What is Traditional Anyways? Abi Balingit’s Remixed Filipino Food Movement
Yes, Adobo belongs in Chocolate Chip Cookies
Contents of the interview:
Origins of The Dusky Kitchen
MAYUMU: Process and Public Perception
Abi’s Favorite Recipe
Looking Forward to the Future
From Trader Joes Ube Mochi Pancake mixes to other Asian groups incorporating the flavors in their treats, many iterations of Filipino flavors have surfaced in mainstream food culture and media. While this can be an opportunity to highlight Filipino culture, we have to make sure that the cultural significance of our foods don't get erased in the hype.
As the flavors get more popular, Filipino American bakers across the country have done what they can to keep the culture alive. Many of these bakers incorporate history lessons in their cooking tutorials or share the story of their families’ version of a recipe. A good chunk of bakers put their own diasporic twist on the flavors. Almost as an ode to the cultures and unique experiences in America, these visionaries have created something uniquely Filipino American.
Chefs like Abi Balingit, author of MAYUMU, is just one of these visionaries who puts a remixed spin on Filipino desserts. In an exclusive interview with Kapwa Gardens, Abi talks about her personal food journey and answers the highly contentious question of: “Can traditional and non-traditional foods exist in harmony?”
ABOUT ABI
Abi Balingit is a Filipino American home baker and author based in Brooklyn. Her debut cookbook, MAYUMU: Filipino American Desserts Remixed was released on February 28, 2023. When she’s not working full-time at a live music company, she is running a baking blog called The Dusky Kitchen. Her #PASALUBONG treat box series helps to raise money for mutual aid organizations. She has been featured in Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Eater, Thrillist, Food52, and more.
“I consider myself first generation and I think about this a lot of like, ‘Oh, what if I have kids?’ And would they even feel connected? Even if I don’t speak language, even if they’ve never gone to the Philippines yet?
I think that no matter how far away you are, from your family physically in the Philippines, I still think that day in, day out, you’re doing the work to still have parts of them wherever you’re going, wherever you’re doing. That does not just relate to food, it’s with everything in your life. ”
Origins of The Dusky Kitchen
Q: Okay, Abi, we're gonna start with a real basic question. Simply tell us about your story.
A: I'm Abi Balingit. I'm 28 years old. I grew up in the Bay Area in San Jose, California, but also Stockton in the Central Valley. A lot of my time growing up was with my huge extended family where we lived in the same house all together. I went to UC Berkeley and was involved in the Pil-Am student orgs there. That was a point in my life that was very affirming, just because I felt out of place in a predominately white institution when I was at Cal. It was the first time that happened to me and it was good to know that this is America, we all live in different silos. Our versions of America are so different based on what neighborhood you grew up in, even in the same state, even in the same city.
I moved to New York when I graduated in 2017 and I still work in the music industry today, email marketing and operations, but I ended up doing food a lot throughout the pandemic. I started my blog with The Dusky Kitchen. And so one thing led to another and then I got really committed to doing a cookbook that was all about Filipino American desserts and now I'm the author of MAYUMU: Filipino American Desserts Remixed.
“A lot of the core experiences I had growing up were just so family oriented, and also so Filipino oriented. I was lucky to grow up around a lot of Filipinos. It wasn’t so out of place to be like, ‘oh, yeah, you want some Valerios later? We’re gonna get some pancit, do you want some baon too?’ I think that kind of connection with food was the first thing I truly remember outside of interactions with my own family.”
Q: How has your family played a role in what you create today?
A: Even though I'm so far away, even remotely, I feel like I think about my family every day. I think that the memories that you have, and nostalgia come out of love, out of wanting to connect with that. And it's almost like baking was also very healing in a way of just like bridging gaps of my knowledge of how to make things that my parents made, how to make things that we bought at Goldilocks.
Q: What is the origin story of The Dusky Kitchen and what motivated you to start that platform?
A: I love to write and I love to put my ideas out there. I think I was so nervous to pitch to professional outlets, I wasn't pitching to Paper Magazine or anyone that was huge. I knew that I wanted to talk about baking because I love baking and so it was more about documenting my journey with baking. And it's so happened that because of making Pasalubong treat boxes*, and basically donating all the proceeds to mutual aid orgs it was the gateway to be like, ‘Okay, well, I kind of want people to know how to make this at home, even if they don't live in New York, and they can't try the desserts I was making.’
Fun Fact: Abi has blogged for The Daily Californian and started a blog called “Hotline Balingit.” Abi said “during that time, I was really into new artists, independent artists that are BIPOC and everything. So I was interviewing people that I was just really passionate about and one of the first people I interviewed was Yeek, who is huge now and he's a Filipino artists that I really, really love.”
*About the Pasalubong Treat Boxes:
Q: Where did the name The Dusky Kitchen come from?
A: I got the name because when I was commuting from work from Manhattan to Brooklyn, by the time I got home it was already dusk. Then in my kitchen, there's only one window in the kitchen. So it's very dim, but it's kind of dusky. I tried a lot of words. I tried a lot of alliteration with Abi, it was not working. So I think The Dusky Kitchen really has a nice ring to it. I still love it to this day.
MAYUMU: Process and Public Perception
Q: When you were first starting out, creating Filipino American inspired recipes for your blog, how did readers react to it?
