Skip to main content

Breakfast on the Island: Rice and more Rice

Filipinos are people with a big appetite. Average, people on the island eat five times a day. It all starts with breakfast over a snack around 10 am to keep them going till lunch. A merienda, or afternoon snack, will bridge lunch to dinner.

Filipinos are fervent rice eaters and have with a consumption of 118 kilos per capita/year(babies and children included) on of the highest consumption in Asia. Rice is ‘the’ staple food for breakfast, lunch and dinner but also for a lot of snacks they eat between the meals.

A basic breakfast is simple: rice, egg sunny side up or scrambled and soy sauce. Next to rice Filipinos are huge egg eaters and consume minimum one egg a day. A lot of mamas buy eggs with a complete tray at the time.

Talking to the locals I found out that the most popular breakfast is rice with bulad (fried dried fish) eaten with vinegar and fried egg. The fried fish is salty, the vinegar sour and they accompany this breakfast with hot chocolate made of local Tablea, pure cocoa.

Why is this breakfast so popular? 

I think there are several reasons. First this breakfast dish combines the favorite tastes of the Filipino: the salty crispy fried fish, the vinegar (here on the island most people use the local ‘tuba’, fermented juice they tap from the coconut trees), the egg and... it is cheap.

Popular also is fried rice (the leftover rice of the day before fried with salt and garlic) with fried egg and corned beef sautéed with onions. Sometimes small potato cubes are added. Children like also to eat rice with fried egg and hotdog before going to school.

For those who have some extra money, they will buy longanisa (a sweet version of chorizo) or tocino (pork meat cured with sugar). The meats are fried in oil and together with a fried egg, rice and some soy sauce. A luxury breakfast!


Note that the bulad, the corn beef, the hotdog, tocino or longaniza are not the star of the breakfast, a status reserved for the rice. It is common that adults eat 150 to 200 grams of cooked rice for breakfast. All the other breakfast elements are ‘side dishes’.

On rainy days champorado is also a favorite on the breakfast table. A rice porridge with tablea chocolate, a breakfast dish all kids, but also their mamas and papas, like much.

In the more urban centers there are Filipinos who are eating bread for breakfast too. The ‘national’ bread is pandasal (bread from salt) and is sold really early morning and eaten nearly straight out of the oven with coffee. But for people whom live in the countryside where there are no bakeshops, pandasal is not a regular breakfast option!

In the cities there are the fast-food giants such as McDonalds or Jollibee, the Filipino answer on American fast food. Both are offering their special breakfast menus. But also on these breakfast options you find the classics: longanisa, corned beef, hotdog all served with rice and egg. Most popular breakfast drink with these breakfast are coffee and hot cocoa. Next to the traditional dishes they offer also the Americanized breakfast like sandwiches with a patty and egg offered with hash brown and a hot drink. And don’t forget the pancakes with butter and a load of syrup!

And my breakfast on the island? 

Even after all those years rice is not really my thing for every day, surely not for breakfast. 

I stay with my toasted baguette with butter and coffee. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My Grandma's Kitchen

My mom always told me that it was exceptionally cold for the time of the year that day in March when I was born 61 years ago. I was the first born in the family and the first grandchild. Both my parents were teachers, my mom teaching French language and my dad applied economics. Both in the same school were I would spend 14 years of my young life, from kindergarten over elementary till my high school graduation when I was 18. Detail, I got French class from my mom during 3 years and two years my dad was my economics and finance teacher. You can imagine how adventurous my high school days were (except for meeting my girlfriend when we were 16 and got married 7 years later). My grandmother, (the mother of my dad) was a World War 2 widow and lived with us taking care of the house and, most important, of the kitchen till the day she, suddenly, passed away in March 1969 only 61 years old. My grandma had a huge impact on the developing of my taste and on how to experience food. ...

Martino

Every country has their famous ‘national’ sandwich. The Americans have their burgers and hotdogs, the French are very proud on their Croque Monsieur, a baked sandwich with cheese and ham, and their fresh baguettes with ham, the famous 'jambon beurre' , the Italians like their Panini as the Vietnamese have their favorite Banh Mi sandwich. And the Belgians have their Martino sandwich. "Invented" in 1951 by a former soccer player, Albert De Hert, who was running the small sandwich bar named  Quick at the famous De Coninckplein in Antwerp.  The story goes that one evening another soccer player nicknamed ‘Martino’, came in after drinking obviously a few beers too much and asked for a sandwich with ‘everything’ and it had to be spicy. In the kitchen Albert got a half baguette, spread it with ‘filet americain’ (minced raw beef mixed with mayonnaise, mustard, some capers, pepper and salt) and topped it with minced onion, chopped pickles, tabasco sauce, some ket...