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- Title:
- Baka & Quiso (Part B)
- Description:
- At first natives did not like the taste of beef, according to missionaries some of who managed ranches of 1,000 head for their orders. One wonders what beef dishes the missionaries introduced that changed the minds of their islander parishioners. There was no refrigeration so a cow (like a large domesticated pig or a wild boar) had to be eaten or turned into jerky (tapa) right away. “Tapa” is a native term recorded in 1613 as the Tagalog synonym for the Spanish “ahumar” and “secar.” Lukmâ, meaning thin tapa at the time, has slipped away from contemporary usage. Price controls many years later, in 1828, included tapa made of carabao, cow and deer meat, the latter being the most costly and the first the cheapest. Beef is synonymous with Spanish culture. By 1891 there were over 400,000 head of bovine in the colony. That year Masbate had over 65,000 head and Negros Occidental over 62,000 leading insular herds. Not only was beef popular for meat but as a source of cheese. The best cheese at the time was made in Cebu. Cheese was not only a desired food but a military ration. Bread and cheese were needed by sailors and soldiers with no time to stop for a meal in the middle of a typhoon or a fight. In USA records of 1902 cheese was described as “made in small quantities, that coming from Cebu and Laguna being of excellent quality.” It was noted that the former was “famous throughout the archipelago.” One wonders when natives began eating quiso. A curious table from 1902 notes that natives and Chinese bought neither fresh Philippine cheese nor European cheese. They were eaten by “whites” paying 20 cents per pound for local cheese made in a “most primitive manner” and 37-1/2 cents for the imported variety. Today, Filipinos are very fond of native white cheese made of cow or carabao milk, as well as a diversity of European kinds some already made in Davao and UP Los Baños. There is no record yet of butter being locally churned.
- Subjects:
- Cooking (Beef) Baka Tapa Quiso Cheese
- Exhibition:
- 100 Philippine Food
- Source:
- Photo by FSM: Finely textured, mildly flavoured artisanal carabao cheese from Bulacan.
- Type:
- Image;Still Image
- Format:
- image/jpeg
Source
- Preferred Citation:
- "Baka & Quiso (Part B)", Philippine Food History, Felice P. Sta. Maria
- Reference Link:
- felicepstamaria.net/items/coll142.html