Words by Joseph Batcagan
Photos by Ish Deocampo
Interview by Glory Moralidad
The food you eat tells a lot about your heritage. While it’s no surprise that there is a distinctive connection between food and culture, food also reflects the soul of society. Kare-kare, sinigang, pancit molo, or KBL can be proud symbols of one’s ethnicity. Chef Tibong understood that more than most.
Renowned chef Rafael “Tibong” Jardaleza, Jr. is probably one of the first people to have advocated for Ilonggo heritage cuisine in the digital era. He has been featured in more national and international TV shows than I could count. His restaurant, Rafael’s La Cocina Del Sur, is worth the visit inside a Jaro barangay if only to taste his sumptuous treats like the Paella Negra and the Lengua Con Setas Oliva.
To top it off, Chef Tibong also hails from a family that’s known for its cooking. Esca’s and Afrique’s, two popular restaurant brands in Iloilo City, are the names of his lola and tatay, respectively. Cooking royalty, indeed.
For a chef whose renown was made in part because of his advocacy of traditional cuisine, this statement might validate his cooking philosophy: “There’s no foreign influence – Ilonggo cuisine is simple,” he said.
But of course. We can eat talaba by only using flattened six-inch nails, for goodness’s sake. Despite that, he says, “There’s more than just batchoy, pancit molo or kadios, baboy, and, langka (in Ilonggo cuisine). The Visayan region is mainly the food haven of the Philippines. Iloilo, Roxas, Aklan, Bacolod – the similarities of our cuisine – it’s there.”
Food as an expression of cultural identity; travel and lifestyle shows might have beaten this concept to death, but it’s an everyday reality here in Iloilo. Never have I looked forward to being “schooled” on cooking than the conversation I had with him for this article.
You know what? Why don’t I just let the man speak for himself? I think I might have hit on a few journalistic goldmines here.
On Learning (and Living with) Cooking
“At (our) home, you cannot eat if you don’t know how to cook,” Chef Tibong said. “(The family members would) have different schedules, so each one would cook. My influence came from my grandma, Lola Esca, my dad Afrique, Tiya Lourdes, Tiyo Amin, and the guys—they’re the fixtures at home during fiestas, birthdays, and events. So they’re the cooks. Of course, my mom cooks very well too, but it’s more on higher-end cooking.”
Much like any chef worth his salt (would this even qualify as a pun?), he believes cooking to be a purely creative activity. “I’m an artist. I paint, draw, and do events. But the passion for cooking is (there). I cook almost everyday” he said.
As an example, he explained how Ilonggos would have their own spin on, say, a soup dish. “There are other ways of cooking, but the ingredients are the same…. However, when we make soup, we have those endemic ingredients. (This gives) Ilonggo cuisine a distinctive taste.”
Despite his belief in cooking-as-expression, one gets the sense that Chef Tibong is a stickler for tradition. “There are original cuisines, but the thing is, na-fusion na sila. It’s like when you say sinugba; it’s just the salt (that makes it as such). The sinamak (also) makes it edible; the Ilonggo sinamak is really good. When you say sinugba with pork or fish, it’s basically the standard of salt,” he said.
I began to get the sense that the reason he may be advocating for traditional Ilonggo cuisine was because he might believe it has not reached its full potential yet. I mean, just read at what else he has to say below:
“People will realize that there are ingredients that we have not used, but have been used before. (For instance) those alumpira, you can use in your salad,” he explained. “Even those herbs and spices that you can find on the streets. I don’t substitute. If this is the way on how to cook a certain dish, that’s what I’ll follow, to get the exact flavor and the aroma.”
Okay, now I’m sold on his thinking.
On Food and Diaspora
Food reminds people of home. Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), for one, keep on rightfully harping about how they miss the cooking in Iloilo (well, aside from their families, of course).
It seems we are really what we eat. But at least when I hear Chef Tibong say it, it doesn’t sound so bad.
“When people eat food, it becomes a part of who they are. They associate food from their childhood, even the ones they do not like. Each meal evokes warm feelings that tie people back to their roots,” he said.
“We don’t eat this when we’re young,”—I’ll imagine that “this” meant laswa—“but then, you grow up, and you begin to enjoy it– unconsciously, you’ve tasted it, smelled it. But now, for example if you’ve lived in the States for ten years, and when you go home, you basically will call, “Cook me adobo, cadios. You don’t long for your house for your room, but for the smell of the food.”
“Food prepared by our mothers, grandmothers, or nannies become the comfort we seek when we’ve felt stressed or just have left the country for work,” he continued.
So, the scene from Pixar’s ‘Ratatouille’ where the snooty food critic gets transported back to his childhood because of food really does have a basis in reality, then. I’ll never look at laswa the same way ever again.
On Today’s Ilonggo Chefs and Honoring Traditions
Iloilo is known for its simple, savory treats. A couple of restaurants open each year, and chefs get innovative with their works. As a sign of the times, many establishments here even make sure to use organic and sustainable ingredients.
Chef Tibong noted the trend. However, despite that, he is aware that chefs today see cooking as an everyday learning experience. He believes having a solid sense of heritage would help them develop their styles.
When asked about today’s Ilonggo culinary community, Chef Tibong said, “If you want your students to be very good, instil to them their local roots, how they cook their own food, and have them create an international meal from their local goods. Teach them first their heritage, where they came from. (Encourage them to) using our local ingredients, but for international standards.”
It’s why he says that despite having seen and eaten in different parts of the world, Ilonggo food becomes a thing of the past that one wants to go back to. If anything, this is a good argument for why lutong bahay-style cuisine is still popular here.
“Based on my travels, I realized that the food at home is there,” he said. “It’s the flavor you long for.”
So, should it come as a surprise that he even said karinderyas do a good job of retaining the traditional Ilonggo cuisine in today’s era? After all, he did say Ilonggo cuisine was simple.
“We’ve preserved Ilonggo cuisine not becausee of me, (and) not because of books, but because of the everyday cooking of our parents, yaya, grandma. Everyday cooking is there, and it is being preserved (in) our homes.”
Now, will this mean that an increased awareness of our cooking styles would lead to a more intense appreciation for our history? Well, only our tummies can tell for the meantime.
