Eating Our Way Through The Pandemic
How Burnt Basque Cheesecake, sushi bake and sourdough got us through the year
Just one year ago, life was normal. We went to work, met up with friends for dinner, spent weekends with the family, and hauled ourselves to the gym twice a week. We had plans and projects and prospects. Metro Manila went into lockdown on March 16, 2021, and in the next 12 months, every aspect of our lives changed, especially the way we eat.
Perhaps you’ve noticed how you’ve stopped exercising and started stress eating, or how you struggle with cooking. “We’re feeding the soul more than feeding the stomach,” reports The Irish Times in an article about pandemic eating. Our relationship with food is more complex than simply fulfilling our nutritional requirements. We eat to nourish ourselves, but we also eat for comfort, or because we’re bored. We cook to feed ourselves, but also because it feels therapeutic, or is a ritual that makes us feel connected to happy childhood memories. Our food behavior is complex and layered, and nowhere is this more apparent in the way we’re eating our way through this pandemic.
Here’s a look at the food we ate, craved, cooked and obsessed over in the past year. The pandemic disrupted our lifestyles, but it also showed how we were able to use food to meet our needs — for nourishment, to bond with others, as creative outlet, for therapy, and to celebrate life’s wins, big and small.
The Year in Food
The Year in Food
The new grocery scene
Remember the first few weeks of quarantine when people had to line up to go to the supermarket only to find the shelves stripped bare of ingredients? With public transportation not available, it became a challenge for supermarkets to restock their shelves and get their staff to work. Shopping for our food needs became one of the early concerns of quarantine. When we finally managed to finish your grocery shopping, we faced the tedious process of disinfecting each and every piece of merchandise bought. We wrote about "How To Safely Handle Groceries And Takeout Food During The Coronavirus Pandemic." (Photo: The Creative Exchange, Unsplash)
Photo Credit: How To Safely Handle Groceries And Takeout Food During The Coronavirus
Online groceries to the rescue
Brick-and-mortar supermarkets and grocery stores soon launched websites that allowed people to buy all their household needs online. Viber groups became a searchable marketplace that you could scour for ingredients and food products. Pabili services sprouted, as well as the very Pinoy practice of pasabuy. We covered this in "Skip The Supermarket: These Are The New Strategies For Grocery Shopping During ECQ." (Photo: A sample of gourmet foodstuffs from one of our favorite new online grocers, @doughandgrocer)
Photo Credit: Skip The Supermarket: These Are The New Strategies For Grocery Shopping During ECQ.
Hail to the heroic riders!
None of these options would have been viable without the delivery riders to bring the goods to your door. Grab, Lalamove and foodpanda stepped up their game. GrabFood disseminated their recommended procedures for “contactless delivery” in order to protect the riders, customers and food purveyors. As the year wore on, more food delivery apps became available and we got the benefit of being able to choose, prompting us to write a review: "The 7 Best Food Delivery Apps In Metro Manila." (Photo: Unsplash)
Photo Credit: 7 Best Food Delivery Apps In The Metro
Dalgona Coffee
Because one can’t always be grim and serious, especially when trapped inside our homes, people soon began to look a little lighthearted distraction to combat the ennui of quarantine. Dalgona coffee was an early food trend that took the world by storm. It’s appeal lay in its simple ingredients, and how with patience and practice you could create a beautiful, Instagrammable cup that you could then share on social media. We took a deeper dive into the phenomenon in: "How To Make Dalgona Coffee, The Trending Korean Drink That’s Taking Social Media By Storm." (Photo: Unsplash)
Photo Credit: How To Make Dalgona Coffee, The Trending Korean Drink That’s Taking Social Media By Storm
Creative cooking with ordinary ingredients
The problem with grocery shopping didn’t go away overnight, so many people had to make do with limited ingredients for a while. The situation called for some kitchen creativity, and soon people were sharing their recipes for how to elevate instant noodles, Spam and other mundane ingredients. We got into the spirit with a helpful article “12 Creative Uses For The Canned Goods In Your Pantry” (read: bit.ly/CreativeCannedFood.) We also shared "16 Favorite Ways We Cooked With Spam During Quarantine, which you can read in the link below." (Photo: @turkish.tale)
Photo Credit: 16 Favorite Ways We Cooked With Spam
Stress baking and sourdough
As quarantine lengthened, anxiety and the stress of being cooped up began to take its toll. People found solace in the act of baking, triggering the next big trend of the year: sourdough. Some of our favorite sourdough finds include @johndoughph, @made.manumano, and @theb.a.dbaker. For newbie bakers still trying to master the craft, we published "5 Handy Tips For First Time Bread Bakers.” (Photo: Unsplash)
Photo Credit: 5 Handy Tips For First Time Bread Bakers
Cookies, cookies, cookies!
