Finding My Way Home Through Filipino Food

Food has always been the way I make sense of the world. Of belonging, of memory, of identity. But for a long time, Filipino food wasn’t a conscious part of my cooking. It was something I ate, but not something I claimed as my own.

This essay explores that journey. From childhood lunchboxes to London’s food scene, from assimilation to reclamation. It asks a question I’ve been thinking about for years:

Why is Filipino food still struggling for recognition in Britain, when Filipinos have been here for decades?

This is about food, but it’s also about something bigger. It’s about visibility. Contribution. And the stories that get overlooked.

I Was Taught to Forget

I was taught to forget.

Not in words, not in explicit commands,                                                                             but in the quiet moments of childhood where assimilation meant survival.  

Speak English at home.                                                                                                               Eat what the other kids eat.                                                                                               Don’t bring that food to school.

So I learned to blend in.

I learned to soften my vowels,                                                                                                 
to clip the edges of my name,                                                                                                  
to make my accent disappear before it had the chance to form.

I learned to trade rice for bread,                                                                                            
to smile when they asked, What’s that smell?                                                                      
to laugh with them before they could laugh at me.

I learned that silence is easier than explanation,                                                             
that belonging is easier than difference,                                                                            
that home can slip through your fingers if you let it.

And so I let it.

I let the words fade first,                                                                                                       
the ones I knew in my mouth but never spoke aloud.

Then the foods, the flavours, the smells of home,                                                      
pushed to the corners of my life, kept separate, kept small.

For years, I thought forgetting was the price of moving forward.                                     
For years, I thought I had left it behind.

But memory lingers in places you don’t expect.                                                                   
In the sizzle of garlic hitting hot oil.                                                                                      In the sharp tang of vinegar rising from a pan.                                                                    
In the weight of rice in my hands, shaped into something that feels like home.

I was taught to forget.

But I found my way back.

I was taught to forget.

The Cost of Assimilation

Let me take you back to my childhood lunchtime in Sydney, at Newtown North Public School in the early ‘90s.

The bell rang, and kids ran outside, racing to snatch a seat at one of those metal picnic tables that could burn your skin on contact. Those who weren’t quick enough had to settle for eating cross-legged on the equally scorched concrete, unzipping their lunchboxes, unwrapping their sandwiches.

Most kids had the same thing; white bread, ham and cheese, or a Vegemite sandwich. The fancier kids had placed their orders earlier in the day, brown paper bags with their name, order, and a dollar tucked inside. In exchange, they’d get a hot sausage roll with a squeezable pack of ketchup or a steaming meat pie. If they were lucky, they had Dunkaroos, Le Snaks, or a pack of Tiny Teddies. These were traded like currency, swapped for a bite of someone’s Chomp bar.

Then there was my baon (pronounced ba-on and means packed lunch/provisions).

A round Tupperware container, slightly stained from past meals, filled with rice and adobo, the smell of soy and vinegar escaping the moment I cracked the lid. Maybe pancit, the noodles packed tight, tangled together from sitting in the fridge overnight. If my mum had time that morning, maybe there was a fried egg on top.

It wasn’t weird. Not to me, not to my family. But in a sea of white bread and muesli bars, it was different.

The questions came before I took my first bite.

“Why do you eat rice for lunch?”

“What’s that smell?”

“How come you don’t have a sandwich?”

No one was trying to be cruel. But when you’re seven years old, you don’t want to explain your food. You just want to eat. Some kids wore their differences with pride. I wasn’t one of them. Not yet. Some days, I ate fast so I wouldn’t have to answer questions. Some days, I wished I had a sandwich, just to make things easier.

And on the rare occasions I had pocket money, I couldn’t wait to ditch my baon and get a sausage roll wrapped in one of those magical brown paper bags, the oily mark on the bottom proof that it was fresh from the warmer. I remember the first time I came to school with a Le Snak tucked into my lunchbox, thinking, This is gonna be a game-changer. It felt like winning.

Filipino food wasn’t mocked. It wasn’t hated. But back then, it was unknown. And that was enough to make you second-guess it.

