So why is a Filipina writing about Soul Food?

Traveled across the country to attend the 50th Anniversary March on Washington last Saturday. Met some nice people and connected with old friends. Went to visit someone in Maryland and stopped at a popular soul food restaurant that had been started by a Black family and then sold to the Korean family that now runs it. did a lot of thinking, lot of talking. decided to write about some of my reasons for writing this blog.

let me start by saying that Black folks and Filipinos have an association that goes back a long, long, long time.

First off, the original inhabitants of the Philippines were Black people, and they may have arrived as many as 90,000 years ago. Historically, they were collectively referred to as Negritos, because of their small stature. Genetically, they are related to the aborigines of places like Australia, New Guinea and Micronesia. They suffered terrible discrimination from the successive waves of non-Black immigrants and there are maybe 30,000 today, living mostly in isolated villages. With the compulsive adoration of light skin in the Philippines (no surprise after hundreds of years of Spanish and American occupation), the main reason that the indigenous  societies have survived more or less intact is the reluctance of the non-Black Filipinos to intermarry with them.

Black and Filipino in what is now the United States also goes back a lot farther than you might think. The first Filipino settlement in North America started in the 18th Century. From 1565 to 1815, Spain ran the “Galleon Trade” between its colonies in the Philippines and Mexico. In 1763, a group of Filipino sailors jumped ship in the Americas and made their way to Louisiana. Along with groups of escaped African slaves, the Manila Men (as they came to be called) settled in the bayous, where they could hide from the Spanish. In 1784 a group of enslaved Africans escaped into the marshes. Their leader, Jean Saint Malo, was eventually captured and hanged. The principal settlement of Manila Men, St. Malo, was named for the leader of the rebellion. The Filipino settlers made a living fishing and shrimping and intermarried with local women. Because of the harsh living conditions in their bayou settlements, the families of the Manila Men generally lived in town, and there are records of their children being enrolled in schools in New Orleans.

For my family, Black and Filipino starts the day my dad stepped off the boat in Portland, Oregon in 1926. The United States won the Spanish-American War in 1898, making the Philippines a U.S. colony. And one of the principal resources that the U.S. wanted to exploit was the potential pool of cheap labor. But rather than using violence to bring the Filipinos here, the Americans resorted to trickery. One of the first actions of the U.S. government was to send a ship full of teachers to the islands. They set up schools and created a curriculum (all in English), and taught young Filipinos that America was land of opportunity. All they needed was to get here, and then they would be able to go to college, get their degrees in medicine or law, and then return to their homeland as successful professionals.

My dad and thousands of other young Filipinos believed the lies of their teachers. Their families saved up the price for the ticket and shipped them to America. My father left behind his mother, father, siblings, and a young wife and infant son.

I will always remember his story about arriving in Portland. Along with his shipmates, he was dressed in his Sunday best and full of dreams. But they were met at the boat by a labor contractor. The men were packed into the backs of open trucks and told they were going to go and eat. When they arrived at a small café, they went inside and my father said that when he looked around, all he saw were Black and brown faces. It was at that moment that he knew the future that was in store for him – he got a job in a sawmill and then went on to become a migrant worker and eventually, with other Filipino pioneers, he organized the farmworkers union and then became the business agent for the Alaska cannery workers and a member of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union.

Black and Filipino really started involving me, personally, in the ninth grade. I transferred to a mostly-Black junior high school and joined the Black Student Union. Membership in the BSU was open to any Black student at the school and, as a brown person, pretty much everyone accepted me into the group. My friends may correct me, but I’m fairly sure I was the only non-Black member. By contrast, the established Filipino community organizations were closed to me, in part because my father’s militant unionism had frightened away many in the community, and partly because I was personally not acceptable, being only “half” Filipino.

I grew up in a very segregated city at a time when Black activists, like the Black Panther Party, were challenging racism and calling for Black Power and Black Pride. Because of my mother’s race and my light complexion, I had the opportunity shared by many mixed people – would I continue to seek acceptance by the white world in which my mother had raised me, or would I finally accept that I was a woman of color? It took me a while (some years in fact) to realize where I really belonged, but, in the end, I made what I believe was the only reasonable choice. I think i finally realized that my friends didn’t HAVE a choice. So I gave up any claim to white privilege, and threw in my lot with the one community that had always welcomed me.

