First Dutch Recipe Book of Well-loved Filipino Dishes

 

AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS: If someone asks about Dutch cuisine, the standard answer would be mashed potatoes with sausage topped with gravy or deep-fried fish fillet called ‘kibbeling’. And that ends there. It is the perceived ‘nothingness’ of the Dutch gastronomy that has paved way to the immense popularity of Indonesian, Indian, Chinese, Suriname, Japanese, and Thai food in the Netherlands. Every city has restaurants and takeaways that offer ‘orientalist’ food. But what is missing in the Netherlands is recognition of the Filipino food. The Dutch don’t have any idea about the Filipino dish unless they have been to the Philippines or married to a Filipino.  

The two Filipino restaurants, both located in The Hague, mostly have Filipino patrons (and their Dutch partners or friends). There is no Filipino equivalent yet to sushi, satay, pho, roti or pad Thai – popular dishes that are easily identifiable to an Asian country.  So when Dutch couple and missionaries Ellie and Remco Pijper came out with Masarap!: Een Filipijnse Kookboek Met Een Verhaal (A Filipino Cookbook With A Story), written in Dutch, many are wondering whether this could be a way to finally introduce the adobo (meat simmered in vinegar, soy sauce and spices), sinigang (sour soup with meat or seafood and vegetables) or kare-kare (usually tendered ox-tail or beef with vegetables simmered in peanut sauce) to the Dutch.

‘Masarap’ (lekker in Dutch) which was launched recently is the first Dutch language cookbook of traditional Filipino recipes. It is a fundraising project of Sparrow Foundation that helps underprivileged children in the Philippines get an education. The Pijpers founded Sparrow and lived in Mindoro, an island province in Southern Luzon, for seven years. All their children were born there. The couple fell in love with the Filipinos because of their hospitality, kindness, and of course, the food.

“We are back in the Netherlands now. We always miss the Filipino food. We can find the recipes online but there is nothing written in Dutch so we taught we need to have one in the Netherlands,” said Ellie Pijper.  

What is unique about ‘Masarap!’ is that every dish is told by the family of the kids that the Sparrow Foundation supports. The chicken tinola (cooked in broth with unripe papaya and leaves, and ginger), for example, is a story of Angeline whose passion for cooking started when she was very young where she had to help the family earn a living.  There is also about Genemin who every day for hours has to knead 20 kilos of ground pork to perfect the taste of sweet-sour, garlicky skinless longganisa (sausage) that her family sells in the street for a living. Each story, of Angeline, Genemin, Rosemary, Jasmin, Yolande, Tatay Tinoy, Norena, and Rafael, tells of life, hardships, relationship with food and family, but also of hope. It is a feel-good project where the story is told, how the dish is traditionally prepared like a family sharing a well-kept secret from generations past. 

“It is a cookbook but it also shares the Filipino life,” Ellie Pijper concludes.

Ellie Pijper shows ‘Masarap’, the cookbook of Filipino dishes in Dutch, she wrote with her husband.

Other recipes included in the book are bulalo, embutido, lomi, lumpiang sariwa, tapsilog, totong (rice porridge with mungbean), beef caldereta, Bicol Express, bistek Tagalog, chicken menudo, and ginataang gulay. The book is available on Sparrow Foundation’s website, in the bookstores as well as in online shops, and has been getting positive attention from the Dutch media and book review sites.

“Masarap! is obviously made with love and the Philippine cuisine is definitely worth a closer look,” says the NRC newspaper.

Sparrow Foundation was formed in the belief that every child deserves an education regardless of the circumstances they are born to. The goal is every kid that they sponsor will graduate from college or get skills that are necessary to get out of poverty. The foundation operates a holistic approach in helping where they look at all the factors that affect the learning such as physical, personal, social and emotional well-being. It also provides to the communities medical help, outreach and emergency assistance during calamities.  

Besides scholarship programs, Sparrow Foundation maintains a ‘study house’ in a community in Mindoro where children can learn, use the facilities like computers and books. They have tutors or trainees and social workers who help them. This has proven to be challenging during COVID-19 where face-to-face classes were not possible but also a chance to focus the intervention needed. The Pijpers have noticed that the gap has widened among children with access to computers and books, and those who don’t have anything like the kids they sponsor. The money that will be generated from the sales of the cookbook will be used to set up new study houses and facilities like computers, tables, and chairs.

Sparrow Foundation was also chosen as the recipient of proceeds at this year’s Kalayaan Picnic that was held last June 11. The yearly independence day festival, attended by almost 10,000 people, charges minimal entry fees for visitors and rents out stalls to vendors to cover the costs of organizing the event. The extra proceeds are donated to different charities every year.