Air-Dried Cured Beef

Some trace the word tapa to the Spanish tradition of small plates and snacks, others to the Sanskrit word for heat. Whatever the etymology, the dish’s origins go back to pre-colonial traditions of preserving meat (beef, carabao, deer, boar) by leaving it out to dry in the sun. In the 1980s, Vivian Del Rosario, an enterprising cook in Quezon City, came up with tapsilog as a slangy name for the combination of tapa, sinangag (garlic fried rice), and itlog (egg), selling it as