History of ADOBO dish in the Philippines

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When you go to the Philippines, one of the most famous dishes is Adobo which can be done in a variety of ingredient. It could be fish, pork, beef or chicken. Some exotic animals such as frog, “bayawak”, or even snake can be cooked in adobo style.

Since Philippines is made of three large islands named Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao it can be that there will be different culture and way of making adobo recipe. And since each large island is also composed of many small islands which is counted into thousands than it could be the adobo recipe can still be done a thousand different ways.

Basically, adobo is made up of meat (chicken, pork, beef or fish) with spices basically vinegar, soy sauce, pepper, salt and some herbs. Actually adobo is a Spanish terms which means to marinate or to combine the ingredients and left for preservation. The actual historically adobo came from Caribbean and Spain where one of the places which is abundant in herbs and spices.

It is believed that Filipinos learned this recipe from Spaniards since Philippines has been their colony for 400 years. Like other countries and cultures, Filipinos also learned to use methods to preserve food and using acid in vinegar, and salt in soy sauce, makes it more known to many people.

Though it was not named before the Spaniards invaded the country, then they taught local people that this marinated food is called adobo.  At the time being, adobo has innovated its way of marinate, cooking and presentation. More ingredients have been added and sweets are sometimes also included in other culture’s way of cooking.

Today, other way of adobo cooking is still invented in the Philippines. And it will not stop because people will be craving for more imaginative way of making adobo style foods. And Filipinos are the only one who made this kind of marinate a very popular way of cooking in the world.

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