Nonna’s cooking

In Italy, every family or household has a recipe for pizza, pasta and a specialty made by one’s grandmother or “Nonna.” If you have watched Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy series you may have come across many grandmothers or mothers who cooked and the food was all good. You can also refer to Chef Margarita Fores’ cooking, introduced to her by Italian teachers who are Nonnas as well.

This, I think, is real food. Honestly made with natural ingredients, where the star is the natural flavors of Nature’s bounty, rather than an interpretation of a chef on what Nature’s flavors should be.

While I marvel at the ingenuity of chefs and cooks who try to create new recipes or adaptations, new versions and fusion (God forbid!) of different flavors, I always truly go back to what food is supposed to taste like and not how it should be changed to please someone’s ego, while we the diners are puzzled on what flavor a chef is trying to bring us.

My rule is: Nature knows best. After hearing about all the new ideas in town, awards left and right on best cooks, restaurants and chefs, one can feel a little unsure about what good food should really taste like. For me, it should taste as close to how Nature wanted us to enjoy it.

Salt, fire and fat – that is all we add or introduce to what we harvest. We salt to season or to preserve, we add fire to cook it for sanitary reasons and we add fat to make it taste even better. Is that not a simple recipe?

Why do people complicate our taste buds in the guise of a higher level of appreciation for gourmands and experts?

Why are we asked to look for a certain taste profile, a certain “party in our mouth” experience, with fusion cooking? Why are chefs celebrated by award-giving bodies who we heard are more political than honest-to-goodness reviews?

Why are we swayed by marketing through these anointments of chefs globally known as guides or awards most coveted by international chefs? Maybe it’s because the marketing works and it has been working for a long time now.

People do go to Trip Advisor, Google and Yelp to find restaurants rated by other diners. But beware, because some diners may have tastes not akin to your preference.

I was traveling in Istanbul and instead of going to the touristy street where the food was not to my liking, I went to a side street where workers and ordinary citizens ate. The food served was local and very tasty. I laughed inside as I saw construction workers come in, ordinary citizens who wanted home cooking. It was a very good meal for a good price.

This is why sometimes we should go back to basics. After trying all the indulgent food, we want to go back to tasting real food flavors as Nature intended them to be. In Turkey, they have many options and starred restaurants, but I chose to eat what an ordinary citizen looks for, in terms of flavor and price. I was satisfied.

Over the weekend I brought a friend to her appointment to eat at a relatively new “by reservation” restaurant out of town. After dropping her off, I chose to eat at home and asked for a staple, tinolang manok or chicken soup with unripe papaya, moringa leaves (malunggay) and ginger. More often than not, I choose to eat local fare when I am not traveling. Harvested from the farm or backyard, simple homestyle recipes, and uncomplicated food.

I am often invited to a special fresh lumpia (eggroll) dinner made from a family recipe every spring or Chinese New Year. My friend cooks for almost three days for a family recipe we devour in an hour. Yes, three days of loving preparation for a family treat, and you can taste every morsel of passion and affection it contains. Do you not have the experience of eating something so tasteless because the chef or cook probably did not do it with positive feelings?

I always let my taste buds decide if something is cooked with love or not.

We have our similarities with Nonna’s cooking of Italy, Istanbul’s version of “jollijeep” carinderia food in our own homes. We want the real flavors of food to come out, not masked by additives or a cook’s version of an original by Mother Nature.

When you come to think more about it, what is the real taste of food? Taste is very personal and no guide book or award can make you like something your taste buds do not. When you eat, think about what you are consuming. Close your eyes if you need to drive all your brain matter energy to your taste buds. This is why we close our eyes if we want other senses to be heightened. Try it sometime.

For the uninitiated, practice mindful eating. Taste each morsel, train your taste buds to separate flavors – sweet, salty, spicy, bitter, sour – and your brain will process the taste to give you pleasure or disappointment.

Even a simple staple like bread can have different taste profiles. Even rice can taste sweet or bland and our lowly pechay may have different flavors if you really concentrate and put your mind to it. The important thing is to explore taste profiles of everything we eat.

Even what we drink can be refreshing and light, or heavy and full of other flavors. I always try to let people taste black coffee before they add sugar or milk. Good coffee has an inherent sweetness. I have never gotten a negative reaction from all those who have tried this simple taste test. Nothing complicated. Just coffee. 100 percent pure brewed coffee. Try it! If you are putting sugar and milk automatically, you may have been drinking bad coffee all this time.

Remember, it’s still Filipino Food Month. Let’s explore natural flavors from heirloom recipes of our forefathers.