There’s the sight of the colourful unfold. The sounds of laughing mates and the crunch of crispy lechón pores and skin. The scent of garlic wafting above the sinangag. And the complicated, contrasting tastes and textures dancing in your tongue. Welcome to kamayan, the Filipino feast that stimulates the senses—particularly the carnal, intuitive one many Western meals overlook: contact.
Kamayan (from kamay, “hand,” in Filipino) refers back to the pre-colonial custom of consuming with out cutlery. Sixteenth-century Italian scholar and explorer Antonio Pigafetta, who documented Philippine historical past through the Magellan expedition, famous that natives used wood spoons for serving and cooking—however not for consuming.
These days, kamayan is synonymous with a communal feast of rice, grilled or roasted meats, seafood, and fruit, all laid atop a banana leaf-lined desk, ground, or floor. The bounty is usually loved on seashore outings or at residence on particular events comparable to birthdays. Immediately, Filipino American cooks are bringing the custom into their eating places.
Chef Lordfer Lalicon, who helms 2024 James Beard Award-finalist Kaya in Orlando, Florida, likes that kamayan partakers are basically compelled to place their telephones down. “You’re consuming collectively, you’re speaking collectively. You are able to do nothing however benefit from the meals in entrance of you as a result of you may’t contact anything,” he laughs. “You’re enthralled.”
The feast is usually a household affair, however any strangers shortly get acquainted digging into the identical pile of meals. “Consuming with our arms grounds us and creates a extra intimate reference to the substances,” says Eric Valdez, govt chef and associate at Filipino restaurant Naks in New York Metropolis, which provides a kamayan tasting menu. He provides, “The style adjustments … You are feeling the substances extra, and the emotion coming from the meals.”
The hands-on format is usually intimidating for these extra accustomed to consuming with cutlery. However there’s a methodology to what could seem to be insanity. Yana Gilbuena-Babu, chef and founding father of SALO Sequence, a 50-week, 50-state kamayan pop-up, explains, “There’s etiquette in eating along with your arms. It’s not simply shoveling meals into your mouth.”
Gilbuena-Babu created the SALO Sequence to each reclaim her tradition and share Filipino delicacies with others at its most conventional and accessible. Till just lately, she recollects, many within the meals trade had been in search of to “elevate” Filipino meals. “That form of rubbed me the fallacious means,” she says. “While you say you need to elevate one thing, it connotes an inferiority to one thing else. I don’t need to elevate Filipino delicacies. I might somewhat rejoice it.”
Whereas some check with kamayan as a “boodle battle,” contributors aren’t purported to tussle for his or her meal. In accordance with Gilbuena-Babu, the transfer is to “choose, pack, push.” You choose up some rice and the dish you need to strive. Then, you pack every little thing right into a ball utilizing your fingers (not your palms) and push it into your mouth. Etiquette dictates that your fingers ought to by no means go your lips. Some diners designate one hand for consuming, and the opposite as a “serving spoon,” or to carry a plate or a drink.
Kaya co-owner and common supervisor Jamilyn Salonga-Bailey agrees with Gilbuena-Babu’s strategy and sometimes persuades hesitant diners to ditch utensils, which she feels take kamayan contributors out of the expertise they signed up for. It’s essential, says Salonga-Bailey, to “launch the stigma of getting to eat ‘correctly’ in line with Western requirements.”
The significance of kamayan additionally lies in its historic resilience. As completely different international locations laid declare to the Philippines over the centuries, spoons and forks had been launched, and the very existence of this conventional meal was beneath risk. “It suffered some erasure,” says Gilbuena-Babu. “We had been made to assume that we had been savages or uncivilized.”
Nonetheless, Filipinos preserved the apply via greater than 300 years of Spanish rule, practically 50 years of U.S. colonization, and three years of Japanese occupation. Whether or not diners understand it or not, kamayan is an act of anticolonial resistance. Listed below are some suggestions for channeling that spirit in your personal residence.
As an alternative of plates and utensils, line a clear floor with butcher paper or newspaper, then lay banana leaves on high. The leaves can be found frozen or contemporary at many Asian, Latin American, and African grocery shops.
The one non-negotiable at any Filipino feast is rice. Place steaming mounds at varied intervals for straightforward entry. Any plain rice is ok, however many Filipinos will let you know that sinangag, crispy garlic rice, is a should.
Take into account dishes friends can seize simply, comparable to marinated meats, pan-fried fish, lumpia (fried spring rolls), skewers (candy pork barbecue is at all times successful), and grilled squid or prawns.
Steamed bok choy and inexperienced beans are at all times a good suggestion, as are greens cooked in coconut milk. Sliced contemporary fruit—mangoes, pineapple, and tomatoes, as an example—up the visible enchantment.
It’s enjoyable to serve quite a lot of sawsawan (dipping sauces) and different salty, acidic, and spicy accouterments (comparable to toyomansi). Conventional condiments embody vinegars; soy sauce; fish sauce; contemporary calamansi (or bottled calamansi juice); and uncooked chiles, onions, and garlic. Some additionally wish to put out bottles of candy, tangy Mang Tomas pork liver sauce and umami-packed Maggi seasoning, or extra elaborate accompaniments comparable to atchara (pickled inexperienced papaya relish) or bagoóng (deeply funky fermented shrimp paste).
