Travelling Food

This exhibition looks at documentary sources to explore the history of Filipino cuisine and its relationship with Spanish gastronomy. The multicultural cuisine of the Philippines was the result of centuries of shared history, and European, Asian, and American influences.

Spanish cuisine in the 16th century was complex and rich, and this richness had in turn been brought from elsewhere. Wheat, olive trees, and vines had arrived in ancient times, while the Muslims brought with them a variety of spices, rice, and several types of fruit tree.

The result was a varied diet, characterized by the seasonality of many food types and the development of preservation techniques in which ingredients such as salt, vinegar, aromatic herbs, and spices were key.

Five hundred years ago, Ferdinand Magellan and his crew set off for the Spice Islands, taking with them their customs, language, culture, and food.

The fleet of five carracks left Seville in 1519, loaded up with enough provisions to feed their crew: bread, wine, oil, vinegar, vegetables, lard, cheeses, salted meat, fruit, and dried fruit and nuts.

The bread was "hardtack": this was a substance that was cooked twice to ensure its durability. They bought wine from Jerez, vinegar from Moguer, and oil and vegetables from places around Seville.

The fish was dried or salted, and bought on the coast in places such as Ayamonte and Huelva. The anchovies came from Malaga, beef for salting from Sanlúcar, raisins from Almuñécar, and figs and plums from Huelva. Andalusian products featured heavily in their provisions.

European expansion throughout the 16th century was dominated by the Spanish and the Portuguese. It led to the discovery of new lands, encounters with new peoples, and a new way of understanding the world.

Abraham Ortelius was a Flemish cartographer. His knowledge earned him the trust of Philip II of Spain, who appointed him Royal Geographer. This gave him access to the information gathered through expeditions such as the first voyage around the world.

The first voyage around the world achieved what it had set out to do when it reached the islands that produced cloves and nutmeg. Before long, they had reached other ports in Indonesia, India, and Ceylon.

The colonization of the Philippines by the Spanish attracted merchants from all over the world, with the result that spices such as pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger became more widely available.

Philip II of Spain, concerned for the health of his heir, Charles, demanded that officials of the Real Audiencia of Mexico (the high court of New Spain) send him all the available cinnamon "in tortillas or rolls."

By then, he knew that the galleons could bring these treasured Asian spices from the faraway "Islands of the West," as the Philippines were formerly known.

It was for this reason that he also sent Miguel López de Legazpi, the first governor of the Philippines, who was responsible for facilitating regular communications between the archipelago of the Philippines and New Spain.

Juan Bautista Román was Attorney General of the Philippines in the late 16th century. He took an interest in the commercial value of its resources and in the possibility of cultivating these spices in the Americas.

He realized that most of them were endemic plants that were not suited to being transported to other places; a fact that had already been observed in the case of pepper, clove, and nutmeg.

Miguel López de Legazpi's expedition reached the Philippines, having set sail in Mexico. Once there, work began to organize the return journey, which would be led by the more experienced Friar Andrés de Urdaneta.

The accounts kept by the fleet are a good illustration of how the Spanish adapted to the foods of the New World. The supplies or "provisions" included "new corn,"...

... "beans," and "nine very large baskets of chilli," dried pepper and paprika.

Other sources show that they ate turkey, pumpkins, tomatoes (both green and red), sweet potatoes, yucca, and potatoes.