Filipino Cuisine: Recipes from the Islands (Red Crane Cookbook Series)

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Summary: Finally, a cookbook to celebrate with...
Review: What a pleasure it was to have come across this gem of a book. No longer will I need to suffer the generalisation of Filipino cuisine to "lumpia" and "adobo." This volume brings the wonderful flavors and aromas of real Filipino cooking to the general public. Perhaps we will begin to see a revolution in the fickle American palate and celebrate the one of the world's first true fusion cuisines; where else can one taste the influences of India, China, Mexico, Spain, America, and Malaysia integrated seemlessly with indigenous flavors and ingredients. So, whether you simply wish to read the book and imagine the unctuous recipes already prepared or, if you prefer as I do, put into practice what Mr. Gelle has carefully layed out, none of the dishes will disappoint.

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Summary: Two Filipino cookbooks compared. This one wins!
Review: `Filipino Cuisine' by Gerry G. Gelle is a new title that should replace the old standard `The Philippine Cookbook' by Reynaldo Alejandro, which has been out for about 22 years. Ten years ago, when I was looking for a book of Filipino recipes, it was virtually the only volume available, even making it a reference on Filipino cuisine to such major culinary writers as Raymond Sokolov in his important book `The Cook's Canon'. Gelle's book improves on Alejandro's book in almost every regard, most especially where it counts in the description of the recipes.

Even the most cursory look at these two books will suggest that Gelle's volume is the better book. A look at the two authors' biographical sketches confirms that initial impression, as Gelle is a full time professional chef while Alejandro seems to be a jack of all trades, doing as much in dramatics and dancing as in writing and cooking.

Both books give very informative introductions on the origins of Filipino cuisine. Both, for example, point out that the Spanish influence is less direct than an influence by way of Mexico, since the Spanish governors in Mexico were much closer to the islands than was the court in Madrid. Gelle's introductory chapter seems much more timely, however, in that influences and native foods are discussed by region, in much the same way one has come to expect in descriptions of great Chinese, Japanese, French, and Italian cuisines.

While Alejandro's book may have been the best there was 10 years ago, it now has the appearance of a very journeymanlike effort, much like so many inexpensive books of recipes from Latvia, Rumania, Hungary, or Poland. Because, 20 years ago, a simple list of recipes was all you needed to create a credible book on a national cuisine. The book does include some nice extras such as a glossary of Filipino culinary terms and a list of sources. Unfortunately, as almost all these sources are small strip mall stores like the one I used to visit to get my 25 pound sacks of rice and my lumpia wrappers and my mung beans, most of them are probably now out of business.

The bottom line is that Gelle really has the better recipes, and it is this fact which makes his book worth the extra cost and time it may take to find a copy.

Oddly, Alejandro's recipes for adobo, for example are much closer to the way my adopted Filipino family actually cooked adobo, and the way I learned to cook it. Gelle's recipe, however, is quite evidently much closer to how leading native Filipino chefs cook adobo, especially since his recipe for chicken and pork adobo agrees with the recipe in the very authoritative `Bruce Cost's Asian Ingredients'. For starters, Alejandro says nothing about marinading the meats overnight in the soy and vinegar liquid, yet it is evident that this brings the recipe much closer to its Mexican roots. Gelle is also alone in citing that the vinegar in these dishes is not any garden variety Heinz product, but `sukang paombong', a native Philippine vinegar.

Another symptom of the superiority of Gelle's recipes is in the comparison of the way the two authors deal with the classic Spanish empanada. While Alejandro gives a very simple filling of ground beef, potatoes, and raisins, Gelle's filling includes carrots, chicken, pork, hard-boiled eggs, and sweet pickle. The recipes for the dough are different, and I would be hard pressed to prefer one to the other. Alejandro's recipe is slightly simpler, in that it uses one egg yolk per cup of flour for fat. Gelle uses egg yolks and butter for the fat in his recipes. The only way I can adjudicate between the two is that Gelle's recipe is much closer to the classic Spanish recipe, as presented by Penelope Casas in `The Foods and Wines of Spain'. So, in the light of other evidence of greater fidelity to his sources, I am inclined to believe Gelle's recipe is closer to the way this dish is done in Manila. In any case, Gelle's description of the procedure for making empanadas is much more detailed than in Alejandro's book, and Gelle gives alternate procedures for deep-frying or baking the empanadas. Gelle also gives recommendations on how long uncooked empanadas can be held in the freezer.

A third evidence of Gelle's superior recipes is in a comparison of their recipes for spring roll (lumpia) wrappers. Alejandro gives a quick simple three ingredient recipe while Gelle gives two different recipes, both of which are much richer and more detailed in presentation than Alejandro's book.

Only in the number of pancit recipes does Alejandro give us more than Gelle. Also, Alejandro's recipes for pancit seem just a bit more interesting, as in his recipe for my favorite Pancit Luglug which has something of a French air about it in that it creates a broth from shrimp shells to add to the sauce while Gelle relies on canned cream of mushroom soup to finish off the sauce.

If you are really fond of Filipino cooking, you may want both books, but you will certainly be better off with more accurate, more detailed, and more interesting recipes if you have only Gelle's book.

Recommended treatment of Filipino cuisine.