Beef Heart My Way

i see that Andrew Zimmern is talking about beef heart. heart is pretty different in the pig and the cow. I like to cook pork hearts like the tongues -- boil first, cool, cut into small bits, and then braise for a little while with vegetables. in the Philippines this is a dish called bopis. it’s a good introduction to organ meats as it doesn’t have the strong, bloody, minerally flavor found in a lot of beef offal. but i have worked out a method of cooking beef heart that produces such a nice finished product, i’ve served it successfully to people who would have never in their lives have volunteered to eat it. I just say it’s “beef” and leave it at that.

Beef heart isn’t as cheap as it used to be (what is?), but when cooked properly, it’s still an economical way to serve lean beef.

and it’s simple! take a whole or half beef heart. season with salt, black and red pepper, garlic powder and paprika. put in a slow cooker with ¼ cup of water and ¼ cup of soy sauce or shoyu. cover and cook on low for a long, long time - at least 8 hours. it should be very, very tender.

Now comes the really important part . . . let the heart cool to room temperature. using your hands and a paring knife, cut and pull away every bit that isn’t heart muscle. that includes the fat, the connective tissue, the valves and the blood vessels. you will have to pull the heart into pieces to get at all of the bits that get discarded. while you’re doing this, separate the muscle fibers into strands -- like shredding roast pork. you can save the extra bits to add to a stockpot or you can give them to the dogs. that leaves you with a pile of tender lean beef. sprinkle it with a little shoyu or fish sauce and eat with rice, or heat it in a skillet with a few peppers and onions and then put into a tortilla or sandwich. yum!

Dealing with Live Crabs

so you took my advice and went to the Asian store to buy some live crabs. around here that probably means dungeness. first thing you need to remember is . . . they’re alive. i will never forget the first time i drove home with a bag of live dungeness crabs in the trunk. i kept hearing this scritching sound and finally realized it was the crabs scrabbling around in the bag. kinda creepy. but i wanted to eat fresh crab.

once you get the critters home, you have to figure out how to cook them. don’t know if you are like me, but i am a little squeamish about wriggling crab legs - they make me think of giant spiders. so here’s my secret. put the stopper in the sink and fill it with warm water - not hot hot but warmer than lukewarm. now dump the crabs from the bag directly into the sink. the warm water will put them to sleep and they won’t struggle when you get ready to put them into the pot. i still use metal tongs to pick them up, but they don’t wiggle.

my daughter says i should tell the story about when we were cooking gumbo at her godmother’s house in the Bronx and one of the blue crabs got out of the bag and crawled behind the fridge. we had to move the whole thing to get it back. another reason to anesthetize them in a sink of warm water.  

when it’s time to cook them, i just put the crabs into a big pot with about an inch of  water in the bottom and turn on the heat to medium. once the steam starts escaping i cook them for 15 minutes. little less for small crabs; maybe a little longer for really huge ones. then take them off the heat, take off the lid, and let them cool.

when i was a kid we cracked and cleaned crab using a cutting board, a hammer, and our teeth. frankly, the teeth are still the best tools in my opinion, except for the really hard claws. but for company i got a bunch of crab crackers and little crab picks. did i get them from some fancy kitchen store? of course not. i got inexpensive ones from an Asian supermarket.

 

maybe you just want to eat some crab so you can crack and eat as you go. or maybe you want to make something with the crabmeat so you crack it all at once.

but whatever you do, please save all of the juice that comes out of the crabs. if there is some creamy fat in the back shell, save all of that. but even if the crabs don’t have any fat, the greenish yellowish water that collects at the bottom of the cooking pot and the leftover shells is full of wonderful crabby flavor. and sometimes there are some white squiggly bits - i have a feeling they’re crab sperm but i save them too. 

so do whatever you want with the crabmeat and stay tuned and i’ll share some ideas for what to do with the crab fat and crab juice.

