Filipino American Food: High-End Filipino Food

As members of the second-largest Asian population in the United States, food-conscious Filipino Americans repeatedly ask why their cuisine has not gained broader popularity with the American public. Given the number of Filipino chefs holding top positions in restaurants (and at the White House), the issue raises questions in the American press as well. Food professionals on both sides of the Pacific suspect that part of the problem stems from the extreme localism of a cuisine whose standards lie, not in the way it is taught in culinary school, but the way a mother or grandmother prepared it. To rectify the problem, six of Manila’s best trained and most experienced chefs launched a three-year project to synthesize outstanding practices and standardize cooking techniques. The result was a cookbook called Kulinarya published in 2008.