Jam Melchor's talk in DINE Philippines - Zamboanga, last October 22, 2015, Vista del Mar Resort and Recreation Center, Zamboanga City.

1. Rediscovering Filipino
Cuisine: From Local &
Global Perspective
Chef Jam Melchor

2. The FILIPINO food has finally
ARRIVED!
Filipino cuisine had gone light years away
from the unappealing, brown and oily fare it
was always thought to be, one of the most
gorgeously prepared and mouthwatering
cuisine today.
Its time has finally come.

4. Andrew Zimmern
- an american tv show personality, chef, and
food writer, had featured the Philippines in his
popular TV food travel show, "Bizarre Food."
He ate delicacies such as balut (fertilized duck
egg), crickets, stuffed frogs, and even
raw tamilok (woodworm); as well as regular
Filipino fare. He described banana cue as
similar to bananas Foster, but without the
snooty waiter.

5. “I had said to some people, ‘If there
was a great chef executing Filipino
food at a high level, everyone else
would line up behind them,’ ”
- Andrew Zimmern

6. • Anthony Bourdain
author of the controversial worldwide best
seller Kitchen Confidential, visited manila in
2009. He sang praises to Filipino cuisine,
ranking the Philippines number one in his
“Hierarchy of Pork.”

7. “Like nothing I’ve tasted
before.” – Anthony Bourdain

8. This is a stark contrast to a decade ago when
Filipino cuisine was written off as being too
ethnic and one whose flavors were too
indigenous to appeal to the western palate.
Back then, crossing over to the mainstream
market seemed all but impossible.

9. But tastes and preferences evolve. Today, more and
more people have grown in sophistication to
appreciate the flavors of our islands.

10. If we play our cards right, our
cuisine can explode in the world
stage just as Japanese food did in
the 70’s and Thai cookery did in the
’80s.

11. What is Filipino Food?
• It is the sum of Filipino history, from the
indigenous food of the prehistoric era, to
the influences of Southeast Asia cooking
brought by trade, and colonial influences
brought by conquest.
• It is a very misunderstood cuisine because
of its diversity.

12. In recent years, because of domestic
migration, tourism, national food
businesses, and through the mass media,
regional dishes have gone beyond their
borders and are part of the national border.

13. “There’s more to filipino food than
Jollibee.”

14. What took it so long?
Our nation's table-fare has long suffered a poor
reputation internationally compared with its
regional south east asian neighbors.
• Across the world, Indian curry houses
compete with Vietnamese noodle soup shops
or Chinese dim sum restaurants in offering a
taste of Asian food, but there are
comparatively very few places serving
Filipino dishes.

15. • many locals also undoubtedly prefer their
meals fast and cheap -- in the style of their
former American colonial rulers -- with
deep-fried chicken and hamburger chains
dominating the food scene.

16. • an obstacle to the development of Filipino
food abroad is hiya – or shame. "Some
Filipino immigrants in America have felt a
sense of hiya around their food, with its
duck embryos, pig’s blood, shrimp paste
and other potentially hard-to-swallow
ingredients.”

17. What makes our food unique?
• Filipino food has a deep and complex taste
that has been described as LINAMNAM
(literally “deliciousness”)
• Malinamnam – savory and fragrant quality of
the dish
• One significant aspect of Filipino
LINAMNAM is sourness and a penchant for
tangy flavors.

18. Branding our Food
Classification of Taste: Sourness
Three major Filipino cooking techniques have
sourness as a flavor base:
- Paksiw
- Kinilaw or Kilawin
- Sinigang
Adobo is an exemption because sourness does
not dominate the dish’s flavor.

19. Branding our Food
Regional Cuisine & Heirloom Recipes
Regionality plays a huge role in Filipino
cooking, as it's a geographically divisive
country populated by dozens of ethnic
groups. "Each island has their own flavor."

20. Branding our Food
ADOBO NATION
- Adobo is considered as the country’s most
popular dish; inaccurate to call it a singular
dish. To say that there are 7,100 recipes of
our adobo is an understatement; there are as
many kinds of adobo as there are
households.

21. Adobo

22. So, to claim your adobo is better than others
is pretty much a personal thing. Its really a
matter of taste… 

23. Branding our Food
• Perhaps our recent ranking as the world’s
second best food destination, according to
the CNN Facebook poll, is a sign that the
Filipino Food Movement is finally gaining
some precious traction.
• But, I believe that it takes more than
public opinion to really sway the world’s
palates our way.

24. Branding our Food
• Promotion of Philippine made food
products (wines, jams, concentrates, etc.)
• Rice
• Vinegar
• Coconut
• Mango
• garlic

25. Branding our Food
• Serve Filipino food—even abroad—without
compromises. Let’s unabashedly present
to the world our flavors, full back fat and
all!

26. Branding our Food
NO COPYCATS
• it is important for chefs & foodies to
expose themselves to trends around the
world, but only to gain a new sense of
perspective in order not to become
outdated. Exposure should not lead one to
copy dishes.

27. Branding our Food
INNOVATE BUT GO LOCAL
• What is important, they all concurred, is
that chefs innovate. Put your stamp on
what you serve, don’t just copy. Make it
your own. Your restaurant must have
personality, although this must be
matched with flavor.

28. Rediscovering the Filipino Foodie
Part of what feeds the Filipino Food industry
is being able to reimagine traditional food in
new ways or reinvent the experience of
eating your favorite food.

29. Sansrival

30. Sapin Sapin

31. Sisig

32. Tibok Tibok

33. • Reimagining the cuisine needs execution by
means of cooking the traditional recipes and
passing it to other people so the recipe will
continuously live and ideas will flourish.

34. Lechon Roulade

35. PSE - Pour un Sourire d'Enfant
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

36. PSE - Pour un Sourire d'Enfant
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

37. Rediscovering the Filipino Foodie
The Philippines has all the right ingredients
to become a truly international foodie
destination. So long as we can cultivate a
homegrown cultural appetite for local
cuisine, global taste buds will soon follow.

40. ”All we need to do is stir the palayok in the
right direction.”