Thursday, January 12, 2006

Lasang Pinoy 6 : Let's wash it down with booze! !

(Logo courtesy of my kasaya, Mike Mina of Lafang)

With the holiday season over, I am sure you guys have a lot of stories to tell. Yes, the tender kilawen na kambing that your brother-in-law prepared, the sweet dilis you received as a present from a classmate, the inihaw na bangus you bought from Aling Vering and even the dinuguan when Mang Tomas butchered the pig for lechon.

In the Philippines, drinking is a past time, a way of unwinding (for the men anyway). It's a person's way of de-stressing from a hard day's knock. Not that it is not in other countries, but there is an added twist to how Filipinos enjoy drinking. More often than not, they always have a pulutan to go with their drinks. Sometimes, the reason why a drinking spree is unforgettable depends on how good the pulutan is. Only in the Pilipins, so they say!

So what exactly is a pulutan? Well, out of curiosity, I googled it but even wikipedia did not describe the way I have known pulutan to be. I shouldn't say that. It is a finger food alright but I am sure there is more to it than a finger food, literally. Maybe we should add to wikipedia's with an intimate description of it.

Pulutan is a kind of food that is served as accompaniment to a drink. It comes in different kinds like meat, fish, nuts, chips. It's prepared in different ways...raw, fried, steamed. Basically, it is anything that makes drinking enjoyable. Even a pet might start to look as a pulutan depending on the level of alcohol drinkers(I call them "bingeirs") have had but that is a different story I would not even like to touch.

Pulutan has evolved in a hundred ways. When I was young, I was made sure to understand that pulutan was only for men, drinking men--hands-off that saucer served in front of those drunk men. Of course there were no comprehensible reasons given to me and I wasn't allowed to ask why, lest I'd be sent to bed. In many occasions, I always ended up dreaming about how they tasted. Now that I have reached the age of reasoning, I believe that had the drinking men allowed me to eat their pulutan, I would have finished the pulutan all up before they even got drunk. Drinking wouldn't have been fun for them then.

As street-hawkers and restaurants mushroomed, so did the meaning of pulutan expand. Pulutan is now served as a delicacy and specialty in reputable restaurants, not as a pulutan per se but as appetizers. From a simple dinakdakan, evolved "crispy sisig". I couldn't even draw the line between ingenuity and poverty when it comes to pulutan anymore. The chicken feet that my father used to throw away when he cooked tinola are now delicacies called "Adidas" and you will find out from my round-up why. If you're walking down the streets and see IUD-like barbecues, well they are called IUDs indeed made out of chicken intestines. They do make drinking enjoyable whatever they're made out of.

So, let's not waste our time. Bring out all the pictures we took during the holidays to show-off how we enjoyed our boozes or bring out the pots and pans and cook one up if you haven't done one yet and let's re-live the holiday feeling over again.

Do you want to join? Here's how it works. Write your thoughts about pulutan on or before January 31. Post them in your blog and send me an e-mail at lasang.pinoy@gmail.com or ting_aling@hotmail.com so I could include you in my round-up. You don't need to be a Filipino to join. Yeah, tell us how your trip to the Philippines was, that's alright!

Take it away!!

19 comment(s):

This is great, Ting, I was actually waiting for this theme, got an entry ready (don't make me out for a probable candidate to AA, though, haha). But no deadline?

By Kai, at Thursday, January 12, 2006 10:11:00 PM

Hi Kai. Thanks for reminding me about the deadline. I already added the date. Mag beer muna tayo!

By ting-aling, at Thursday, January 12, 2006 11:20:00 PM

I am not a drinker but do I have a lot of pulutan and pulutan stories.

Exciting theme Ting! Thanks for thinking of this.

By Karen, at Thursday, January 12, 2006 11:48:00 PM

yay, ting's back!!! kaka-comment ko alng kay lani about her nilasing na baka, then i come here and find this! how was your trip?

