I embrace the experience of my food indulgence in western cuisine between New Zealand and Holland (my home countries) and the cuisine of the Philippines, Taste is a personal preference. I don't think any cuisine of the world stands out above any other.
Food is such a life-long delightful experience. A communal need we all cannot live without. Traditionally western food (30 percent of it) is quite greasy and pretty blend unless you spice it up with lots of white and black pepper, lots of sauce, gravy, mayonnaise or ketchup. We all have intense relationship with certain food, go through such lengths to indulge our food cravings.
Western people enjoy eating potatoes. There are many ways of cooking potatoes: french fries (chips) mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes, roast or grilled potatoes and a wide array of potato salad. Personally, its quite hard to resist the potato dish. One particular type of dish that I fancy eating from time-to-time, is mixing together chopped potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, brocolli....boil these and top it off with shredded cheese towards the end of cooking. Also love the ''home gourmet'' dish and western-style dish with mouthwatering sauce dash with various herbs. The irresistible chicken filet schnitzels once cut, juicy stuffing with ham and melted cheese flows out hmm....absolutely delicious!
Some examples of this kind of healthy/unhealthy food are all sorts of burgers, the deep fried foods, pizzas, spare ribs, french fries dipped and submerged in ketchup and mayonaise washed down with lots of fizzy drinks like cola, 7-up etc. Also the tempting spaghetti and macaroni with lots of cheese. Snacks containing considerable amounts of sweets like wide variety of chocolate bars are available. Lots of cookies to choose for and various choices of cakes of all colors and textures. On the other hand, food as such consumed in moderation and not on successive days every week, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
But then again there is also a large slice of the population that are into healthy foods, are counting calories in their daily food intake. Eating non-sugared cereals, vegetables and fruits, drinking 8 glasses of water daily, drinking only green tea, herbal tea or fruit tea.
Me however, I am all for the traditional western dinners of casseroles, grilled/roast dinners containing either beef, pork or chicken with potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes and consciously eating a serving of fresh vegetable salad (cucumber, lettuce, shredded carrots, tomatoes, spring onions, snowed with a bit of grated cheese and mixed well with desired dressings.... oh so yummy! My one weakness is vegetables soup. Not forgetting I love fish, with the likes of salmon, tuna, red and white snapper.
Visualizing it now, without hesitation, our Philippine cuisine is excellent and simply exquisite. It is deliciously satisfying. A week is never complete unless you prepare home-cooked Filipino food a couple of days each week. We are emotionally attached to OUR food preference to satisfy our taste buds. Food makes us all ecstatic and vulnerable especially if we are hungry.
So why not spoil yourself now and then.
Superb! wide array of Philippine cuisine which are deliciously tempting are courtesy of the "top chef'' Bybie O. Breuer.. from New Zealand, pics taken in her humble home.
©Marilyn Ouano Gilsing (naga-cebu.com)