That was Sydney. Years later, when I moved to London, I found myself facing a different version of the same reality. Not in the form of school lunches, but in the quiet absence of Filipino food from the city’s culinary fabric.

One of my early school photos - Newtown North Public School in Sydney circa 1991

Food as Language, Food as Memory

There’s a reason why food is the first thing people cling to when everything else is stripped away.

You can forget a language, but taste lingers.

You can lose a home, but the smell of garlic hitting hot oil can bring it back in an instant.

For years, I didn’t cook Filipino food. Not seriously, not deliberately. It existed in my periphery, in the background noise of memory. Ate it when it was available. But it wasn’t mine. Not yet.

Then one day, I made a simple adobo.

Garlic.                                                                                                                                          Soy.                                                                                                                                       Vinegar.                                                                                                                                    Heat.

The scent of vinegar rising from the pan is sharp at first, almost confrontational. But as it reduces, it softens, giving way to something rounder, deeper. The soy sauce darkens the edges, thickening into something that clings to the spoon. It is a dish that demands patience. Too much heat, and the vinegar turns bitter. Too little, and it remains too sharp. You have to wait for it to mellow, to find balance.

That first bite was more than just flavour. It was recognition.

Filipino Food in London: The Battle for Recognition

Dual citizenship

Filipino food in the UK exists in a strange limbo. It is loved within the community but rarely written about. Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese cuisines have long secured their place in British food media. But Filipino food? It remains an afterthought. A “trend” rather than a fixture.

And yet, Filipinos are not invisible in Britain.

Walk into any NHS hospital, and chances are, you’ll meet a Filipino nurse. Filipinos are the second-largest group of non-UK nurses in the NHS, making up 7.7% of all full-time nursing staff, just behind Indian nationals. The NHS itself, a cornerstone of British life, is built on the backs of migrant workers. For decades, Filipinos have played a crucial role in keeping it running.

So why hasn’t Filipino cuisine been embraced in the same way?

Compare this to other communities that have seen their cuisines thrive in Britain. Indian food has become so woven into British identity that chicken tikka masala has been called the UK’s national dish. Chinese takeaways are a late-night institution. Thai food has established itself firmly in the mainstream.

Filipino food, meanwhile, still struggles to find its place.

Why?

It’s not that the food isn’t good. Filipino food is complex, rich, built on layers of migration and influence. Exactly the kind of narrative Britain usually embraces in its culinary landscape. And yet, there is a lack of familiarity, a lack of visibility, and a lack of access in the mainstream.

Why does it take reinvention to gain recognition? Why do we need to package our cuisine in new, more palatable ways for it to be acknowledged? The unspoken reality is that Filipino food, in its most traditional form, doesn’t fit the romanticised British view of “authentic” Asian food. It is brown, unstructured, often served in stews rather than photogenic plates of noodles or skewers.

And yet, it persists.

Filipino food in London isn’t just about the restaurants. It’s about the Filipino nurses cooking for their co-workers at hospital shifts. The community shops selling frozen bangus and bottles of suka. The homes where pancit is still made for birthdays.

Filipino food does not need validation. It exists, with or without approval.

Cooking as Belonging

For years, I thought I had to choose.

I thought belonging was a binary. Either you hold onto your past, or you embrace your present. Either you are Filipino, or you are something else.

But now I know better.

I belong, not because I have stayed the same, but because I have allowed myself to change.

I am Filipino, not because I have clung to the past, but because I carry it forward in everything I do.

There is no singular way to make Filipino food visible. Whether in its most traditional form or in the hands of chefs creating new expressions of it, the cuisine deserves its place at the table. Not because it has been reshaped, but because it has always belonged.

And every time I cook, every time I let garlic sizzle in oil, every time I reduce vinegar into something rich and deep, every time I put a dish in front of someone and watch their face light up with recognition, I know:

I never really left.

Not in spirit.                                                                                                                             Not in identity.                                                                                                                        And certainly not in taste.

Thanks for reading.

If this piece resonated with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Drop a comment, share it with someone who might relate, or just sit with it for a bit.

Filipino food is always evolving, always finding its way. Just like us.