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   AI6YR Ben (ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 12:31:50 JST AI6YR Ben

   Our family likes and eats a lot of Filipino food (Filipino grocery in our area -- but we're not Filipino), but am mystified to how the food so broadly avoids vegetables, LOL. There must be a historical reason for that. They are a fan of meat. Seafood. Starch. You can almost never find vegetables. Anyone know how this came about?

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 12:31:49 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Scott Francis

     @darkuncle @ai6yr 1. Many cuisines in that part of the world just see vegetables differently. There’s zero of the ‘eat your vegetables it is the good and virtuous and healthy thing to do’ mindset (I mostly see this outside of Asia). The perception is vegetables is just another type of food and when it’s available we’ll eat it. I don’t identify whatsoever with the ‘I need a green at every meal to feel like I have a balanced diet’ craving / need that many have in the west

     2. Raw vegetables is just often not a thing

     3. Like others have mentioned there is a preference for cooked vegetables especially long beans or things in stews. These tend to be done at home not restaurants

     4. Going out to eat is often ‘it makes more sense to focus on the meat and seafood’ vs the vegetables which cost as much and we can make ourselves

     5. There are many regional Filipino cuisines and some are more veg focused than others. The primary regional cuisine represented abroad is not vegetable forward

     6. People are allowed to not like vegetables as a people! I personally found it weird that people wanted to eat salads all the time, like what’s up with that. Just a very different relationship to food.

   • Embed this notice
     Scott Francis (darkuncle@infosec.exchange)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 12:31:50 JST Scott Francis

     in reply to

     • Adrianna Tan

     @ai6yr it is *highly* likely that @skinnylatte has knowledge on this

     Adrianna Tan repeated this.
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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 12:35:23 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Scott Francis

     @darkuncle @ai6yr also partly many people don’t understand how ordering works in family style cuisines. You’re not supposed to have more than one dish that is very heavy, or repeat cooking style (like if you have a fried chicken you won’t have another fried thing). So often in ethnic restaurants I would say people are ordering wildly unbalanced foods that most of us would not order. Like when I see people order a weird combination of Chinese foods and then say how do Chinese people eat like this it’s so greasy I’m like well order more skillfully.

     Someone will tend to order a veg side but that’s what it is: a side, or a starter, there are very few ‘let’s just focus on this vegetable’ type of dish the way that exists in many other cultures.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 12:40:57 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Scott Francis

     @darkuncle @ai6yr lastly I think the flavor profile of many Filipino veg dishes (sour, tangy, etc) just make them less accessible to people not used to those flavors. Like restaurants would not sell much of that. I can think of very tangy vegetable dishes filled with more vinegar than you’ll have in a month, or extremely rich vegetable dishes cooked with a whole can of coconut milk. Or very often with fermented shrimp.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 12:50:57 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Urzl
     • Scott Francis

     @gooba42 @darkuncle @ai6yr yeah Chinese people think of raw vegetables as ‘rotten and very bad’

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     Urzl (gooba42@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 12:50:58 JST Urzl

     in reply to

     • Adrianna Tan
     • Scott Francis

     @skinnylatte @darkuncle @ai6yr There was an anthropology thing some time ago that broke down food into the categories - raw, cooked and "rotten". The gist was that most cultures eat 2 of 3 categories and are grossed out by the third. I didn't love "rotten" as the name of the category but it's essentially aged and fermented foods.

     Americans are largely cooked and raw. We make specific exceptions for things like pickles and in some places sauerkraut but fish sauce is controversial.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 13:20:29 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Christopher Walker
     • Scott Francis

     @cswalker21 @darkuncle @ai6yr historically food safety reasons as well. I would never eat a raw vegetable washed with water of unknown provenance. That’s changed obviously in Taiwan but not that long ago. Still true in India, Thailand, etc.

   • Embed this notice
     Christopher Walker (cswalker21@mastodon.online)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 13:20:30 JST Christopher Walker

     in reply to

     • Adrianna Tan
     • Scott Francis

     @skinnylatte @darkuncle @ai6yr
     Regarding point 2, this is something interesting I found about eating out in Taiwan. Probably 90% of the meals I eat out are at street stands or little mom and pop hole-in-the-wall places and there’s almost never a raw vegetable in sight (unless you’re meant to cook it in a hotpot). But when I meet friends in a fancy upscale restaurant, there’s usually a salad. Even if the cuisine is not western. It’s like raw lettuce is considered a delicacy.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 13:39:37 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • jbaggs
     • Scott Francis

     @jbaggs @darkuncle @ai6yr key basic ingredient in that part of the world. Not as weird as ketchup.

   • Embed this notice
     jbaggs (jbaggs@infosec.exchange)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 13:39:38 JST jbaggs

     in reply to

     • Adrianna Tan
     • Scott Francis

     @skinnylatte @darkuncle @ai6yr

     Or very often with fermented shrimp.

     🤤

     Sorry. Carry on.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 13:48:24 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • jbaggs
     • Scott Francis

     @jbaggs @darkuncle @ai6yr coool!

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     jbaggs (jbaggs@infosec.exchange)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 13:48:25 JST jbaggs

     in reply to

     • Adrianna Tan
     • Scott Francis

     @skinnylatte @darkuncle @ai6yr I wasn't making light. I threw raw prawns into my last batch of kimchi I made because I had no access to dried shrimp at the time. (I know not that specific part of the world but I also know the flavor profile.)

     Please don't mention ketchup.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 12-Sep-2025 00:16:15 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Scott Francis
     • Walt Baldwin

     @waltbaldwin @darkuncle @ai6yr you can do whatever you want!

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     Walt Baldwin (waltbaldwin@mastodon.energy)'s status on Friday, 12-Sep-2025 00:16:16 JST Walt Baldwin

     in reply to

     • Adrianna Tan
     • Scott Francis

     @skinnylatte @darkuncle @ai6yr

     oh no! i can't order the chongqing chicken and spicy fish chunks at the same meal?!?!

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 12-Sep-2025 06:43:30 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • ∆θ thorb of house thorb

     @thornoroni there are millions of us

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     ∆θ thorb of house thorb (thornoroni@retro.pizza)'s status on Friday, 12-Sep-2025 06:43:32 JST ∆θ thorb of house thorb

     in reply to

     • Adrianna Tan

     @skinnylatte Wait you're telling me that only liking cooked vegetables is just..... normal? I'm not insane for hating raw, cold baby carrots or celery or just lettuce in general??? My parents used to lament me for being a picky eater because of that wtf

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 12-Sep-2025 06:43:59 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Scott Francis
     • ___

     @___ @ai6yr @darkuncle yep

     https://hachyderm.io/@skinnylatte/115183586809570028

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     ___@graffitiwall.net's status on Friday, 12-Sep-2025 06:44:04 JST ___

     in reply to

     • Adrianna Tan
     • Scott Francis

     @darkuncle@infosec.exchange @ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org @skinnylatte@hachyderm.io
     
     point 4 is especially true.
     
     to add: our vegetable dishes will either be too boring/bland or too much (too sour, too salty) for the foreign palate.
     
     we have many meat dishes that have lots vegetables in them eg kare-kare (peanut stew), sinigang (soup), bulalo (soup) but i guess theyre not popular there.
     
     agree with most things except 1.