Of course, stress baking produced more than just sourdough bread. Manila was overflowing with a wide variety of baked goods, from banana bread to cinnamon rolls. And, I think it’s safe to say, we went a little crazy over cookies My personal favorite is @bakedby_alexa’s Brown Butter Two Chip Cookies by a precocious 12-year-old baker. And because the Metro team is a cookie-loving team, the editors shared their favorites in “14 Incredible Cookies To Suit Your Every Mood.” (Photo: @bakedby_alexa)
Photo Credit: 14 Incredible Cookies To Suit Your Every Mood
Burnt Basque Cheesecakes
This rustic looking cheesecake with an irresistibly creamy interior was the most luscious, indulgent dessert of the year. We found so many delicious iterations (flavored with ube, with chocolate shavings, hazelnut, or sugar-free). Chef Chele Gonzalez of @gallerybychele made available his own home recipe which he used to serve only on special occasions for family and friends (read: bit.ly/ChefChelesCheesecake). Meanwhile, we put together a list of "15 Sensational Burnt Basque CheesecakesYou Can Order This Weekend.” (Photo: @wisteria7242)
Photo Credit: 15 Sensational Burnt Basque CheesecakesYou Can Order This Weekend
Ube Cheese Pandesal
Ube and cheese make such a perfect pairing that this trend was inevitable. While ube cheese pandesal isn’t exactly a new product, the craze for it exploded during the pandemic, sprouting countless small home bakeries. With the national appetite for ube whetted, we listed down "15 Delectable Ube Treats To Indulge In Right Now." (Photo: @heavenlybakeshopph)
Photo Credit: 15 Delectable Ube Treats To Indulge In Right Now
Sushi Bake
We totally understand the special allure of the sushi bake, which is essentially a sushi roll deconstructed and transformed into an easy, appetizing baked casserole. It feels fun and adventurous, easy to make and to serve, and soon available in a lot of different variations, like baked sisig or samgyup bake. We explained what a sushi bake is here: bit.ly/WhatIsSushiBake, and shared “10 Crazy Delicious Sushi Bakes We Know You’ll Love.” (Photo: @thesushibake)
Photo Credit: 10 Crazy Delicious Sushi Bakes We Know You’ll Love
Korean Fried Chicken
Stuck at home for months, a great many of us turned to Netflix and became addicted to K-drama. Hit shows like “Crash Landing On You” and “Itaewon Class” got us all hot and bothered for Korean food, especially Korean fried chicken. We ate our way through the best of the best and came up with this list: "10 Seriously Addicting Korean Fried Chicken To Fall In Love With." (Photo:: gajaph)
Photo Credit: 10 Seriously Addicting Korean Fried Chicken To Fall In Love With
K-fever
Even before the pandemic, Korean food has had a healthy presence in Manila, but our hunger for all things Korean seemed to reach fever pitch during quarantine. From samgyupsal and soju to Korean garlic bread and kimchi, our palates are forever changed. We found fun new ways to drink soju (read: bit.ly/10SojuCocktails), and shared "15 Delicious Ways To Cook With Kimchi." (Photo: @chingoo).
