Adobo, Likeliest Dish Of Filipinos – How You Cook Must Be Like How You Love!

Our Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) is acting like a teacher in a cooking class and warning the students to cook adobo following strict instructions – or else. That takes the joy out of cooking. And eating!

Steph Arnaldobrings us the sad news: “Moves To Set National Standards For Cooking Adobo, Other PH Dishes[1],” 10 July 2021, Rappler.com). “Sad” is my opinion, not hers. The DTI has created a new technical committee on Filipino dishes who “aims to standardize how adobo and other popular Philippine dishes are prepared.” The committee “will develop Philippine National Standards (PNS) when it comes to preparing and cooking adobo, sinigang, sisig, lechon, and other popular native dishes. In fact, the PNS started setting the standards for cooking adobo already in May.

Thereby, the DTI is taking the art out of cookingfavorite Filipino dishes!

Ms Steph says:

The DTI said the committee was formed to standardize the cooking technique of adobo, amid the "various cooking methods published online by food writers, bloggers, and vloggers." They aim to determine the "common denominator among all the known ways of cooking it," to help "preserve the country’s cultural identity despite the variations made to it."

That declares that the variations Filipino cooks bring to their cooking of adobo do not constitute cultural identity. That is preposterous!

Chair of the PNS is Glenda Barretto, founder of Via Mare Corporation; Co-Vice Chairs are Myrna Segismundo of the Food Writers Association of the Philippines and Raoul Roberto Goco of the Hotel & Restaurant Association of the Philippines.

The committee members are representatives of UP Diliman College of Home Economics, Philippine Chamber of Food Manufacturers Inc, Philippine Association of Meat Processors Inc, Philippine Association of Food Technologists Inc, LTB Chefs Association, Asia Society Philippines, Industrial Technology Development Institute, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and the Philippine Inquirer.

Now, look again at the topmost image above: “A recipe has no soul,” says Thomas Keller, American Restaurateur; “You, as the cook, must bring soul to the recipe.” You standardize the cooking of the adobo and you standardize the taste – what’s an adobo cook for but to excite you with the soul he brings to his recipe?!
(image[2] from Quote Fancy)

In the lower image above, American newspaper columnist and film & TV critic Harriet Van Horne[3] is quoted as saying: “Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon, or not at all.”
(image[4] from Brainy Quote)

With your favorite adobo, you eat with gusto as you make love with gusto!

Thereby, DTI will dampen demands for PH meats and, thereby, productions of such – adobo standardization at the expense of the Filipino livestock raisers! This is the practice of Science at the expense of Art – when it comes to cooking of food, give me art anytime.

No to any PH national committee standardizing the cooking of adobo from Aparri to Jolo. Leave those many local adobo variations alone. Never ever forget: Variety is the spice of life!@517

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[1]https://www.rappler.com/life-and-style/food-drinks/dti-set-national-standards-cooking-adobo-philippine-dishes?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR07P3apTJwpMOghs_ZzKnwOlpgBIqpRbNbrpM0kvrs6JuhxMQgM1HfAq-U

[2]https://quotefancy.com/quote/1267309/Thomas-Keller-A-recipe-has-no-soul-You-as-the-cook-must-bring-soul-to-the-recipe

[3]https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/harriet-van-horne/m027wcwv?hl=en

[4]https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/cooking-quotes