Foreword by Marian Pastor Roces
Photographs by Jilson Tiu

“We know our landscape, and have tasted its nuances. From it we derive these subtleties of healing, flavor, and pleasure.”

Hailed as “effortlessly elegant” when it was first published in 2000, Palayok: Philippine Food through Time, on Site, in the Pot by Doreen G. Fernandez presents the origins and evolution of Philippine cuisine to the then-present. From her background of cultural research, Fernandez serves not just the meal but also its surrounding context, antecedents, and influences.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

“What shall we praise first: her gleaming prose, her wicked wit, her uncompromising intellect? Doreen G. Fernandez’s subject was food in the most expansive sense, as a means of interrogating—and illuminating—society and self. Her greatest subversion was simply to observe, with patience, curiosity and compassion, the high and the low; the celebrated and the scorned; what brings us pride and what we hide
in shame. That is, to testify to the world in all its particulars, as it truly is.”
—Ligaya Mishan, The New York Times

“For many who did not have the good fortune to meet her [Doreen G. Fernandez] in person, the joy of her research can be found in this book. Her appeal has not paled nearing a quarter of a century after she passed, her work as pioneering food critic and food historian of the Philippines continues to inspire through her elegant prose that teaches us to taste, contextualize, and appreciate the world around us.”
—Ambeth Ocampo