Buying Seafood in Seattle (the not-for-tv version)

let’s talk about seafood.  after all, the Pacific Northwest is famous for it and Seattle is full of famous fish markets. who hasn’t seen the salmon flying at Pike Place Market - at least on TV if not in person?  boozhie supermarkets in the suburbs have fish counters that can compete with specialty seafood stores.   trendy restaurants and the foodie crowds all have their preferred sources.

when i was a kid in the Central Area, we bought our fish at Mutual Fish on 14th Avenue. When they moved to Rainier, i followed them, because back then there weren’t that many places to buy really good seafood.

but nowadays, i buy my fresh seafood at Asian markets. and i’m not talking Uwajimaya. I’m talking SOUTH END. you know. i remember telling one of my daughters that i was going to buy live dungeness crabs at Viet Wah (a local Vietnamese-owned chain of supermarkets) and she asked if i was confident they were fresh. i make no recommendations about the stuff on ice -- you have to be careful and know how to judge if something is fresh enough. but when it comes to the live selections, my answer is: “they’re alive. you really can’t get any fresher than that.”

besides live crab, Viet Wah always has live shrimp, manila clams, oysters, lobsters and tilapia. depending on the season, you might also find live mussels, cockles, snails frogs, turtles, geoducks and blue crabs. and one time there was this enormous grouper-like creature that filled a whole tank -- must’ve been a special order.

then there is Ranch 99 market in the Great Wall shopping mall in Kent -- it’s part of a West Coast chain. they have an even bigger live selection, with dozens of different kinds of fish swimming in separate tanks.

and, justifying its name, Seafood City (which attracts a lot of Filipinos) in Southcenter has a huge seafood section -- both fresh and frozen. And don’t forget H-Mart in Federal Way. Their primary focus is Korean food but they have a pan-Asian clientele

Not only do the large Asian markets offer a selection of live seafood, but they can prepare it for you in many different ways -- from simple cleaning to fileting to deep frying on the spot. the prices are usually posted for each level of service. sometimes the signs aren’t in English, but don’t let that stop you. Most store employees speak at least enough English to communicate with customers and there are always gestures. and, if you are having language problems, you can always find another customer who will be willing to help. just ask . . .

Pass the Johnny's

I have a lot of different kinds of salt in my kitchen. i use store brand iodized salt for baking. i also keep regular Japanese sea salt in a shaker and some Himalayan pink salt in a grinder.  and one of my daughters gave me some different specialty salts for Christmas one year - they are in little tiny bottles and you can only serve them on cold foods, so they are set aside for special occasions.
 
but one of the advantages of living in the Pacific Northwest is (ta-da) JOHNNY’S SEASONING SALT. Thick granules of salt, with just the right amounts of cracked black pepper, paprika, garlic, other seasonings. they make it with or without MSG.

so does salt really make that much difference? if you have to ask that question, then i would venture to suggest that you are not using enough seasoning in your food. most of the time when a dish is underseasoned, the first thing to check is if it has enough salt.

now it’s true that there are other kinds of seasoning salt. there’s Lawry’s, which is a national brand and it’s cheaper than Johnny’s and available everywhere, but i would argue that it’s still worth it to use the best, which in my opinion is the Johnny's. of course you could try some frufru “gourmet” seasoning salt or some organic better-for-your-health herbal salt, but either of those would undoubtedly cost more and i very much doubt if either would be better. so please -- if you use salt -- do yourself a favor and try Johnny’s. either make friends with someone from Seattle and ask them to send you some, or go online and order it direct from the company that makes it.  Johnny's Fine Foods

and if i list “Johnny’s” as an ingredient in a recipe, then please understand that your dish may not taste the same without it.

The Bits: Part 1 - Tongue

i find it amusing (and sometimes a little irritating) when the cheftestants on cooking “reality” shows are presented with a challenge involving a microwave. They usually act like they (a) have never seen one; (b) wouldn’t be caught dead using one; and (c) believe that the only legitimate use for a microwave (and that’s only for non-foodie types) is making popcorn or heating water for tea.

