Final October, the Meals and Drug Administration issued an import alert on beloved Filipino condiments, together with Jufran Banana Sauce, Mang Tomas All-Function Sauce, and UFC Ginisang Bagoong, after figuring out potassium iodate—an iodine complement allowed within the Philippines however banned as a meals additive within the U.S.—on their labels. Since any new, reformulated merchandise could be caught in customs awaiting approval, panic-buying of accessible inventory shortly emptied grocery cabinets. On-line, costs soared. A Filipino chef in Philadelphia was shocked to search out bagoong—a fermented seafood paste that usually sells for lower than $4 a jar—going for $49.99 per two-pack at Walmart.com. In the meantime, a Reddit person in Guam, a U.S. territory, provided a hefty $250 reward for a bottle of Mang Tomas, the beloved garlicky-sweet gravy that often accompanies lechón and usually retails for round $3 a bottle. Amid the snarky replies, somebody known as his bluff: “I can get you as many as 5 bottles. DM me in case you are useless critical.”
Such exorbitant bounties for such humble condiments—sawsawan, as they’re identified in Tagalog—underscore their significance to the diaspora. A 2023 research within the Journal of Ethnic Meals places it plainly: “[Sawsawan] defend historic flavors and native customs that give communities and households a lot satisfaction and pleasure.” However with mass manufacturing and shelf-stable formulations, these ready-made condiments could seem at odds with custom. Do they really belong to Filipino foodways as a lot because the heritage recipes they developed from?
“What’s nostalgic to you can be what’s genuine to you,” says Carlo Lamagna, chef-owner of Magna Kusina in Portland, Oregon, and Magna Kainan in Denver, who gave a 2020 TED Speak on authenticity in delicacies. “For a lot of Filipinos, these condiments are benchmarks as a result of they grew up with them.” Contemplating kimchi, miso, and harissa are additionally industrially produced cultural meals that convey consolation to diasporic communities, sawsawan are in good firm.
“Our condiments join Filipinos [living abroad] to the Philippines—generally much more than really going to the Philippines,” says Richard Rebollido, a global enterprise supervisor at Manila-based NutriAsia, the producer of Jufran, Mang Tomas, and UFC merchandise. “They supply a complete gastronomic expertise that offers our dishes third and fourth dimensions.” Sawsawan are very versatile that manner: Sautéing garlic and onions with bagoong mellows its funk and deepens its umami. Mixing Sprite, patis (fish sauce), and garlic into banana sauce—a lush and tangy, glossy-red “ketchup,” because it’s extra typically known as, born from bananas as a stand-in for tomatoes—creates a barbecue glaze that caramelizes fantastically over sizzling coals. A spritz of calamansi juice brightens a mix of toyo (Filipino soy sauce) and Mang Tomas, making a tasty, tenderizing marinade for pork or hen.
An early instance of the diaspora’s deep hankering for sawsawan dates again to Philippine nationwide hero José Rizal, whose writings fueled the nation’s late-Nineteenth-century revolution in opposition to Spain. Legend has it that in 1883, his household in Manila despatched him a jar of bagoong by boat to Madrid, the place he was a medical pupil eager for the acquainted flavors of dwelling. However in keeping with The New York Instances, “it broke on the ship, releasing its pungent scent and, reportedly, terrifying the passengers.”
Greater than 150 years later, a lot of the Filipino diaspora in America is experiencing an identical craving, ready for the bottlenecked provide chain to ease. Rebollido confirms that NutriAsia’s reformulated merchandise, which swap potassium iodate for plain desk salt with none obvious change in taste, are progressively clearing customs. However for specialty outlets like Manila Mart, a well-liked grocery-café in Beltsville, Maryland, shipments are irregular at greatest. Proprietor Toni-Rose Bioc says, “Two weeks in the past, we had banana ketchup, and now we don’t—it’s already bought out.”
