I am teaching Cultural Anthropology in our seminary and so I thought I would explain a couple of aspects of the subject through the use of a Filipino Breakfast.
This morning right before class I had a very classic Filipino breakfast. Although there are many different variations of what constitutes a Filipino breakfast, this certainly constitutes one.
- Siningag
- Sawsawan
- Coffee
- Guyabano
- Fried Spam
Let’s consider each one as to what it is and how it fits into culture.
#1. Siningag. This is essentially fried rice. It’s roots are deep in Filipino culture as well as breakfast. It is typical, traditionally, to have rice every meal. However, by the next morning, the rice that was cooked the day before is losing some of its vitality. The most common way to deal with old rice is to fry it in oil as well as some onion and garlic. The roots of Siningag are deep in Filipino culture.
#2. Sawsawan can be thought of like a condiment for food. It can vary. Later in the day if you go to a restaurant for a typical “Rice Toppings” you may be given a tiny dish with a calamansi (small Filipino citrus), a thai chili pepper, and a shared bottle of soy sauce. One combines them together to make a spicy “toyomansi” (soy sauce and calamansi joice combination). For breakfast, it may be more common to have the type of sawsawan that I had. This is diced tomato with sliced onion and garlic with soy sauce. The mixture goes great with fried rice. Although this type of sawsawan has deep roots, it borrows some from outside. Tomatoes are orginially from the Americas and came to the Philippines through the Spanish. Soy Sauce came through Chinese traders.
#3. Coffee is well embedded in Filipino culture. Living in Benguet province we grow a LOT of coffee here ranging from very smooth to very ummm…. LESS smooth (to put it nicely). Yet coffee is not originally in the Philippines. It comes from East Africa through Arab traders (or Arab traders and the Spanish… not quite sure).
#4. Guyabano is a wonderful fruit with the unfortunate English name “soursop.” It grows all over the Philippines and is commonly eaten fresh or (better yet) served as a fruit shake. However, it is originally from Americas and (again) comes to the Philippines via the Spanish.
#5. Fried Spam is a wonderful addition to breakfast. Actually, Spam is very expensive now in the Philippines, so my wife and I had a Korean version of the same basic product. People may be tempted to say that Spam is not a traditional Filipino food. However, it is. The Philippines, along with Hawaii, are among a very few number of places where it is culturally acceptable to admit, non-ironically, that one loves Spam. A common form of breakfast here are the “-Silog” breakfasts. “Silog” is a combination of “Si” in sinangag (fried rice) and itlog (egg, or in this case, fried egg). <In fact, the most un-Filipino aspect of my breakfast was that I did not have an egg with it.> So if one wants to have these two with longanisa, one has a “Longsilog.” If one wants to change out the sausage with tocino, one orders a “Tosilog.” If one wants “Tapas” instead, it is “Tapsilog.” The list goes on. “Spamsilog” is… well… you already figured it out. Spam (and much of the canned meat that fills Filipino groceries) came originally from the US canned food industry.
SO WHAT CULTURAL PRINCIPLES COME FROM THIS.
A. Cultures borrow from each other. It is as correct to say that Spam and Coffee are Filipino food items, as it is to say that pizza and spaghetti are American food items, and chicken masala is a british food. Cultures borrow things from other countries and often make them their own. American pizza is quite different than traditional Italian pizza. Philippine spaghetti is quite different from American spaghetti. One can call this cultural diffusion— as long as one does not seek to link it directly with the theory of “cultural diffusionism.”
B. Cultures change. Although I had a traditional Filipino breakfast, it would not be considered traditional 100 years ago, 300 years ago, 600 years ago. In fact, many of the items in my breakfast would be unknown some centuries ago. Change is not necessarily bad. And even if change was always bad (and it is not) that is irrelevant since change happens anyway. The only cultures that don’t change are dead cultures.
