For years, food writer Angelo Comsti has been trying to push Filipino cuisine as the next best thing. There’s still a lot to be done to get to that stage. Luckily, these culinary ambassadors are willing to put in the work.
Most of the pop-up dinners Yana Gilbuena did prove to be a challenge. In her quest to promote Filipino cuisine, the 37-year-old had been all over the map—from North and South America to parts of Europe, Australia, Mexico and New Zealand, to name a few—to cook chicken binakol (chicken simmered in coconut water) and Bicol express (spicy pork stew in coconut milk) in the hopes that more people would get to know the food she enjoyed while growing up.
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It didn’t take long for her to realise that introducing Filipino cuisine would be the least of her problems and that the unpredictability of things would be the single most challenging part of her tour. “Whether people will buy tickets to the dinner, whether I’ll have a host to let me stay at their place, whether I’ll have the money to pay for the bus ticket for the next city—doing the pop-ups was basically being in a state of uncertainty at all times,” she says.
There was an instance when she had to use a panini press to cook tocino (sweet cured pork) or bake rice in the oven, as well as nights when she considered sleeping on the street, for money didn’t come as easily. Still, she soldiered on and continued her Salo Project over a span of five panic-inducing but definitely rewarding years, with common customer reactions such as “that tastes familiar” and “it’s delicious”, giving her the drive she desperately needed.