Naturally, the present limbo between scarcity and provide has impressed newfound creativity within the kitchen. Bioc has been making her personal all-purpose sauce with a recipe from Bulacan, her mom’s dwelling province within the Philippines, utilizing roasted kabocha squash, brown sugar, and Sukang Iloco cane vinegar. The unique Nineteen Fifties recipe for Mang Tomas—created by Tomas De Los Reyes, a lechonero in Quezon Metropolis who wished a signature sawsawan to set his enterprise other than different lechonerías round city—owed its unctuousness to pork liver. As Bioc cheekily factors out in an Instagram reel the place she pits her velvety vegetarian home sauce, with its honeyed notes and mild acidity, in opposition to right this moment’s breadcrumb-thickened Mang Tomas, “there’s no liver in there both.” She’s proper—NutriAsia eliminated liver from its worldwide merchandise in 2017.
In the case of Lamagna’s scratch-made banana ketchup, sure omitted substances align with the condiment’s sustainability roots. His model, made out of roasted bananas, will get the trademark hue from annatto powder—not tomato paste or industrial meals dyes. At his eating places, the chef pairs Filipino hen barbecue or tortang talong, a grilled eggplant omelet, along with his DIY sauce, an ode to meals chemist Maria Orosa’s unique banana ketchup recipe from the Thirties. Created as an answer to meals shortages within the Philippines, a tropical archipelago the place bananas thrive however tomatoes don’t, banana ketchup turned particularly necessary throughout World Warfare II.
For Chris Mauricio, chef and co-owner of Filipino restaurant Harana Market within the Hudson Valley, honoring that historical past is crucial. “Once I dive into recipes, I like understanding the place they got here from, their function, and their unique substances. Bringing that information into the current is a manner of sharing tradition,” says Mauricio, who had been rationing the restaurant’s stockpiled Jufran Scorching & Spicy Banana Sauce for the reason that import alert. Earlier this 12 months, they emptied the final bottles right into a particular batch of Tremendous Sarap Spaghetti—a “bolognese” spin on the uniquely sweet-and-savory, sizzling dog-studded Filipino pasta dish. If any singular sawsawan has the potential to succeed in the worldwide acclaim of Sriracha or Kewpie mayo, Mauricio believes it might be banana ketchup: “It’s nice with fries and hen tenders, and makes a killer burger sauce.” Say no extra.
If banana ketchup represents reinvention, then bagoong is pure preservation, with the penetrating pungency and briny, salty funk to show it. Oakland-based chef Yana Gilbuena, creator of No Forks Given: Recipes + Reminiscences of a Touring Filipino Chef (2019), as soon as described bagoong as “the X-factor in our meals.”
In lowland areas of the Philippines, bagoong substances range from shrimp to anchovies to oysters, however within the highlands, a fermented pork model known as pinayt serves an identical position. “My palate acknowledges that gamey, salty, umami in soup,” wrote culinary historian Raymond A. Macapagal in his 2018 essay, “Is This the Bagoong of the Mountains?” By any identify, bagoong simply cuts via wealthy dishes like kare-kare, an oxtail stew thickened with peanut butter; or Bicol specific, a spicy coconut milk-braised pork dish.
Since historically making bagoong at dwelling would require salted fermentation to happen in sun-warmed earthen jars for as much as 90 days—grounds for a possible NIMBY protest—some cooks and meals influencers have tried workarounds to tide over wanton cravings. As an example, Instagram and TikTok creator @NinongRy crafted a wok-simmered dupe utilizing extra accessible Thai shrimp paste, which is denser, chalkier, and saltier than its Filipino counterpart. He provides a jar of the grayish spackle to a few kilos of scorching pork jowl, palmfuls of sugar and minced garlic, some hen schmaltz, plus a bag of desiccated coconut for texture, cooking the combination down till it’s darkish, pulpy, and verging on umami overload—a passable backup for bagoong correct.
If this disruption within the Filipino condiment continuum has confirmed something, it’s that the bottled requirements reign over coronary heart and residential. James Beard Award-winner Lord Maynard Llera, of Kuya Lord, additionally attests to their lasting rule. “I grew up with them. You possibly can’t take away these flavors from me,” he says. From intently guarded recipes, Llera prepares banana-berry ketchup and an all-purpose sauce from hen livers and date vinegar at his Los Angeles eatery, however he nonetheless hopes that household and pals visiting from the Philippines will arrive bearing the elusive store-bought condiments. “Despite the fact that I make my very own sauces, clients nonetheless ask for Mang Tomas.”
