Exploring Asian cuisine

By Connie Veneracion

When Japanese food first gained popularity in the Philippines, everything looked and tasted so strange that most Filipinos felt that sushi-making was something that only culinary masters could perform. Heck, many were not even familiar with the ingredients that went into a bowl of miso soup. Yet, everyone wanted to be identified with the emerging hip crowd of Japanese food lovers that having a tube of wasabi and a bottle of Kikkoman in the fridge was almost a status symbol. We?ve certainly come a long way. While the appetite for the delectable tastes and textures of Japanese cuisine remain, we are less awed by its strangeness.

Television and the Internet have a lot to do with it. Never mind television shows that like to shock us by presenting exotic Asian food as downright bizarre?they?re entertainment. There are others that take the path of demystifying Asian food and make it less frightening especially for the uninitiated. Combine that with the viral effect of the Internet where food bloggers share the wonders of the cuisines of their respective countries and we begin to realize that the unfamiliarity of a lot of Asian food may be more apparent than real.

Take Southeast Asian dishes, for instance. While there is no definitive ?Southeast Asian cuisine,? when we consider that only certain species of trees, vegetables, fruits and marine life thrive well in the tropical climate of Southeast Asia, it is easy enough to understand why there are similarities in our dishes and cooking ingredients. They might sound strange but look and taste beyond the names and, suddenly, so much is familiar.

We know fish sauce as patis, it is called nam pla in Thailand, nuoc mam in Vietnam, nam pa in Laos, and ngan-pya-ye (ngan byar yay?) in Myanmar. Shrimp paste is bagoong to us while it is belacan (or belachan) in Malaysia, kapi in Thailand and Laos, terasi in Indonesia, ngapi in Burma, and mm t?m in Vietnam.

Barbecue is our generic name for grilled skewered meat because of the influence of a former colonial master. But did you know that barbecue is actually the term for a cooking instrument rather than the grilled food itself? And did you know how closely related our marinated meat in bamboo skewers are to the satay that is found across Southeast Asia and the kebab of the Middle East?

So many similarities but the differences in Southeast Asian cuisines are quite marked too. Except for Thailand, all Southeast Asian countries were once colonized by one European country or another and colonization left its imprints in these countries? cuisines.

There is so much about Asian food to discover and explore that a lifetime probably isn?t enough to assimilate everything. But if, like me, you believe it is a journey worth taking, then hop on. We?ll discover spices, fruits, vegetables and herbs, and use them in recipes to cook delectable dishes. And that?s just for starters. Where else this journey leads me to, you?ll know because I?ll be writing and photographing and sharing my discoveries with you.