Having Bourdain Withdrawal? Here’s A Foodie Fix For You

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Having a little food porn withdrawal now that Bourdain’s packed up and headed over to CNN to start focusing a bit more on news and culture rather than local eats? Me too, but I’m attempting to address my fix by catching up with the girls over at The Innocents Abroad, the online travel and food show hosted and produced by friends of the site Kate Thorman and Nora Chovanec.

In one of their latest episodes, they met up with Miguel Trinidad, head chef and co-owner of New York City’s own Maharlika Filipino Moderno, which serves Filipino comfort food with an emphasis on authentic and fresh ingredients (as evidenced by their outing to Chinatown in the above video to pick up that evening’s needs). As is pointed out, The Philippines cover over 7,000 islands, and as a result of the various colonizers over the centuries, you can find influences in their food from the Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, British, Japanese and Americans.

In this episode chef Trinidad shows the ladies how to make Pampangan-style sizzling sisig, an appetizer made up from various parts of the pig’s head fried with onions and chili peppers and topped off with an egg. Sisig is a perfect example of a local food borne out of necessity and availability — it is thought that the pig’s head was used as the rest of the pig would be sold for use by the U.S. Military at its numerous military bases. And here you’ve been all this time ignoring that part of the pig. Lesson learned.

By Matt Stabile

About the Author

Matt Stabile is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Expeditioner. The Expeditioner began in 2008 and is headquartered in New York City. You can read his writings, watch his travel videos or contact him at any time at TheExpeditioner.com. (@TheExpeditioner)