This week, we ask the question: how do you find authenticity in food? Is it at the grocery store? Is it in the ingredients? In its history? I recently got to taste history on a trip to the Philippines this summer for a wedding.
Before the wedding, we had to grab a bite of some famous chicken inasal. Chicken inasal is a signature grilled barbecue chicken dish that originated in Bacolod, my mother’s home island, in the region of Visayas. It’s marinated with soy sauce, calamansi juice and various spices, then skewered and grilled over charcoal. The best way to eat it is the traditional Filipino way, which is with your hands. Things can get messy.
Sometimes the most authentic food can come from the most unsuspecting places. The best place to get chicken inasal is a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant outside the regional shopping center, called Aida’s. The chairs are dingy plastic lawn chairs. There’s an old sink in the center of the restaurant for hand washing. The walls are covered with traditional masquerade masks and oscillating fans.
I could try to authentically replicate chicken inasal at home, but nothing will beat the shared experience of sweating it out with my cousins in the hot summer and devouring delicious chicken, sauce dripping from our faces.
—Angelo