Opinion | Is Philippines’ adobo recipe debacle akin to spats over Italy’s pizza, Spain’s paella?
- Filipinos are ridiculing officials over their plans to pin down a recipe for adobo, a dish that virtually every family has a different take on
- But while the ingredients people choose to use may differ, the best version of adobo is cooked just the way you like it
The Philippines has a national bird, national flower, national costume, but no official national dish. Foreigners are likely to associate “Jollibee” with Filipinos, while locals would cite adobo as one of the country’s most famous dishes.
The meal – which typically features pork or chicken with garlic and peppercorns, marinated and simmered in soy sauce and vinegar – is such a staple that many Filipino households have their own family recipes.
Which was why there was swift backlash and derision towards the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) when it said last week that it would set a standard recipe for adobo and other popular Filipino dishes to improve their global marketability.
People wondered: Doesn’t the government have better things to do than to regulate adobo? What will officials do if I don’t follow the standards – arrest me?
Jokes began surfacing on social media. One cartoon, circulated on Twitter, shows two inmates seated in a large jail cell. A menacing guy asks the weedy fellow beside him: “What you in for?” The inmate replies, “Adobo”.
The last panel of the cartoon shows the burly inmate has moved to the other side of the cell, away from the heinous food violator.
The adobo furore even sparked speculation by some people that it was a government plot to divert public attention from the latest scandals.