By stefoodie, at Friday, January 13, 2006 5:37:00 AM

Ting,

Pulutan palang naglalaway na ako - How much more all of our Bloggers entry with the picture includes...I am not also a drinker pero okay lang bang maki-join?

Tin

By a, at Friday, January 13, 2006 10:05:00 AM

Hey Karen and Tin, remember pulutan has evolved so you don't need to be a drinker to have some and to join in the fun.

Stef, I had fun in the Philippines. It was sunny the whole time. None of the rain and snow we have here at this time of the year.

By ting-aling, at Friday, January 13, 2006 11:09:00 AM

I'll try to join, esip-esip pa ako ng pang-pulutan na nakikita ko noon na niluluto ng mga tiyuhin ko kapag may drinking spree sila. Actually, they love adobong bayawak but I don't know how to cook it and where to find bayawak.

By Lani, at Saturday, January 14, 2006 6:44:00 AM

I left Phils before my legal drinking age... but heck i have joined the drinking sesssion among Filipino here and in France... makisali nga!

By schatzli, at Wednesday, January 18, 2006 5:50:00 AM

a great theme esp. to all the toma-dors in the house! hahaha..sali ako jan! it's showtime!

By ces, at Thursday, January 19, 2006 11:09:00 AM

Lani, adobong bayawak? really? well i've heard of adobong snakes too so I shouldn't be surprised.

By ting-aling, at Friday, January 20, 2006 2:54:00 PM

sha..it's for everyone..drinker or not!

By ting-aling, at Friday, January 20, 2006 2:55:00 PM

ces, 'will wait for your entry.

By ting-aling, at Friday, January 20, 2006 2:55:00 PM

Hi Ting!

Welcome back. That lechon...

Anyway, glad you're back been missing your posts.

I also left Phils way before my drinking age but hey, i'll try to post an entry. Hmm... not sure what though. Jan 30th! You don't give me much time! Think, think, think...

By mg, at Friday, January 20, 2006 4:43:00 PM

Wowow, pulutan...favorite ko is Sitsarong Bulaklak.

This theme reminds me of my Squid Salad recipe. It taste like pangpulutan talaga. Hmmm, may tira pa akong Pusit, magawa nga kaya ulit. Halika mader...magbitbit ka ng white wine ako ang sagot sa pulutan.

Kumusta na pala ang bakasyonista? Golden tan na ba tayo :) I miss you na talaga Muttilein!!!

By Beng, at Friday, January 20, 2006 5:08:00 PM

Sakto naman tong theme na to! I was just about to post something in the same vein. :-) I guess that's going to be my entry for LP 6.

By Minnette, at Tuesday, January 24, 2006 12:43:00 AM

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

By relly, at Friday, January 27, 2006 11:40:00 AM

I posted for LP #6 made mistake of on LP#5.

By relly, at Monday, January 30, 2006 1:21:00 AM

http://franco-pinayfoodadventure.blogspot.com/

ting bago to sya... di pa marunong mag links etc

she made pulutan
am trying my best to help her link up sa group

sarap pa naman luto nya ;-)

kaya visit rin kayo mga drinkers hahah

By schatzli, at Monday, January 30, 2006 7:31:00 AM

First off, I want to say that I really appreciate your efforts to get information about Filipino cuisine out there. It's hard to tell what information about pulutan is accurate and what isn't.

I work on Recipes Wiki, a wiki about food and cooking, that includes recipes and a food encyclopedia. Some of our most popular articles involve Filipino cuisine, but I do not know much about the subject. I was wondering if you could check out the page for Filipino Appetizers and tell me if the information there is accurate: http://recipes.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Filipino_Appetizers . I would really appreciate it. More importantly, our readers would appreciate it, since we get a lot of Google traffic and I want those people to get the most accurate information possible. Thanks!

-Nicole Willson, http://recipes.wikia.com/wiki/User:Elocina

By Elocina, at Sunday, July 27, 2008 10:45:00 AM

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Thursday, January 12, 2006

Lasang Pinoy 6 : Let's wash it down with booze! !

19 comment(s):