I’m not that siditty (look it up) and, as busy as most people are nowadays, i consider things like microwaves and crockpots and countertop roasters and pressure cookers to be labor-saving devices that help ordinary people (like me) continue to cook real food at home.  don’t get me wrong -- i’m not going to advocate that you turn some shrimp into rubber by nuking them.  But in this and future posts, i will unapologetically suggest when one of the aforementioned appliances might be used.  (Well, except for the countertop roaster because i don’t have one of those.)

Now, about “The Bits.”

I was fortunate to grow up during a time when poor people still mostly cooked everything from scratch.  I learned from my parents and their friends and, as i grew older, anyone who would let me hang out in their kitchen.  we grew up eating whatever was cheap, which was mostly the parts of the animals that that were left over after non-broke people bought what they could afford.

Pork Tongues

Taquitos de lengua have been around for a long time before they were “discovered” by food truck aficionados.  And the tongue in those taquitos has traditionally been pork.  Pork tongues are small and very tender and you can find them in Asian or Mexican markets, if your local chain supermarket doesn’t carry them.  They also are cheaper and faster to cook than beef tongue, but they don’t taste as strong so they need to be cooked with methods that will preserve and supplement the mild flavor.  One method is to start by putting them in cold water, bringing it to the boil, and then simmering for 25 minutes.  Then i chill the tongues, cut them into strips, and briefly saute the strips of meat with aromatic vegetables (onions, garlic, peppers, carrots, seasonings, etc.).  Then you can eat the lengua with rice or tortillas, or stuff it into a baguette and make banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches, very popular with all kinds of people in Seattle).  

The stove-top recipe produces a chewy texture in the strips of tongue.  if you don’t mind a softer end product, you can try my slow-cooker version.  put the tongues (they usually come two-three in a package) in the crockpot.  Season with salt, black and red pepper, garlic, and some paprika.  add one tablespoon of water.  cook on low heat for about six hours, then chill overnight.  i scrape off any congealed fat, and i save the defatted broth to use in soup.  i like to slice the tongues and eat the slices cold with dijon mustard.  my oldest daughter warms a few slices in the microwave and eats them with rice. hot or cold, they make a nice sandwich, too.

Tongue of Cow

once you have dipped your toes into the water and tried the pork tongues, you’re ready to jump into the deep end and try some cow tongue.  When i was a kid, beef tongue was cheap.  it’s not anymore, but it’s still wonderful and once in a while i will spring for one, just because it’s so delicious.  Remember, there isn’t very much fat on a cow tongue and there aren’t any bones, so you aren’t really paying for much that you aren’t going to eat.  BTW, my youngest daughter says she prefers pork tongue to beef, because she doesn’t like seeing any taste buds.

take the cow tongue out of the package and rinse it. put it in a big pot and cover with cold water.  add aromatic vegetables if you like -- carrot, onion, celery and garlic are all good.  You can go with warm seasonings like turmeric or cardamom, too.  make sure you put at least a teaspoon of salt into the water.  i usually add black and red pepper.  

now bring the whole thing to a boil and then immediately turn it down.  simmer for at least two-and-a-half hours (sometimes three).  if you stick a knife into the thickest part, the knife should go in easily and the liquid should come out clear (not bloody).  turn off the pot and let the whole thing sit for 30 minutes.

now comes the only tricky part.  fill a another pot or a big bowl with ice water and use a LOT of ice. use some tongs or a big fork and take the tongue out of the cooking broth and put it straight into the ice water.  as soon as it feels cool enough to handle, peel off the white, leathery skin that covers most of the tongue.  if it feels too hot, put it back into the ice water for a few more minutes. the skin has the consistency of leather, but dogs love it (or just put it in the compost).  it’s best if you let the tongue cool completely (but don’t put it back in the water).  at this point i usually refrigerate it overnight.

and now the fun begins.  you can slice it for sandwiches or cut it up into sticks or cubes and warm it in a saute pan with onions and seasonings.  you can put it into gravy and serve it over rice or with steamed potatoes.  i know there is a famous Russian salad that is cold tongue with onions and sour cream, but i haven’t tried to make it yet.  you could chop it into bits and make pasties.