Pfork sounds like pork. I do love pork, or any gastro-utile animal by any culture. Or fork, that Roman or Byzantine invention from the Egyptian cooking utensil with the Latin name “furca”. The reader might think both of these are the meanings of “pfork”. It could be. Depending on your view. Some of my friends in the industry say it is Pinoy Fork, or Filipino Cooking/Eating. That is fine too.
pfork is really about:
- Food memories. The first time people go to restaurants is all about exploration. The second visit, the third etc. is all about memories. Yearning for a stew we had when we were young is all about memories. Turning the car around because you passed by a vendor selling pastries that you’ve tried years before, is all about memories. Memory should be the driving force of your dish.
- Respect for ingredients and cooking. A huge part of the world’s population go to restaurants to eat because they are hungry, or they just want to eat. Not to follow a chef or a trend. Ergo, the “superstars” of your restaurant should be your dish, your place, those things on your plate. Treat your ingredients right. Use only the freshest, the best. It doesn’t have to be the most expensive ingredient.
- Seasonality.My early morning run/jog to the palengke or wet market is always a chance for joyful discovery. There I see all kinds of snails, fish, produce, preserves etc. I even get free pork blood from my we-are-on-first-name-basis vendor or manong. The rest of my day’s needs I get from my garden. Regardless of trends or health/diet fads, what we get from the fresh market, from our gardens and farms, will always taste better than anything in cans or frozen packs. Didn’t our grandmothers go to the market before lunch, and again before dinner, everyday, back in their day?
- There is only one.Accepting the reality that there really were no borders during the era when the world was young and cross-hatched by the trading galleons and merchants. So how can there be “fusion” when everything came from everywhere already? Isn’t every country’s cuisine tinged with influences from somewhere?