A Festival in a Cookbook
/Book Review: The Adobo Chronicles: A Collection of Unique Adobo Recipes and Candid Essays on the Filipino Adobo (Negros Cultural Foundation, 2020)
The Adobo Chronicles: A Collection of Unique Adobo Recipes and Candid Essays on the Filipino Adobo was produced by the Negros Cultural Foundation to benefit the museum's advocacies. Book cover designer: Therese Marie G. Romualdez.
The Adobo Chronicles: A Collection of Unique Adobo Recipes and Candid Essays on the Filipino Adobo is a new coffee table cookbook. Philippine chefs, restaurateurs, authors, TV hosts, artists, and adobo aficionados share stories. Peppered all over are adobo recipes from past festival winners.
Since 1998 the Adobo Festival, an annual cooking competition in the Visayas, has been held in Silay City, Negros Occidental province, the top sugar producer of the Philippines. The cook-off has showcased emerging chefs.
“It was about keeping the flame alive for the next generation, “the festival’s creators says.
“No other food defines a Filipino kitchen more than adobo. It is a blend of flavors and aromas that conjure memories of our homes,” says Lynell E. Gaston, creator of the Balay Negrense Museum Adobo Festival.
Lyn B. Gamboa, president of NCF, explains that the pandemic brought about a need to drastically change our lives and how we do things.
In place of the Adobo Festival, the foundation produced this cookbook, which also honors the late Doreen Gamboa Fernandez, doyenne of Filipino food writing and native of Silay.
he Balay Negrense Adobo Festival in Silay City, Negros Occ., has been an annual chef cooking competition which residents of the Visayan city have looked forward to for 21 years.
The 10 x 10-inch hardbound book has about 75 pages. Personal anecdotes of culinary experts, flow out of the pages. Each is a testimony to how much adobo has influenced their lives.
“There are as many kinds of adobo as there are households,” says Chef Claude Tayag.
Recipes in this cookbook are a mélange of past festival winners and some from the essay contributors. The recipes are divided into categories: Adobong Baboy, Adobong Manok, Adobong Yamang Dagat, Adobong Gulay, and Kakaibang Adobo.
The variety ranges from the classic to the innovative: Adobong Maskara ng Baboy, Adobo a la Paspas, Adobong Alimasag, Adobo Crevette a l’ Anglaise, Adobong Balut in Chili Oil, Halo-Halo Adobo and more. There is a recipe for everyone -- the carnivore, the pescatarian, the vegetarian, and the one who loves a good homespun adobo any day. There are references to indigenous ingredients from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.
Whimsical graphic illustrations are in nearly all 75 pages and on the cover. Instructions are clear and easy-to-follow. The reader can choose to make this cookbook either an elegant coffee table book or a workhorse in the kitchen. The book is as much a great resource, as it is a kitchen companion.
Essay contributors are among some of the most recognizable names in the culinary world and the arts.
“Adobo empowers us to nurture,” says Nancy Reyes Lumen, the Adobo Queen. She believes that when Filipinos live abroad, they use adobo to find kababayans.
Chef Myrna Segismundo gives helpful cooking techniques.
Glenda Barretto, describes adobo she serves in three ways at her restaurants.
Chef Jessie Sincioco shares her unique experience when she cooked Duck Adobo for Boston-based Chef Ming Tsai.
Pia Lim Castillo, a founder of the Culinary Historians of the Philippines (CHOP), shows how she turns kulawo, a classic vegetable dish with burnt coconut cream, into adobo.
“What evokes adobo is the aroma, as it is being cooked,” says Micky Fenix, a writer.
Every adobo has a story in The Adobo Chronicles. Writer was Jack B. Gamboa.
Marcos Calo Medina, former reporter for The Associated Press and Oxford scholar, narrates how the adobos he grew up with -- Pampango and Agusan versions -- each distinctly influenced family meals.
“Each recipe is a story of a family’s journey, a snapshot of where they’ve been,” says Chef Patricia Ong Loanzon.
“Adobo is the default dish every Caviteño cooks in an emergency. The ingredients are always available,” says Ige Ramos, chef and book designer.
“My adobo is filling, satisfying, and soothing,” says Celeste Legaspi, a celebrated singer.
Adobo is what Filipinos come home to, says Poch Jorolan, of Everybody’s Café: “If you ask my children why they love me, one of their reasons is because I cook adobo for them.”
“The variety ranges from the classic to the innovative: Adobong Maskara ng Baboy, Adobo a la Paspas, Adobong Alimasag, Adobo Crevette a l’ Anglaise, Adobong Balut in Chili Oil, Halo-Halo Adobo and more.”
Whether you like your adobo perfectly sour, or very crisp, or if you savor thick, garlicky gravy over fragrant steamed rice, this is the cookbook for your adobo cravings.
Adobo evokes memories. We reflect on times gone by, as we relish spoonfuls. The tartness reminds us of happy times and stories forever simmering in our souls.
Every adobo version in this cookbook has a story. It is how love is expressed in homes. This cookbook, born in a time of crisis, was created with the same love that Mom and Lola prepared adobo.
Lyn Gamboa says, “It is an inspiring book of little adobo treasures.”
*For availability, email silayinc@gmail.com
Elizabeth Ann Quirino
Elizabeth Ann Quirino, based in New Jersey, is a journalist, food writer and member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP). She blogs about Filipino home cooking and culinary travels to the Philippines on her site AsianInAmericamag.com.
More articles from Elizabeth Ann Quirino
