~ °Café de Terrasse° ~

~ dimanche, juillet 16, 2006 ~

Let's continue to pray for Peace in the Middle East.

~Benjamin 7/16/2006 03:30:00 AM

I'm especially glad to be Filipino right now. I just pan-seared a smoked bangus (milkfish) and ate it with steamed jasmine rice. For sawsawan (dip), I chopped up some ripe tomatoes and cilantro, then mixed it with bagoong alamang (shrimp paste). Then, I added some fresh-squeezed lime juice and patis (fish sauce). Ooh it was sooo good.. dang.. imagine if I wasn't born Southeast Asian, I would be missing out on this!!
I'm having a bit of trouble explaining how I eat to the roommates.. they just see a bottle of fish sauce in my cabinet, smell it, and think, "disgusting." One of them tried to throw out my shrimp paste because he thought it was spoiled.. I tried to explain that it was supposed to smell that way and he was like, "are you sure? how do you know?" hahaha
Ken is more understanding because he's Chinese and our foods aren't totally different. Yesterday, Ken & I had the most difficult time explaining to Michael that back home, we eat rice just about everyday and the only thing that changes is the viand (another concept that's difficult to comprehend for non-Asian cultures.
In Filipino, it's called ulam.
In Malaysian, it's called lauk.
In Indonesian, it's called lauk-pauk.
In Cantonese, it's called soong.
In Teochew, it' called kiam.
In Japanese, it's called okazu.
In Korean, it's called bahnchan.
In Indian, it's called kari.
In Thai, it's called gap khao.
Hawaiians would understand it as iina'i.
And in English, it's viand from the Spanish vianda.
All these words refer to the side dish that we eat with rice as the main dish. Viands can be meat or vegetable dishes and they make the rice-eating experience savory and delicious.
Rice is soo important in Asian culture.. When I went back home last Summer, I remember my grandmother asking me what I was eating in college. When she found out I didn't eat rice everyday, her eyes widened and she told me, "Bat (but) we are Pilipinos! How ken (can) you lib (live) like dat (that)!?" I then explained to her that it was ok because I grew up in the states and eating pizza or sandwiches for a meal was fine.
There's a saying in Indonesian, "Kalau belum makan nasi, belum makan." or "If you haven't eaten rice, you haven't eaten." It's quite true.

Oh, and eating viands without rice is like a sin in our cultures. The Tagalog word "papak" means just that. When I was a kid, my mom would catch me eating chicken without rice and say, "Hoy! huwag mong papakin!" which roughly translates to "Hey! Don't eat that without rice!"
Indonesians have a similar concept when they say, "Makan juga nasimu! Jangan menggado lauk saja!" just like the Cantonese would say, "Sik sung mmm sik fan!"

Anyway, now I'm just showing off some phrases from some of the languages I'm learning. The point of this whole post is that rice is awesome.
What's that you say? Noodles? Well, that's a whole nother story.. and a whole nother post. I've gotta go.. all this talk has made me hungry again..

~Benjamin 7/11/2006 11:12:00 PM