Filipino cuisine — 2000s, Sisig bars

Vinegar-garlic stew method, many meats. A fiesta is lechon and a table that does not run out. A Tuesday is rice, a sour soup and leftover adobo that tastes better on day two. The home pantry around Adobo and the labour behind Sinigang rarely fit a takeaway box. Are restaurant versions "authentic"?

Restaurant Filipino cuisine is one register. Home pots and market stalls are others. Authenticity is a marketing word; technique is not. Lutuing Filipino is the local name used in this atlas beside Filipino cuisine. Filipino cuisine tastes first of sour and garlic: adobo, sinigang, kinilaw. Chili exists (Bicol, Mindanao) but the national bass is suka and tamarind, not nam prik.

Street food is barbecue sticks, fishballs and halo-halo. Jollibee is a genuine popular taste, not a joke about colonialism — though colonialism is in the gravy. Filipino cuisine is organised by bagoong / suka and rice. Pampanga claims a culinary capital. Ilocos salts and bagoong; Bicol cooks chili-coconut; the Visayas roast lechon that Manila argues about; Mindanao holds Muslim-Filipino and lumad tables.