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I went to my brother's yesterday to learn how to make my Filipino favorites - escabeche & pancit.  It's ridiculous how simple it is to make, they key is good ingredients and technique - makes me think back to when we made a stir fry in 7th grade home ec. Not a lot of ingredients or spices - I'm starting to think that excess seasoning in many ways perverts the food, masking instead of enhancing.

I have been eating Filipino food for 25 years and never once considered cooking it...it's light, quick, and easy.  My sister-in-law introduced me to mangoes when I was 10 years old and I learned to enjoy rice without butter, gravy, etc.  I guess our food preferences are largely shaped by what's familiar and enhanced by spatial interaction.

Yesterday I learned that there are many Filipino tastes that we never experienced; we only ate the things that were familiar (pancit is similar to lo mein, last night we made it with the clear rice noodles; escabeche is basically a sweet and sour fish - ginger is the key ingredient - we made it with tilapia - whole tilapia is a common substitution for ethnic cooking - I also use tilapia when making Senegalese poisson).  She was so surprised when I asked her to make the stinky brown fish - besogo - it's actually salted and dried, eaten as an appetizer over rice.  I am planning to return to expand my repertoire.  It was really nice to see my family, my brother & his wife were thrilled with the loaf that I brought - I think it's been way too long.