Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #339671 in Books
• Published on: 1985-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

Don't waste your time
If you are a rookie at cooking filipino dishes or simply can't cook at all then this book isn't for you-actually this book is more complicated than the other filipino cookbooks I got. I also recommend not get getting books that have bad/neutral reviews. I have found "Philippine Recipes Made Easy" by Violeta A. Noriega and "Filipino Cuisine: Recipes from the Islands" by Gerry G. Gelle, helpful and PLUS they have excellent reviews!

Connect the dots
OK, I must have read that connect-the-dot gripe somewhere but I can't think of any other way to describe this mechanical, ledger-like presentation the author has presented his recipes. The simplistic approach has become as annoying as those pretentious hate, er, haute cuisines I see in some cook books. For example, the nilaga and the pochero is usually served with a cold dish of garlic, black pepper and mashed sweet potato but that was missing and you can't help but think the author just browsed thru the internet and with the help of a word processor just cut and pasted the recipes to meet his deadline.

Also, I find the kowtowing to American taste plain stupid. Lemon juice for the venerable sinigang? What's wrong with tamarind? Using lemon thins out the punch of the sharp taste we are after. The high water content of lemon juice renders the whole symphony of flavors to this recipe insipid. Besides, this is the information age where exotic ingredients are not as exotic as they were eight or ten years ago. Just troop to your nearest gourmet store and see what I mean (unless, of course, you live in an obscure little town down somewhere in the Arctic). And why adapt a native recipe to American taste? If American flavor is what I am after, I will just dwell on club sandwich and all its vicissitudes for all I care. Why will I waste my time with adobo or sinigang or kare-kare?

So a word of advice to the genuine-Filipino-cuisine seekers. This cookbook does not in any way represent authentic Filipino cuisine. Look somewhere else where the sinigang is punchy, the adobo tangy, and the kare-kare is compleat and spelled with a 10-karat "K."

Connect the dots
OK, I must have read that connect-the-dot gripe somewhere but I can't think of any other way to describe this mechanical, ledger-like presentation the author has presented his recipes. The simplistic approach has become as annoying as those pretentious hate, er, haute cuisines I see in some cook books. For example, the nilaga and the pochero is usually served with a cold dish of garlic, black pepper and mashed sweet potato but that was missing and you can't help but think the author just browsed thru the internet and with the help of a word processor just cut and pasted the recipes to meet his deadline. Perhaps this also explains why the book is printed on depressingly cheap paper with no photographs. If you are new to Filipino cuisine that is rather disastrous because all you get is a sorry photocopied landscape of uninspired recipes. How could you, Mister?

Also, I find the kowtowing to American taste plain stupid. Lemon juice for the venerable sinigang? What's wrong with tamarind? Using lemon thins out the punch of the sharp taste we are after. The high water content of lemon juice renders the whole symphony of flavors to this recipe insipid. Besides, this is the information age where exotic ingredients are not as exotic as they were eight or ten years ago. Just troop to your nearest gourmet store and see what I mean (unless, of course, you live in an obscure little town down somewhere in the Arctic). And why adapt a native recipe to American taste? If American flavor is what I am after, I will just dwell on club sandwich and all its vicissitudes for all I care. Why will I waste my time with adobo or sinigang or kare-kare?

Now I don't want to confuse you because others have reviewed this book favorably. I was born and raised in the Philippines. But my qualifications do not end there. I am also fiercely Filipino in everything. I am also passionate about food. Having immersed myself in the more globally-renowned cuisine of Thailand, Malaysia, India, China and even Myanmar I now can declare without guilt Philippine cuisine is one of the world's most underrated gastronomic pleasures. Everyone says Thai cuisine is the best in Southeast Asia. But that is only true because Philippine cuisine is almost never mentioned or even considered.

So a word of advice to the genuine-Filipino-cuisine seekers. This cookbook does not in any way represent authentic Filipino cuisine. Look somewhere else where the sinigang is punchy, the adobo tangy, and the kare-kare is compleat and spelled with a 10-karat "K."

Now you have an even bigger problem. Only a handful of decent cookbook exists for Philippine cuisine - to complicate matters even more, most of them locally published.

Could this be the reason why we are rarely mentioned along with, say, Thai, Malaysian, Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese cuisine?

But, of course, that is only me thinking out loud.