There’s the sight of the colourful unfold. The sounds of laughing pals 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 throughout the Magellan expedition, famous that natives used picket 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 commonly loved on seashore outings or at residence on particular events akin to birthdays. At the moment, 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 primarily 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’ll be able to’t contact the rest,” he laughs. “You’re enthralled.”
The feast is often 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 components,” says Eric Valdez, govt chef and companion at Filipino restaurant Naks in New York Metropolis, which gives a kamayan tasting menu. He provides, “The style adjustments … You’re feeling the components 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 technique to what might appear to be insanity. Yana Gilbuena-Babu, chef and founding father of SALO Collection, a 50-week, 50-state kamayan pop-up, explains, “There’s etiquette in eating together with your arms. It’s not simply shoveling meals into your mouth.”
Gilbuena-Babu created the SALO Collection 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 business have been in search of to “elevate” Filipino meals. “That type of rubbed me the mistaken approach,” she says. “While you say you wish to elevate one thing, it connotes an inferiority to one thing else. I don’t wish to elevate Filipino delicacies. I’d reasonably have a good time it.”
Whereas some seek advice from kamayan as a “boodle combat,” individuals aren’t alleged to tussle for his or her meal. In line with Gilbuena-Babu, the transfer is to “choose, pack, push.” You choose up some rice and the dish you wish to attempt. Then, you pack all the things 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 cross 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 method and sometimes persuades hesitant diners to ditch utensils, which she feels take kamayan individuals out of the expertise they signed up for. It’s necessary, says Salonga-Bailey, to “launch the stigma of getting to eat ‘correctly’ in accordance 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 have been launched, and the very existence of this conventional meal was below menace. “It suffered some erasure,” says Gilbuena-Babu. “We have been made to assume that we have been savages or uncivilized.”
Nonetheless, Filipinos preserved the follow by way of greater than 300 years of Spanish rule, practically 50 years of U.S. colonization, and three years of Japanese occupation. Whether or not diners notice it or not, kamayan is an act of anticolonial resistance. Listed here are some suggestions for channeling that spirit in your personal residence.
As a substitute of plates and utensils, line a clear floor with butcher paper or newspaper, then lay banana leaves on prime. 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 numerous intervals for simple entry. Any plain rice is okay, however many Filipinos will let you know that sinangag, crispy garlic rice, is a should.
Contemplate dishes visitors can seize simply, akin to marinated meats, pan-fried fish, lumpia (fried spring rolls), skewers (candy pork barbecue is all the time successful), and grilled squid or prawns.
Steamed bok choy and inexperienced beans are all the time a good suggestion, as are greens cooked in coconut milk. Sliced contemporary fruit—mangoes, pineapple, and tomatoes, for example—up the visible attraction.
It’s enjoyable to serve quite a lot of sawsawan (dipping sauces) and different salty, acidic, and spicy accouterments (akin 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 akin to atchara (pickled inexperienced papaya relish) or bagoóng (deeply funky fermented shrimp paste).
