AVANT GARDENER
I know I’m late to the party, but I finally had time to catch up on my TV shows during the last holiday break, and I’ve finally seen Project 8’s Replacing Chef Chico, which stars Sam Milby as the titular Chef Chico, Alessandra de Rossi as his sous chef Ella, and Piolo Pascual as Raymond, a restaurant consultant hired by Chico’s mother.
The eight-episode series revolves around the lives of the people who work in a Filipino heritage restaurant called Hain (shot in the distinctive Cafe Ysabel in San Juan), which Google says means “food set on the table,” and some of the patrons who eat there. The restaurant's conceit is that it will tailor dishes upon request, and these special dishes is what the show revolves around.
Woven in between the drama is the story of Filipino ingredients and their role in local cuisine and in the lives of the people who produce them. Each episode centers on staff drama, customer drama, and one or a few local ingredients or dishes, and it is the latter that I want to talk about.
Episode two centers on pako (fiddlehead fern), a delicious salad ingredient that is famously impossible to cultivate and can only be foraged. Hain gets its pako from Pampanga, though there are restaurants in Manila that get theirs from other places such as Gubat in Quezon City, which sources they’re from Baler. Siling labuyo is also mentioned, particularly how it is now often replaced with Taiwan chili. Hain sources their siling labuyo directly from farmers, ensuring that all profits go to them. The episode’s main food conflict centers around the dessert tibok-tibok, named after bubbles that rise and pops as the pudding cooks that resemble the rhythm of a beating heart. It has to be made with carabao’s milk, another Filipino staple that, like pako, is getting hard to find. The episode ends with Raymond asking Ella what she’s learned from Chico and she replies, “food should not be wasted.”
The third episode centers on the different ways we cook adobo, and how in the end, each one is distinctive on its own and cannot be compared to another type. It features sukang irok or sugar palm vinegar from Sta. Teresita in Batangas, made by mostly single moms and survivors of domestic violence who are part of a foundation that the restaurant regularly buys from, implying that local industries have the capability to help marginalized communities through gainful employment as well as the pride of continuing a traditional craft.
Episode four features Tinawan heirloom rice, which Ella explains is, “widely grown in the rice terraces. Grown only once a year, this heirloom rice is a big part of the Cordillera people’s lives. It has been passed down from generation to generation.”
The fifth-episode devotes a whole scene to Ella meeting a potential vegetable supplier who is assumed to be part of a farmer group that sells directly to customers. The supplier thanks Raymond for showing them that farmer groups can sell directly to buyers, thereby being able to earn more. The farmer also stated that he’s added a bit more produce than what Raymond had ordered, a nod to the time-honored suki, or regular buyer relationship many Filipinos have with their favorite wet market stall owners.
Episode six featured laing cooked three ways, including the traditional way that uses one whole taro leaf.
Incidentally, taro leaves are poisonous and should be prepared properly before cooking. If you’ve ever eaten laing and gotten a scratchy throat after, it’s probably because the leaves weren’t cleaned properly.
It also features asin tibuok from Albuquerque, Bohol shaved on top of a Filipino favorite, garlic fried rice. I’ve written about asin tibuok before, where we interviewed Zambaonga-based Monsignor Crisologo Manongas, the youngest sibling of the only family (though he mentioned that someone else has started production as well) that makes this dinosaur-egg shaped salt, which involves straining saltwater through coconut ash, resulting in a smokey flavor. Asin tibuok has been available in small quantities in the metro for a while, but prices have risen to more than double ever since the show came out. I hope that the rise in prices mean that the families producing the salt are earning more per piece, and not those unscrupulous middlemen are raising prices without benefit to the producers.
I feel that Replacing Chef Chico has done a lot to highlight traditional Filipino ingredients by making them the point of Hain, but not the point of the show. It’s a good example of why representation is important, and how there is a delicate balance between showcasing something as cool (which the show managed to do) and trying hard. I hope more popular shows and movies feature traditional Filipino ingredients, because it’s a surefire way to bring them into the limelight.