and rights are also protected for Hong Kong residents under the Basic Law. 

Though Hong Kong citizens elect its own Chief Executive and a representative to the Chinese National People's Congress, the central government in Beijing must approve of the candidates. Last summer pro-democracy protesters made the news around the world by demanding full suffrage for Hong Kong voters in their choice of candidates. The legacy of the British colonial system mix with the current tenuous situation with the People's Republic of China create a complex political and economic reality for Hong Kong's 7.2 million residents.

Of course, as a tourist I didn't witness much of this complex reality. But being in Hong Kong as an American who had been in the Philippines for three months, I found myself taking advantage of the Western consumer comforts that I either had little access to in Dumaguete or simply denied myself because they weren't part of the Filipino experience. Though I resisted the Starbucks coffee in the lobby of our Hong Kong hotel--it was well over $3 for a tall!--I enjoyed a really good burger and fries at a British-style pub. 

Restaurants and cafes in the Sheung Wan and Central neighborhoods of Hong Kong were filled in the middle of the afternoon with Europeans and Americans of leisure--and they weren't all tourists on holiday. They were some of the many westerners on their down time from working in the still-thriving business community of Hong Kong. A Wall Street Journal blog detailed the rise of such establishments in a 2012 article called  "Where Hong Kong's Hipsters Hang Out."  Though, as one commenter to the blog noted, these people aren't hipsters, they're "pretentious types / dumb bankers." 

The more I looked, the more Sheung Wan reminded me of the gentrification of the Lower East Side that's creeping into Chinatown. For example, this picture was not taken in Hong Kong, but it could have been.  What once was a Chinese print shop is now a hipster coffee joint. 

Adobo is considered the Philippine national dish, which basically means that in a country of 7000-plus islands, three geographic regions, 186 local languages, and many ethnic groups, adobo is the one dish most commonly found in kitchens throughout the country. Essentially adobo-style cooking involves braising, usually chicken or pork, though fish, squid, and vegetables work too, in a vinegar, garlic and black peppercorn sauce. Though Filipinos like to claim that their version of adobo (or more precisely, their mother's or lola's adobo) is the best, they concede that there are as many variations on the basic vinegar sauce as there are cooks in the country. Home cooks and restaurant chefs alike use any or all of the following seasonings depending upon regional and familial tastes: soy sauce, fish sauce, ginger, coconut milk, sugar (sometimes refined, sometimes brown sugar), chili pepper, and bay leaf. I read one blog commenter who said her family always uses Sprite, and a friend recently mentioned that he's heard of Coke as an adobo ingredient.  

Consider this: if you've eaten any Mexican, Chinese, or Indian cuisine in the past week, your next dish may be Filipino food. Though the Philippines was a colony of the US for almost 50 years at the beginning of the 20th century, and Filipinos are currently the fourth largest immigrant group coming to the US--after Mexicans, Chinese, and Indians--Filipino cuisine is just now spreading in the US beyond the Fil-Am community and their close admirers : ) Mainstream food media, including TV cooking shows, magazines, newspaper columns, and online media are presenting more and more Filipino recipes to a wider American audience. It's no surprise, then, that adobo is being cast as the quintessential Filipino dish, the one to make.

Back in 2002, Mark Bittman included a chicken adobo recipe in his NY Times column. While the Food Network lists only nine Filipino-identified recipes on their website, of these adobo is by far the most popular. (Sadly, Emeril is the only programed chef who has featured a Filipino-identified recipe: Filipino-Style Wrapped and Deep Fried Bananas. What's up with that, Food Network?) America's Test Kitchen, the popular PBS food show and magazine, featured chicken adobo and food writer Sam Sifton took on the adobo challenge once again for New York Times readers in 2011. 

As someone who has traveled for almost four months in the Philippines, eaten countless versions of adobo--from the excellent to the bland to the awful--and tried to make the dish myself--with results from the awful to acceptable--I'd like to suggest that Americans put a big hold on the push for adobo as the Filipino dish that white suburbanites in Tempe should make with three-fourths of a cup of soy sauce and a half a cup of vinegar because Mark Bittman said so. 

