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PHL EMBASSY IN THE HAGUE LAUNCHES PHILIPPINE CULINARY WEEK

10 September 2015 – The Philippine Embassy in The Hague organized the launch of the Philippine Culinary Week in the Netherlands by hosting a degustation reception at the Official Residence on September 03.



The event featured Filipino dishes prepared and presented by Mrs. Amy Besa and Chef Romy Dorotan, owners of Purple Yam, a Filipino restaurant with branches in Brooklyn, New York and Malate, Manila. It also served as the launch of the guest stint of the Filipino chefs at De Karpendonkse Hoeve, a well-known Michelin star restaurant in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Chef Dorotan and his team of three chefs from their Malate restaurant will cook well-loved Filipino dishes from September 07 to 13 at the restaurant. Diners will get to enjoy Filipino food as prepared by these chefs who make use of home-grown, artisanal ingredients from various regions of the Philippines.

Philippine Ambassador to the Netherlands Jaime Victor B. Ledda kicked off the event as he highlighted the guest chef stint of the Purple Yam chefs in the Michelin star restaurant as a breakthrough for Philippine cuisine and an opportunity that puts Filipino dishes on center stage in the Netherlands. He also lauded the owners and chefs of Purple Yam for utilizing home-grown, artisanal ingredients. By doing this, Ambassador Ledda stated, “The Purple Yam chefs are recognized for their creativity in presenting Philippine cuisine and for their social responsibility for helping farmers and Filipino entrepreneurs”.

The Purple Yam chefs presented eight dishes to the delight of the guests composed of the members of media, food bloggers, and Dutch and Filipino entrepreneurs in the food business. These dishes are: oyster and tuna kinilaw in watermelon ice, lime and citrus; sinigang with grilled shrimps; fresh vegetable lumpia with a garlic caramel sauce that featured sukang Iloko; pork baby back ribs adobo; chicken adobo marinated with herbs and spices then slowly braised in coconut milk and lemongrass, served on a bed of adlai; vegetable fried unoy with boiled egg and sprinkled with Maguindanao palapa; suman cooked in coconut milk sweetened by Abra honey; and a selection of home-made fruit preserves served with Dutch cheeses.

Mrs. Besa took the time to explain the components and story of each dish as they were being served to guests. Guests also were afforded to view the chefs at work in the kitchen and taste the dishes as they were being prepared.

For Mrs. Besa, the story of Philippine food comes not only from its history but also from its natural environment. “We are an archipelago of 7,100 islands and having one of the longest coastlines in the world informs us that we have excellent and diverse seafood. Our earliest ancestors planted and ate coconuts, bananas, root crops and rice and the use of those plants and vegetation exists until today. So Philippine food really can be defined as everything edible that grows in our environment and what Filipinos do to eat them. That is what I call ‘food that was always ours,” according to her.

She added that the cooking methods that came from these natural ingredients form the triumvirate of dishes that exemplify what the Filipino palate is all about: kinilaw, sinigang and adobo. All three are distinctly and uniquely Filipino. “They are found in all regions of the country and eaten by all classes of society and are cooked in endless variations by all households,” she said.

According to Mrs. Besa, another classification is the “food that was borrowed and made our own.” This includes dishes and ingredients that came from countries that traded with the Philippines and colonized and waged war with the country.

“We have always espoused the philosophy of bringing many undiscovered, underappreciated and ignored ingredients within our environment back to the table. We have brought with us to the Netherlands just a small sample of ingredients that have excited us. We have three varieties of bananas from Benguet: Tumok, Gloria and Lakatan; bugnay preserves from Abra and wild honey from Abra, Quezon and Iloilo plus some spices like the Maguindanao palapa, a coconut and spice mix that represents Muslim flavors of Mindanao,” Mrs. Besa stated.

For Purple Yam, the specialty of the evening was the presentation of the heirloom rice varieties from the Cordilleras. Mrs. Besa explained, “Heirloom means these varieties are not hybrids, but rather these are the original grains owned by families and communities that our forefathers have planted several generations back. The reason they exist today is that the early Filipinos liked them enough to replant them and pass them on to the next generation. Therefore, as we unlock all the flavors, aromas and textures of the heirloom rice, we can discover the true Filipino palate. And this is the start of discovering and re-imagining what Filipino food is all about.”

The presentation of the Filipino dishes was complemented by cocktails prepared by the distributors in the Netherlands of Don Papa Rum, a distinct, unique rum that uses sugar cane from Negros as its core ingredient. Mr. Olaf Kerstens of Andre Kerstens BV, who helped in the official launch of the rum in the Netherlands in July 2015, and a guest bartender presented a variety of cocktails that highlighted the versatility and sweet taste of Don Papa Rum.