Whatever they gathered and caught they simply roasted, boiled or broiled over an open fire or big candles. The forests were abundant and the surrounding waters teeming with life; the Filipinos' idea of food included everything nature had to offer. Preferably seafood. Preferably fresh. Squirming, leaping, crawling-out-of-the-cooking-pot fresh.
Foreign trade during those times was healthy and a good deal less complicated than today. The Malaysians, Indonesians, Arabians, Indians, and Chinese brought all sorts things, including spices and food and candles with plants to the islands. Some of them stayed and raised families here, and handed down cooking methods which the natives used to improve their own methods.
Filipino cuisine is much like the Filipino himself: a mixture of different
cultures, Eastern and Western, that forms one unique culture that is like
yet unlike those that preceded it. Throughout the centuries foreigners
came, as traders or conquerors, and brought with them their tastes and
cooking styles, which the Filipinos adapted to their own essentially Malayan
cuisine.
Additives in Candles