The atlas · A cuisine · The Philippines — more than seven thousand islands between the South China Sea and the Pacific

Filipino

Also Pinoy food, Lutong Pinoy, Pagkaing Pilipino

Sour, salty and a little sweet — vinegar and calamansi, fish sauce and shrimp paste, rice at every meal and pork cooked every way.

Where it comes from

The foundations are Austronesian and older than any empire: rice, fish, coconut, and a taste for sourness — from vinegars made of cane, coconut and palm sap, and from tamarind and green fruit. Fish and shrimp were salted and fermented into patis and bagoong. Chinese traders came for centuries before the Europeans did, and their noodles, spring rolls and soy sauce settled so deeply into the islands that pancit and lumpia now feel entirely local.

Spain ruled from the sixteenth century until 1898, and the galleons that sailed between Manila and Acapulco brought tomatoes, maize, chillies and chocolate from Mexico. Festive food took Spanish names and techniques; everyday cooking kept its own. American rule followed, bringing evaporated milk, tinned meat and a new kind of sweet tooth, and the large Filipino diaspora has since carried the food around the world.

Where in it

  1. ManilaThe capital, where Chinese traders settled in Binondo — often called the oldest Chinatown in the world — and where the islands' pancit and lumpia took shape.Pancit cantonLumpiaHalo-halo
  2. PampangaThe province north of Manila that many call the country's kitchen, known for rich fiesta cooking. It claims sisig for certain, and kare-kare by one of its stories.SisigKare-kare
  3. BicolThe peninsula at Luzon's south-eastern end, where coconut milk and chilli go into nearly everything — laing, ginataan and the dish named after the train.Bicol express
  4. CebuIts lechon — stuffed with lemongrass and herbs, the skin roasted to glass — is often called the best in the islands, and needs no sauce.Lechon
  5. BacolodThe capital of Negros Occidental, sugar country, known for chicken inasal grilled at the stalls of Manokan Country, and for its sweets.Chicken inasal

How it cooks

Cooking in vinegar
Adobo and paksiw: meat or fish braised in vinegar, which flavours and preserves at once. Many cooks let it boil before stirring, to soften the sharpness.
Ginisa
Garlic, onion and tomato sautéed together — the start of most soups, stews and noodles.
Souring the broth
Tamarind, green mango, kamias or calamansi, so a soup is sharp enough to wake you up.
Inihaw and lechon
Grilling over charcoal, and roasting whole pigs on a spit for a fiesta.
Sawsawan
Dipping sauces at the table — vinegar with garlic and chilli, soy with calamansi — so each person seasons their own plate.

Always in the kitchen

ricecane vinegarcoconut vinegarsoy saucepatisbagoongcalamansigarlicgingerbay leavesblack peppercornscoconut milktamarindatsuetebanana ketchuptomatoes

Cook from it

Tonight, with what's good in October

Its classics

FilipinoAdoboChicken or pork braised in vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, bay and black pepper until the sauce is dark and glossy.No one here has made it yetFilipinoSinigangA sour soup of pork, prawns or fish with vegetables, soured most often with tamarind.No one here has made it yetFilipinoKare-kareOxtail and tripe stewed in a thick peanut sauce, coloured with annatto, eaten with sharp shrimp paste.No one here has made it yetFilipinoLechonA whole pig roasted slowly on a spit over charcoal until the skin is glassy and crisp — the centre of any fiesta.No one here has made it yetFilipinoPancit cantonThick egg noodles stir-fried with pork, chicken, prawns and vegetables in soy and stock, with calamansi to squeeze over.No one here has made it yetFilipinoLumpiaSpring rolls — most often thin, tight cigars of seasoned pork, fried crisp and dipped in sweet chilli sauce.No one here has made it yetFilipinoSisigPig's face and ears boiled, grilled and chopped fine with onion, chilli and calamansi, served on a sizzling iron plate.No one here has made it yetFilipinoHalo-haloShaved ice and evaporated milk over layers of sweet beans, fruit and jellies, crowned with ube, leche flan and ice cream.No one here has made it yetFilipinoBicol expressPork simmered in coconut milk with shrimp paste and a great many chillies, until the sauce is thick and oily.No one here has made it yetFilipinoChicken inasalChicken marinated in vinegar, calamansi, lemongrass and ginger, grilled over charcoal and basted with annatto oil.No one here has made it yet

How it got here

1565–1815 · from Acapulco to ManilaMaize, cacao and chilliesFor two and a half centuries, Spanish galleons crossed the Pacific between Acapulco and Manila, carrying silver one way and silk and spices the other. Maize, cacao, tomatoes and chillies came west with them — and champorado, the Filipino chocolate rice porridge, takes its name from Mexico's champurrado.
1500s · from SpainA nameWhen the Spanish arrived in the Philippines, they found meat being cooked in vinegar and salt, and called it adobo, after a marinade of their own. The name was Spanish; the method was already Filipino.Adobo →

Cooked here

No one here has cooked Filipino yet.