The real national dish isn’t what you think

By Noel Galon de Leon

On January 18, 2009, in his landmark 100th Bandehado column in Bandera, food historian Ige Ramos did not merely compile a list of one hundred Filipino dishes. He lit a fire under the dining table and asked the question that has haunted Filipino cuisine for decades: should the Philippines officially crown adobo or kare-kare as its national dish? Enter the late and formidable food scholar Doreen G. Fernandez, who cut through the noise with a radical verdict. For her, neither the vinegared glory of adobo nor the peanut decadence of kare-kare deserves the crown. The true national dish, she declared, is sinigang, that unapologetically sour broth that refuses to posture, resists pretension, and yet captures the very essence of the Filipino palate.

If you ask any self-proclaimed foodie what our national dish should be, brace yourself for an avalanche of clichés, debates, and condescension. Someone will recite adobo as if it were gospel, another will wave the flag for kare-kare or lechon, while a quieter soul will whisper sinigang with the fervor of a believer. The irony is that the dish we often relegate to the background, the everyday soup steaming in countless kitchens, might just be the truest expression of who we are. According to Ramos, and echoing Fernandez, the answer is clear: sinigang is the Filipino soul in a bowl, simmering with memory, history, and identity.

Sinigang is not a dish that strives to be elegant. It has no airs, no theatrics, no Instagrammable gimmicks. Its beauty is in its humility and in the tightrope balance it performs between sour, savory, and fresh. The souring agent, most traditionally sampalok, though kamias, batuan, calamansi, or even green mango make regional cameos, sets the tone. Into this acidic symphony come proteins that speak of land and sea: pork ribs, bangus, shrimp, beef shank. Vegetables are not afterthoughts but anchors, kangkong, labanos, sitaw, okra, talong, each grounding the broth in the soil of the archipelago. The seasoning is restrained, often just patis and salt, occasionally a whisper of ginger. The result is a broth that sings, not shouts, a flavor both austere and indulgent, simple yet endlessly profound.

Ramos reminds us that sinigang is not merely a recipe but a living archive of Filipino life. It is the smell of home drifting from the kitchen on a rainy afternoon. It is the pot carried to the table where family gathers, the dish ladled into bowls for neighbors and friends. It is the flavor that bridges generations, an edible heritage passed down without fuss, stubbornly local and unyielding to reinvention. Unlike the dishes exported and repackaged for global applause, sinigang never panders. It adapts, yes, but it never forgets who it is.

Historically, sinigang predates colonization. Sour broths existed long before the Spanish conquest, shaped by Malay trade and Chinese techniques, then gently touched by Spanish influence. Yet through centuries of exchange and upheaval, sinigang never lost its Filipino spine. Its adaptability mirrors our character: resilient, flexible, resourceful, but fiercely loyal to our roots. Each regional variant, from sinigang na baboy sa sampalok to sinigang na hipon sa gabi, from bangus sa miso to baka na may labanos, tells a story of place, people, and persistence.

To call sinigang the national dish is, of course, controversial. Critics insist adobo deserves the honor because it is globally recognized. Others point to lechon or kare-kare, claiming they better capture Filipino festivity and extravagance. But Ramos argues that national identity is not about dishes that dazzle tourists or win hashtags. It is about the food that nourishes us daily, the flavor that evokes belonging, the meal that speaks quietly but profoundly of who we are. In this light, sinigang is unmatched.

What makes sinigang extraordinary is its ability to humanize food. It is not a sterile formula but a story simmered in broth, a history book written in sour and salt, a defiance against the erasure of memory. Every pot carries the echoes of ancestors, every spoonful is both survival and celebration. It insists that Filipino cuisine is not defined by spectacle but by intimacy, not by borrowed grandeur but by authenticity.

In the end, sinigang is not just sour soup. It is nourishment and nostalgia, humility and sophistication, local and yet universal in the way it comforts. Ramos frames it as the truest reflection of the Filipino identity: messy, tangy, resilient, unafraid to be complex. To deny this is to misunderstand the Filipino palate itself, which thrives in contradiction and complexity.

So if the Philippines must declare a national dish, let it be sinigang. Let it stand as our culinary manifesto, proof that we do not need validation from foreign palates or flashy reinventions. Our identity is not in what dazzles but in what sustains us: the steaming, sour broth that has always been there, waiting on the table. Sinigang is us, distilled, never one-dimensional, never tame, and always unapologetically Filipino.

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Noel Galon de Leon is a writer and educator at University of the Philippines Visayas, where he teaches in both the Division of Professional Education and U.P. High School in Iloilo. He serves as an Executive Council Member of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts-National Committee on Literary Arts.