Filipino Food in America — The Big Cuisine That Was Hiding in Plain Sight

The arrival, in two waves

• First wave (1900-1934). Filipinos came to the US as colonial subjects after the 1898 American annexation of the Philippines. Sugar-plantation labor in Hawaii, agricultural and salmon-cannery labor on the West Coast. Many didn't return.
• Second wave (post-1965). Family reunification and skilled-worker immigration. Significant communities in Daly City (CA), San Diego, Las Vegas, the New York/New Jersey area, Jacksonville (FL — large Navy population).

There are roughly four million Filipino Americans today, the second-largest Asian American group after Chinese Americans. The cuisine has been present in the US for over a century.

Why it took so long for the food to get attention

A mix of things. The cuisine doesn't fit easy categories — Spanish colonial influence overlaid on Indigenous Austronesian and Malay-Polynesian roots, with Chinese trader influence (noodles), American occupation influence (canned meat, hot dogs, sweet spaghetti), and modern global influence. Food media often defaults to legible categories. Filipino food doesn't fit them, so it was overlooked.

The 2010s changed this. Bad Saint (DC), Bonifacio (NYC), Lasa (LA), and dozens of others put Filipino cooking into the mainstream restaurant conversation.

The dishes

• Adobo. Soy sauce, vinegar, bay, garlic, peppercorns; chicken or pork (or both). The national dish. Endlessly variable by region and family.
• Sinigang. Sour soup, traditionally soured with tamarind. Pork, shrimp, or fish, plus leafy greens and vegetables. The savory-sour balance is the hallmark of Filipino flavor.
• Lumpia. Spring rolls, both fresh (lumpiang sariwa) and fried (lumpiang shanghai).
• Kare-kare. Oxtail and tripe in peanut sauce, served with bagoong (fermented shrimp paste).
• Lechon. Spit-roasted whole pig. Filipino lechon, particularly Cebu-style, is among the best pork preparations on Earth. Anthony Bourdain said this on camera and meant it.
• Halo-halo. Shaved ice dessert with sweet beans, coconut, fruit, leche flan, ube ice cream. Looks chaotic; works.
• Pancit. Noodles — many styles, regional.

Authors and chefs

• Nicole Ponseca and Miguel Trinidad, I Am Filipino (2018). Restaurant-side, opinionated, important.
• Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan, Memories of Philippine Kitchens (2006). The patient, careful, regional reference.
• Yana Gilbuena, No Forks Given. Pop-up chef who toured all 50 US states cooking Filipino food.
• Angela Dimayuga, Filipinx (2021). Contemporary, accessible, gorgeous.

What to cook to start

• Chicken adobo, the simple version. Soy, vinegar, garlic, bay, peppercorns, water. Brown the chicken; simmer 30 minutes; reduce the sauce. Serve over rice.
• Lumpiang shanghai (fried pork rolls). Make 40 of them, freeze most, fry as needed.
• Sinigang na hipon (shrimp sinigang). 25 minutes, weeknight, soured with tamarind concentrate.

Reading

• Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan, Memories of Philippine Kitchens (2006).
• Doreen G. Fernandez's essays on Filipino foodways (collected in Tikim).
• Ligaya Mishan's writing in the New York Times — has done some of the best food-media coverage of Filipino cuisine of any major outlet.

The hidden cuisine

Filipino food is the largest Asian-American cuisine that took the
longest to break through to the broader US food consciousness. The
Filipino-American population is approximately 4 million, larger than
the Vietnamese-American or Korean-American populations. The cuisine
has historically been the least visible in restaurants and food
media of the three.

The reasons are debated. The Spanish colonial inheritance and the
American post-1898 colonial period gave Filipino food familiar
elements (Spanish-influenced rice and stew preparations,
American-influenced sweet-and-fried preparations) that made the
cuisine seem less "exotic" than its East Asian and Southeast Asian
neighbors. The Filipino-American community also did not concentrate
in restaurant clusters the way Vietnamese-Americans did in Orange
County or Korean-Americans did in LA Koreatown.

The breakthrough

The 2010s produced the breakthrough. Three chefs and writers in
particular:

• Bad Saint restaurant in Washington DC (Genevieve Villamora and
  Nick Pimentel, 2015) brought serious Filipino food to the
  US food-media radar. The restaurant closed in 2020.
• Nicole Ponseca and Miguel Trinidad opened Maharlika and
  Jeepney in New York and wrote I Am a Filipino (2018), the
  Filipino-American cookbook that introduced the cuisine to a
  mainstream audience.
• Cristeta Comerford, White House Executive Chef (2005 to 2023),
  the first woman and first Asian-American to hold the position,
  cooked Filipino dishes for state dinners.

The dishes

The Filipino-American canon:

• Adobo. The vinegar-and-soy-braised meat dish that is one of
  the national dishes. Chicken or pork; sometimes both. Vinegar
  forward; long simmer; served over rice.
• Lumpia. Spring rolls; both the larger lumpiang sariwa (fresh)
  and the smaller lumpiang Shanghai (fried).
• Pancit. Rice noodle stir-fry; many regional variations.
• Sinigang. The sour soup, traditionally with tamarind or
  guava or kalamansi; with pork, fish, or shrimp.
• Sisig. The chopped-pork-jowl preparation served on a sizzling
  plate.
• Halo-halo. The shaved-ice dessert with sweet beans, jellies,
  ube ice cream, and evaporated milk.
• Lechon. Whole roast pig, the centerpiece of celebrations.

The regional diversity

The Philippines is an archipelago of over 7,000 islands and
roughly 175 languages. The food is regionally diverse: the
Ilocano cuisine of the north, the Bicolano cuisine of the
southeast (heavy on coconut milk and chiles), the Visayan cuisines
of the central islands, the Mindanaoan cuisines of the south
(with significant Muslim and Indigenous influence). The
Filipino-American cuisine has tended to flatten these into a
single "Filipino food" category; the regional diversity is
recovery work in progress.

What to cook

Adobo is the entry point. The simplest version: chicken thighs,
1/2 cup soy sauce, 1/2 cup white vinegar, 6 garlic cloves crushed,
3 bay leaves, 1 tablespoon black peppercorns, 1 cup water.
Combine, bring to boil, simmer 35 to 45 minutes. Eat over rice.

The dish has roughly as many variations as Filipino households.
This is the floor; build from it.

Further reading

• Nicole Ponseca & Miguel Trinidad, I Am a Filipino (2018).
• Doreen Fernandez, Tikim: Essays on Philippine Food and Culture
  (1994).
• Amy Besa & Romy Dorotan, Memories of Philippine Kitchens (2006,
  reissued 2014).
• Yana Gilbuena's pop-up history and writing.