My mom gave me a copy of her favorite go-to Filipino cookbook, Nora Daza’s “Galing, Galing: Food as prepared in Philippine homes” before my senior year because she was tired of me calling her and my gramma all the time, asking how to prepare adobo or sinigang.
What I love about this cookbook is that it’s so retro. “Galing, Galing” combines Filipino-ized American dishes like meatloaf, baked ham and macaroni salad (touching them up with a bit of soy sauce and MSG) with really old-school, traditional Filipino recipes like bikol express, morcon and bangus en torcho. And of course, half of Filipino cuisine is rooted in Spanish cuisine, so there’s menudo and paella in there, too.
The first page says that the cookbook is “First Philippine cookbook for use in the United States,” and all the recipes use things like Jell-O molds, Carnation evaporated milk (in place of common American ingredients like butter, cheese and cream, which aren’t readily available in the Philippines) and canned Vienna sausages and marachino cherries.
It’s an interesting mish-mash of American and Filipino culture. Here’s an example ingredients list for one of the recipes that I think illustrates this hybrid the most:
Cornbread for Pork dish:
1 loaf bread, torn to pcs
1 c. evaporated milk
3 whole eggs
1/2 c. Vienna sausage, chopped
2 1/2 c. sweet corn
pepper, salt and Aji-No-Moto (a kind of MSG seasoning used in a lot of Filipino dishes)
1/2 c. melted butter
It’s strange, because there are so many substitutes for things; for example, the vienna sausage is supposed to substitute the flavor of fatty sausage or bacon, the evaporated milk is supposed to substitute the creaminess you’d get from cream or milk, and the MSG, well, I don’t even know.
For a substitute of sour cream, Nora recommends curdling Carnation condensed milk with calamansi juice, a native citrus fruit to the Philippines. Hah!
Anyways, I’m obsessed with this and I want to start collecting vintage recipe books from different countries.
10 Comments
June 20, 2008 at 12:40 am
theres a local dish from where my parents are from in the pilippines (Marikina) that is my absolute favorite filipino food. its called Pininyahan. its chicken and pineapple, i think. im almost positive its a local dish since i dont know anyone else who knows what it is outside of people with marikina roots. i could be wrong though, so dont quote me on that.
June 3, 2009 at 1:04 am
Cool, if you have the recipe, email it to me! mfgharib@gmail.com. In Quezon City, where my family is from, we eat suam, which my mom says, is SUPER local.
June 3, 2009 at 12:51 am
I’m using my Galing Galing Philippine Cuisine cookbook right now! Making chicken adobo. I’m amazed at how spot on Nora Daza’s recipes are, especially since when I used to watch people cook back home in the Philippines nobody ever used a cookbook. They’d eyeball everything and if you’d ask them how they made things they’d never give quantities of chicken or spices or anything. They’d just say, “tingnan mo lang…”
I liked this post – just found your blog!
June 3, 2009 at 1:02 am
Thanks Gaby. I actually have a TON of modern Filipino cookbooks, but from those books, it seems like our national cuisine has been reduced to sinigang, pancit, lumpia and adobo. Nora Daza really captures this kind of Filipino home-cooking that I adore, like mothers trying their hand at non-Filipino dishes like spaghetti (with Vienna sausage and a little sugar, of course). I try to post up different Filipino recipes with exact measurements, because when my grandma says “tingnan mo lang,” the “lasa” is NEVER there, haha.
June 3, 2009 at 1:02 am
Thanks Gaby. I actually have a TON of modern Filipino cookbooks, but from those books, it seems like our national cuisine has been reduced to sinigang, pancit, lumpia and adobo. Nora Daza really captures this kind of Filipino home-cooking that I adore, like mothers trying their hand at non-Filipino dishes like spaghetti (with Vienna sausage and a little sugar, of course). I try to post up different Filipino recipes with exact measurements, because when my grandma says “tingnan mo lang,” the “lasa” is NEVER there, haha.
September 15, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Aloha! I had just gone to the fil. fest. in san pedro. and bought a fil dvd on cooking. It is awesome.Where can I purchas nora daza’s cookbok or dvd.”Galing,Galing”.
And where can I purchase fil. cookboks in los angeles or crson, calif.
Mahalo!
pat filipino born in hawaii.
September 15, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Hi pat — you can order it from Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Galing-Philippine-Cuisine-Book/dp/9710824740 this deal is kind of pricey, but i’m sure if you hunted around you can find one at a good price. cool, youre filipino too…awesome!
September 15, 2009 at 2:52 pm
where can I purchase the cookbook by nora daza’s..gling, galing?
mahalo.,
pat
April 21, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Yes-where can I buy this great Nora Daza cookbook-how much?
Please tell me where to send my order.
Thanks.
Archie Laano,MD
517 Milano Rd
Kissimmee,FL 34759
Tel 863 427 2549
E mails:alaanomd@aol.com
alaanomd@yahoo.com
April 23, 2010 at 4:23 am
Hi Dr. Laano. You can buy the Nora Daza cookbook on Amazon.com. Here’s a link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/9710818139/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used You can buy a used copy for just $4! Hope that helps, Malaka