Food Culture Is What Makes Them Filipino

Filipino food culture comes as part and parcel of Filipino life. It speaks both about their uniqueness and diversity as a people. Most regions or provinces are known for one or several types of food or for the distinctive taste of their home-cooked food.
Bicolanos for example are known for a variety of food preparations that go with lots of chili and other spices. People from Northerm Luzon take pride in pinakbet (mixed vegetables) and in their exotic menu. In Central Luzon, delicious confections and kakanin (snack foods and sweets) are hard to resist. The rest of Luzon and Tagalog region are known for their spicy kaldereta and kare-kare (meat and entrails with vegetables and many other spices), paksiw and adobo (fish and meat boiled with vinegar, among other ingredients).
In the Visayas and Mindanao, food preparations with coconut milk are common. Also in many parts of the country and Visayas in particular, occasions like birthdays, weddings, baptisms, family reunions and the like do not seem complete without lechon or roasted pig or roasted chicken.
Statistics have been shown that the more well off people are, chances are higher that wheat-based bread, instead of rice, becomes the staple food. But in the Philipinnes and wherever Filipinos may be found abroad, an ordinary Filipino meal would basically still consist of fish and rice. The essence of this menu has sustained Filipinos for generations after generations. A dish with rice and fish, along with other sets of menu perfected in various parts of the country, is what makes it Filipino.

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