Hierarchy of Pork
I\’m very nervous about tonight\’s Philippines show.
I\’m all too aware of the fact that the country is made up of over seven THOUSAND islands and that I visited exactly two of them. The food is intensely regional … I mean, even the difference between the food in Manila and Pampanga — only a couple of hours away –is striking. So I missed … a lot.
I\’m very aware of how many Filipino fans we have — and how enthusiastic they are about us (finally) covering their country. I wanted very badly to do a good job on this one. But I fear there\’s no way we got it \”right.\”
Not that I didn\’t have a great time. I did.
For one thing, I settled a karmic debt of sorts: Augusto Elefano, who\’d argued so fervently for his country of ancestry on the previous season\’s FAN-atic special had been sent home short of the prize after a brutal interrogation at my hands. Impressed by his zeal and feeling guilty about smashing his hopes and dreams I felt that Cebu would be good to see through his eyes. So we packed him, his wife and baby daughter onto a plane — and sent them off into TV Land.
What we did get right, I\’m quite sure, was making sure that the amazing, porky delights of \”sisig\” got plenty of camera time. If you\’ve never had this divine mosaic of pig parts, chopped and served sizzling and crisp on one side on a screaming hot platter, then you\’ve yet to have one of the world\’s best beer drinking dishes. And speaking of pig? It can now be said that of all the whole roasted pigs I\’ve had all over the world, the slow roasted lechon I had on Cebu was the best. This puts the standings in the Hierarchy of Pork as follows:
#1. Philippines
#2. Bali
#3. Puerto Rico
If nothing else, I hope that homesick Filipinos living abroad get a glimpse of some of the food and scenery they\’ve no doubt been missing. And for viewers who weren\’t previously familiar with the wide and tasty spectrum of flavors available over there, I hope the sight of me shoving a lot of very tasty stuff into my maw provides — if nothing else — inspiration to look further.
Closer to home, I have a problem: My obsession with the HBO series \”The Wire\” is taking an unhealthy turn. I recently bought the DVD boxed set — all 60 hours of the show — as well as \”The Corner\” the previous six part mini-series by the same writer/producers. I\’m rewatching them all from beginning to end and just can\’t stop. It\’s like if I watch them closely, I\’ll somehow figure out how writing can be so good — how an ensemble of mostly little known actors and a mammoth, wildly ambitious progression of story arcs can make a whole city come vividly, tragically alive. It\’s funny, exciting, excrutiatingly sad and always, always feels real. I can\’t tear myself away.
Gotta go. Omar and Brother Monzon are making their move on Stringer Bell … I love this part.
thank you for appreciating our lechon anthony! It certainly is one of a kind here in asia can't but crave for it too.
i am a fan of yours.. your show is great! I've watched the philippine episode > a hundred times and to think that you only ate few dishes??? c'mon!!! 7k + islands… i can let you taste a dish per island. LOL… Im a beer and alcohol drinker. Been around the islands north to south…ate and drank with them.
So come and join me to explore the Philippines once again, Home of Great Food…Great Scenery…Great People
this is the Philippines
I will let you feel that "It's more fun in the Philippines"
Anthony, honestly, I would never want to watch that Philippines episode again because it enrages me that that dude simply wanted a free vacation off of you, and had no REAL knowledge of the Philippines or Philippine cuisine. It literally PAINED me to watch the episode of my beloved Philippines being so underrepresented.
I wish I had been the person to show you what the Philippines was all about because I am actually a homegrown Filipino who had lived there for 24 years until I moved to the US in 2007. And if anybody knows about FIlipino food, and how exciting it could be, that would be me.
Oh well. Maybe one day you'd actually want to go back and I hope you actually find someone who can show you exactly what we have to put on the table.
I love your show, by the way. Love love love. And I have you as a guest in my imaginary dinner party.
Hi, Tony. The roasted Cordillera native pigs of Northern Philippines would like to have a word with you.
The recipes are that varied? It makes me wonder how many ways they can cook butcher fresh pork supplies from melbourne over in the Philippines.
I was
I was really about to choose the right place to spend my after wedding happenings and I chose to have a safari honeymoon like no other.
I fall in love with philipines it's a heaven on the erath
i am planning a visit there this summer. is there any hotels you can recommend in manila?
makati shangrila hotel or manila peninsula
Thank you
I've heard a lot about this so-called "sisig" myself. It's coming really close to making me fly over to the Philippines to see for myself if all those chopped up pork bits alive up to the hype.
Outstanding provided, Thank you so much for your wonderful sharing. Keep it up………………..
Thanks that's Terrrefic
Our Doctor is good because his are care of our life, The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition.
yeah
Philippines has the most exotic foods and they have LOTS of recipes about pork ^_^