At this point in culinary history, we can avoid a major adobo misstep if we act more carefully (see also: chop suey as "Chinese food;" hamburger broth spaghetti sauce as "Italian food;" and Old El Paso taco shells as "Mexican food.") Honestly, do we want 25 years of boring adobo in American malls food courts because white-bread Chris Kimball of ATK couldn't figure out the vinegar challenge of adobo and as a result said, "Let's just add coconut milk!"?

Pinoys and their allies need to stop the PR blitz that says adobo is just a humble and simple-to-make dish of the people. If you've really eaten a lot of adobo, and I mean other than your mother's, adobo made by other Filipinos even, you will realize that good adobo is actually very hard to find, much less make. Good adobo is a delicate balance between 1) the vinegar, faintly sour with bright notes that highlight 2) the protein or vegetable getting braised, and 3) the other seasoning or flavors of the dish (if there are any, such as soy sauce, coconut milk, etc.). The extra ingredients should never dominate the first two.

In my experience of eating adobo here in the Philippines, too often the vinegar is lost because the sauce has been cooked with too much heat or for too long. Or it's just watered down. What's left is a boring, uninspired adobo. Worse, and I've had this a number of times, the vinegar takes over and it's too pungent. It overpowers everything in the dish. This was the case of a chicken adobo I had at a fast-food joint in Manila called The Adobo Connection. The sauce was clumpy and well, fumey. Finally, if a cook adds too much ginger or sugar or soy sauce (Mark Bittman!), the vinegar and natural flavors of the food are lost. Good adobo strikes a delicate balance.

Last week, I tasted what a considered a really note-worthy adobo in a restaurant at a resort on Siquijor Island and I wanted the recipe. I sweet-talked the cook Janice for three days, and once the boss-boss, a Brit married to her sister, was out of ear shot, here's what she gave me:

I know. Not much help really. I understand that Janice has her art and it can't be put into the confines of measured recipe. I get it. But it also reveals that Janice learned to make adobo by doing it repeatedly, adjusting ingredients by trial and error over the years. She adds ingredients without measuring and knows the delicate melding of acidic, savory and sweet flavors that she wants. Both the Times and ATK acknowledge that the balance of the vinegar and salty soy sauce is a challenge in adobo, but in both cases, they sort of cop out and throw in some coconut milk to temper the pungency of the acid problem. (Okay, admittedly Sam Sifton of the Times consulted Romy Dorotan of Brooklyn's Purple Yam who legitimately grew up in a region where coconut milk is a prominent ingredient in many dishes, including adobo. While it's nice Sifton's promoting Purple Yam, trust me, if you're cooking for a Filipina who grew up on non-coconut milk adobo and you tell her that yours has it, get ready for the eye-rolls and guffaws. Though Sifton explains Dorotan's regional take in the fine print, the food journalist should have named the dish more prominently--in the lede?--as a Bicol regional specialty, not simplifying the dish as broadly Filipino. Also, and maybe I'm harping too much, but if Sifton wanted a regional specialty from Dorotan, he should have gotten his recipe for Bicol Express!)

In order to save adobo from a horrible future as a fledgling newcomer to American cuisine, here are some suggestions:

1) Let's all acknowledge that good adobo is difficult. It takes home cooks generations of family guidance and for rookies it may take repeated practice. If authentic Filipino food is what you're after--and you're not Pinoy or have never actually eaten good adobo--maybe you should start with other dishes. Contrary to mainstream media's narrow offerings, there are many native Filipino or Fil-Am food bloggers writing about the diverse cuisines of the islands. With careful research, you can create dishes that allow for plenty of trial and error while still making yummy food. (Stay tuned--I'll share one recipe in a future post.)

2) Never make an adobo recipe that calls for more soy sauce than vinegar. Vinegar is the the important seasoning element and while it shouldn't over-power the dish, you should be able to taste it. There are regions that don't use any soy sauce at all, so keep this in mind. Use the soy sparingly. 