Photo Credit: 15 Delicious Ways To Cook With Kimchi
Cocktail Kits and Sangrias
A good stiff drink at the end of the working day is a classic ritual, so we learned to do happy hour at home. To the rescue were superbly crafted cocktail kits from our favorite bars, like @thespiritslibrary and @runrabbitrun.ph. We also loved the bottled negroni from @thepeninsulamanila, or @donrevyph’s bottled cocktails. Weekends were perfect for light and easy day drinking, so we compiled our list of “10 Best Sangrias To Drink Over The Weekend.” (Photo: @runrabbitrun.ph)
Photo Credit: 10 Best Sangrias To Drink Over The Weekend
Ramen Crazy
Even on the hottest days of 2020, we found ourselves slurping ramen. After all, there is a reason ramen has been called “the comfort food that took over the world.” DIY ramen kits had us on a steep learning curve. Even Ukokkei’s legendary ramen master, Chef Tamura-san, reopened his hole-in-the-wall space now dubbed Ramen Ron (read here: bit.ly/ramenronreopens). Meanwhile, many of us eventually ventured beyond ramen to discover an amazing world of Asian noodle dishes, which we shared in “The Metro.Style Guide To The Best Asian Noodle Dishes In Manila.” (Photo: @ramenron.ph)
Photo Credit: The Metro.Style Guide To The Best Asian Noodle Dishes In Manila
A taste of nostalgia
The year of pandemic was a year of comfort eating. I think you’ll agree that there is no flavor more comforting than the food of our childhood. Nostalgia was big, and nothing made us quite so happy as when Jollibee put all our old favorites back on its menu (read: bit.ly/Jollibeesoldmenu), and delivery services sprouted to bring regional specialties from the provinces straight to our doors (read: bit.ly/probinsyadelicacies). Meanwhile, a new generation of kakanin was born — puto, bibingka, biko suman and other local delicacies evolved into creative new forms that you can find here: “10 Next Gen Kakanin And Filipino Desserts To Thrill You.” (Photo: Cathedral windows by @indulgencebyirene).
Photo Credit: 10 Next Gen Kakanin And Filipino Desserts To Thrill You
Plant Based Eating
Unsurprisingly, healthy eating was a big concern, as we tried to keep our immune systems strong. It’s no coincidence that plant based eating went mainstream this year, from Burger King’s plant-based Whopper, Wabi-Sabi’s vegetarian ramen, Magnum’s vegan ice cream bars to Sagana plant-based, dairy-free butter. We tried out the plant-based recipes in Juana Manahan Yupangco’s cookbook, Mesa Ni Misis, which makes use of native Filipino vegetables (read: bit.ly/mesanimisis), and to help you get started on your journey towards healthier eating, read our “Plant-Based Diet Grocery Starter Pack.” (Photo: @mesanimisis)
Photo Credit: Plant-Based Diet Grocery Starter Pack
Steak DIY Kits
Living under stress can sharpen our senses and drive us to search for relief and a little indulgence. Steak is the ultimate indulgence, and we saw a plethora of D.I.Y. steak kits that provided us with a lot of choices —Miyazaki Wagyu, grass-fed Irish beef, Argentine Black Angus — just reading through the available options was an intriguing experience. For those of you who wanted to cook steak from scratch, we posted a classic recipe for Beef Tenderloin Steak with Red Wine Sauce. (Photo: Some of our favorite steaks come from @wolfgangsteakhouseph)
Photo Credit: RECIPE: Beef Tenderloin Steak with Red Wine Sauce
Minimalist Cakes
An offshoot of the Korean craze, minimalist cakes were a cute, sweet way to send out our thoughts to friends, partners or to the world in general. Often, the cakes would be very simple, bearing clever messages, from the flirty (Glad we both swiped right) to the encouraging (Rest, but don’t quit!) to the makulit (Magjowa ka na!). We shared “15 Charming Korean Minimalist Cakes Guaranteed To Make You Smile.” (Photo: @wadoughs)
Photo Credit: 15 Charming Korean Minimalist Cakes Guaranteed To Make You Smile
Outdoor dining
As lockdown slowly eased, restaurants began to reopen and people cautiously ventured out of their homes to finally enjoy delicious restaurant meals. We posted about "15 Ways to Dine Out Safely," as recommended by an expert from the CDC (read: bit.ly/DiningOutSafely) and because outdoor dining is still safer than indoor dining, we gave you a list of the “18 Best Restaurants With Outdoor Dining In Manila. (Photo: The gorgeous al fresco dining area at @lacabrera_mnl).
Photo Credit: 18 Best Restaurants With Outdoor Dining In Manila
Streetside hangouts and pop ups
Because we’re social beings who have a deep-seated needed to feel connected to a community, shared al fresco spaces soon opened up where people could congregate (still socially distant!), hang out and have a meal. The Makati Street Meets at Rada and Leviste Streets, is a great example, with its outdoor markets, unique pop up concepts and airy locales. We compile a list of these events every weekend in our post: The Best Outdoor Spaces For Dinner and Drinks. (Photo: @makeitmakati).
Photo Credit: The Best Outdoor Spaces For Dinner and Drinks
Lead photo: @chingoo, @wolfgangsteakhouseph, @ramenron.ph, @indulgencebyirene, Unsplash
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