(energetic music)
- Hi, everyone, today's episode takes place in Boston.
We're gonna meet up with Ellie Tiglao,
she is a Filipino American who grew up in California,
and then moved to Boston to work in neuroscience.
Ellie found out the Filipino community in Boston
was actually pretty small, and so, she started hosting
these pop-up dinners, and since then,
she's left neuroscience and does this full-time.
I'm a home cook.
- A passionate home cook.
- I'm really curious in learning,
what was your first pop-up like?
- Oh, God, we had no clue what we were doing.
I grew up in my Dad's kitchen, he's a chef,
but I, by no means, have any formal training.
I was always his sous-chef and I could never get past that
and explore how I wanted to cook.
When I had my first pop-up, I did it with my brother,
initially, and I had never seen so many
Filipino people, especially, around my age.
Kind of amazing, like, there's some students there,
some young professionals, there's also a big
Filipino adoptee network in Boston, and they came out, too.
I mean, for me I think what was really cool about that,
was just seeing who came out.
We just thought, you're gonna do this thing,
and then, that's it.
- And, that was like, the fuel to your fire.
- Basically. - And here you are now.
- [Ellie] And that's, kind of been,
what's been fueling this entire thing.
- [Francesca] Since 2014, Ellie has hosted
over 100 pop-up dinners around Boston,
with different themes, from vegan kamayan dinners,
to host and narrative nights with local artists.
She's using these pop-up dinners
to, eventually, open her own restaurant called Tanam.
- Tanam became the outgrowth of our pop-up, Pampanga,
which just meant something to eat.
I think that was really appropriate
for that, because it was just, like,
we're just trying things out and this is something to eat.
Tanam means cultivation, or planting, in my dialect,
and I think that just, kind of, is a throwback
to my family's roots as farmers.
And, also, I see the space that we're building
as the reason why I'm building roots here.
And, so, there's just, like, a lot around that name,
that's really special to me.
I think, when I went to the Philippines,
I really realize how limited our view is of Filipino food.
I think that really spurred my desire to do more research,
to learn about why we don't know all this food
that exists, and to just show that there's a lot more
to Filipino food than lumpia, and that's it.
- [Francesca ] Exactly.
- Is it all right if I yell really quick?
Cool.
I don't know if you've taken a look at the zine?
There's a poem about the lunch box,
and, I think, especially if you're coming
from another culture, where your food might be different,
you have that lunch box story,
where you were made to feel like,
whatever you're bringing to school, was not good.
Pampanga is a place where, I think,
I see a lot of class difference,
particularly because the Spanish were there.
They gave resources to some people
in exchange for their support,
and some people didn't get that.
Tidtad, it's like a dish that you usually make
out of necessity, it was important to highlight.
I think these dinners don't often have the dishes
that are coming from that background,
and so, that's even more reason to have it here.
- [Francesa] Tonight, Ellie is focusing on food from Pampanga,
a region that's become known
as the culinary capital of the Philippines.
There were dishes on the menu that,
even I wasn't familiar with, like bringhe,
which is native to the region.
- Bringhe is a savory sticky rice.
It has a lot of different vegetables in it.
I think what sets it apart is that it's cooked
in coconut milk and turmeric, so, it gives it a nice color,
and it's also cooked on banana leaf,
so, you get this, like, smell of the banana leaf.
I don't want to interrupt your conversations.
It sounds like you all are over-sharing, maybe?
The way that this dish came together, I feel like,
was supposed to be a contrast to tidtad.
Bringhe is, usually, a dish that you have
only at Fiesta, because it's so labor-intensive.
We use vegan fish sauce, actually, for it.
We've been working on vegan fish sauce for a long time, now.
You might have seen a little quote, Taming the Alien,
there's a quote from Doreen Fernandez,
who's a food historian that I always talk about,
who talked about what it meant
to make something foreign yours.
For her, she said, Filipinos carry around patis,
which is fish sauce, so that, things can taste
a little bit closer to what what we like.
Which is really fun.
I like this dish, because it's how we handled trade
and colonization when those people came.
We figured out how to work with
what they were bringing, and make it ours.
This sort of thing exists in a lot of other cultures.
Sometimes, we want to make assumptions
about where things came from, but,
it's also possible that we came up
with these good ideas, at the same time.
Anyway, so, that's all I wanted to share about that.
All right, thanks.
- This is kuya Phil.
- So, I grew just outside of greater Boston, in Dedham.
So, I was literally, like, suburbs, and then Boston for me.
But, I've lived here all my life, born and raised.
I like it here.
- I was really surprised that there isn't
a larger Filipino population here,
or maybe, like, a more established one.
So, I'm really curious what it was like for you growing up.
- There's not a really big Filipino community.
We really tried to, just, seek-out all the other Filipinos,
just like, invite them over whenever there was a party,
or an event, and that was, basically,
how I got a lot of my Filipino culture.
What I think the biggest issue, in Massachusetts at least,
is that a lot of people in Massachusetts
don't really know what Filipino food is,
so, when they see it, it's just like,
it's not as appealing as the other Asian cultures.
When Ellie told me her story of how she wants
to introduce Filipino food, in Massachusetts,
and how she wants to present Filipino food,
I was like, oh my God this needs to be,
what Massachusetts needs to introduce Filipino food
into our city, into our state.
- I'm so glad you guys met.
- Yeah, I'm very excited, I'm really looking forward
to her restaurant finally opening,
for Filipinos, and Filipino food.
- Yeah, for sure.
Ellie's pop-up dinners give you the story
beyond what's on your plate, and that's perfect
for a place like Boston, where education and history,
make up the foundation of the city.
- One thing I always tell people is,
this isn't your lola's cooking,
and I think that's really important,
because, if that is your standard,
no one else is ever gonna come close.
Those foods are so wrapped up in memory, and obviously,
it's what you grew up with and feel connected to.
Filipino food is all about adaptation,
and so, what that looks like to me is,
I really love the flavors, I really care about them,
but I also love a really beautiful plate.
This is part of it, and one day, I'll be the lola.
This is gonna be the way that my grandchildren.
- This is old school. - Are gonna be thinking
that this is old school and traditional.
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