Adobo diplomacy: Making Filipino food global

Homemade chicken adobo. Despite its Hispanic origins, adobo is as Filipino as it can get — © BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons

FOOD is everything we are,” argued Anthony Bourdain, arguably the most influential food critic of the past half a century. “It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma.”

The great political scientist Benedict Anderson famously argued that a crucial element of nationhood – essentially, an “imagined community” – is the constellation of shared experiences. Perhaps nothing more intensely captures our sense of nationhood than our cuisine. Think of the joy we feel when foreign influencers or prominent journalists praise Filipino foods, including Jollibee meals.