3) Unless you're making Bicol adobo, be cautious of recipes that call for coconut milk. It is often promoted in recipes by the unknowing (uhum, white folk) who get scared by vinegar and other seasonings.

4) If you are up for the adobo challenge, here is a solid adobo recipe called Classic Chicken Adobo. And after my third attempt at adobo (the two previous attempts were lame), this one got my approval and more importantly, the approval of my Pinoy husband. The recipe has very basic ingredients and it originated from a legit Fil-Am food blogger (Burnt Lumpia) and cook book author Marvin Gapultos. It was posted with permission on the blog Serious Eats, though it first appeared in Gapultos cookbook, The Adobo Road. 

I should add as a note to my own preparation of Classic Chicken Adobo: I took the chicken out of the braise after less than 30 minutes (Filipino chickens are smaller than American birds.) I added red chili flakes and some chopped fresh chili peppers. I also threw in vegetables (whatever I had in the fridge: onions, pumpkin, and green beans) to the sauce as I reduced it in the final 8 minutes. Though Pinoys traditionally don't do this, almost all recipes of pork or chicken in a sauce can handle vegetables added in. Meanwhile, in the final step, instead of broiling or roasting the chicken in the oven, I crisped the skin of the chicken thighs in a wok before re-saucing them and serving. Sarap!, as the locals say, Delicious!

I'm not sure if it's because I grew up in a place where one's livelihood depended entirely upon the earth, but I've always found it interesting, even necessary, to know what was going on beneath my feet. What is the earth, the stuff where I'm standing, made of and what forces over the long history of the Earth shaped it?

In the weeks ending March and beginning April, I had the opportunity to explore the geology of the Philippines. I learned that most of the over 7000 islands of the Philippines were created through tectonic collisions and geological pressures that are still working themselves out. With the exception of the westernmost island of Palawan and its neighbors, the Philippine islands are made of what was once seabed, marine limestone and coral pushed to the surface, and most importantly, fertile volcanic lava and ash. These islands make up the Philippine Mobile Belt. 

Ten million years ago during the Miocene era, pressures between the Eurasian Plate and Philippine Sea plates (and many, many plates within) resulted in volcanic activity which aided the formation of fertile islands, a process which continues today with 21 active volcanoes--five of which are on the most active and closely monitored list.  Along with Indonesia and Japan, the volcanoes of the the Philippines make the Pacific Ring of Fire--one of the most active volcanic and seismic regions in the world.  In early April we visited the two most active volcanoes in the Philippines: Mayon and Taal. 

Before Easter, Joseph and I were in Legazpi City in the Bicol region of southern Luzon, home of Mount Mayon. This majestic wonder looms large in the Albay province and its nearly perfect cone shape has made it world-famous. Mayon is stratovolcanic, which means when it erupts it spews both lava and gases mixed with volcanic fragments, crystals, ash, pumice, and glass shards. Its most recent major eruption was in 2006, and while we didn't see any lava flow while we were there, gasses were coming out of the top. Of course, the top was hard to spot as it has a significant impact on the weather patterns and is often shrouded with clouds. "He's being shy," the locals like to say.

The following week, three teacher friends were visiting for their spring break and we took a day trip outside of Manila to Taal Valcano. Though Taal is one of the lowest volcanos in the Philippines--only 300 meters above sea level, it's currently the second most active. It is also unique in that it is surrounded by a high ridge or caldera. The earth around the volcano's core has sunk. The volcano crater in the center, also has a lake with an island: an island in a lake on an island that sits in a bigger lake which is on the island of Luzon.

Volcanoes helped create the islands of the Philippines. Though they can be destructive to human life, the mineral-rich nutrients create fertile soil. As you can see from the photos of Mayon, in Spanish colonial times the volcanic rocks were used in buildings and human structures. Here in the Visayan island of Negros, Canlaon is a closely monitored active volcano to the north of us. But the the legacy of even inactive volcanoes is apparent. The tallest mountain to the west of Dumaguete is Talinis, part of the Cuernos de Negros, volcanic mountains that the Philippine Institute of Volcanology classify as "potentially active." The underground geothermal activity currently provides our electrical power.