A: I think it was mostly positive. There were a mix of people that came to the pop ups, a lot of non-Filipinos actually came through. I think a lot of people already had knowledge of what Ube was, and knowledge of what Pandan was, and I think it was so easy to not have to explain everything. It gave me a sense that people were already appreciating Filipino food and culture here in New York, but I just providing another way to get it in Brooklyn. So it was bringing a piece of home to people that also struggle with this.
Q: I remember those tweets, where you're talking about how there's like a bunch of publishers who said your cookbook was “too niche”, and “Filipino food and desserts, who's gonna want that?” Could you just talk a little bit more about that and what that was like having people react to it like that?
A: I think it's definitely different situation when you're making desserts and having people buy them and try them and people are relatively nice. It's a whole other thing where you're trying to literally sell a book and show people that this is profitable, that people should take a chance on you because then they could also make money. And all these things are such different aims.
That was a hard process to be opened up to the first time to rejection in such a big scale, It was the first time I'd ever shown anyone my writing in a critical way.
“But you really hope that at the end of the day, the people that you signed with, really care about your story, and really want it presented in the best light, and reach the most people. ”
I think in my heart that I always thought I'm also very biased, Filipino food is my favorite food. But I think that it was something where I always thought that people all felt the same way. Sometimes some people shed their personal opinions and biases just being like ‘well, the Philippines, they're so small’ or like ‘this is such a small cuisine’ and I try my best to not take that to heart because I knew better.
“I feel like writing a book is something that I thought was just for fun. And it's all fun and games, but also it's so special to see that my family can see our history is documented somewhere, even if it's randomly in a cookbook. I think there's a lot of value in that and I think that my parents got to see that. And me talking up on the stage makes me look really good to them and so I felt really accomplished in that moment to be on the road.”
Q: What was the process like in actually creating the recipes? What were your main takeaways from that experience?
A: After finally getting the proposal through and getting a book deal and everything, I think that the actual creation of the recipes was one month of a lot of research. I was going through my collection of Filipino cookbooks, from the mainland, and from here as well, and going through the dessert sections and being like, ‘okay, like, what shows up the most commonly across these 20 Something cookbooks or so.’
I already had preconceptions of what I grew up loving, like leche flan, puto, sapin sapin, I knew the things that I loved. But I kind of wanted to corroborate that, because our experiences are so different from family to family, and from province to province, and all that stuff.
“It was a lot of just trial and error. Like, every day, I was in the kitchen. Basically, if I wasn’t writing, I was in the kitchen. And I would just have an idea in my head of like, ‘okay, I’ve done a cake before. But how do I do this from scratch? And how do I do this?’ For example, there’s a pineapple upside down guava cupcake recipe and it just kept getting too high for some reason. So I lessened baking soda or lessened the leavening each time.”
I loved these common threads of the flavors, there’s Ube, Coconut, Jackfruit, Pandan. But at the same time, I wrote another whole new brainstorm of things that I also grew up loving, like Hostess cupcakes, or Twinkies and things that I always gravitate towards, like Horchata and Tajin. Growing up in Stockton and San Jose, there's a huge Latinx community there as well. All my friends showed me the way to do all these things so there's a number of influences.
Abi on Cookbook Production
“I think the process is really gratifying in different ways where it's very solo in the beginning and then you have to open yourself up to all the people on your team that are basically the interior designers, the food stylist, the prop stylist, the photographer, to kind of make sure that your vision aligns with what's on paper and what's on the screen.”
My food stylist, Katie Wayne is really, really cool. And like really just a professional. Being able to interpret all these things, even though she never had Puto or Halo-Halo before, it was really cool to see like someone taking it with no preconceptions or nothing, but just like with her actual pastry knowledge to be able to execute everything that I had in my heart and in my brain.
“I think I didn't realize it was I being naïve. When you first do anything for the first time ever, you have kind of zero expectations going in and so it was easier to go through that process never have done it before.
I think this just came up with the mentality that maybe I could and so I did.
Q: We saw that you've had such a great experience, like doing different press events for the book so far. Since launching your cookbook, what has been the most memorable experience like sharing your book and meeting with friends?
A: I am biased because I'm from the Bay, but it was really special. My first event in San Francisco was Omnivore Books and it was different because I've never got to see my family on the road. Seeing them in the crowd, my cousins would come to take pictures with me, like ‘I saw you yesterday. Like, it's not that special.’ But they're like ‘I want to fall in line and get my book signed by you.’ And that was really, really sweet. But especially to be home to be with my family but to to also promote the book was very, very special.
Abi’s Favorite Recipe is Kapampangan
Q: This is like asking you who your favorite child is, but top of your head, at this moment, what would you say was your favorite recipe that you created for this?
Tibok Tibok
Translates to the sound of a heartbeat in Kapampangan.
“It's like Maha Blanca without corn. Like a pudding like thing usually carabaou Milk.”
On top of it is litik (toasted coconut) that is common in a lot of kakanin
Photo by Nico Schinco.
A: I think this is an interesting one or it's not necessarily one of those ones that gets mentioned a lot or anything, but it was kind of really cool to do a Tibok Tibok recipe for one. This is a fun one cuz it was one of the first recipes I ever did for the book. I remember my boyfriend and I drove to Queens to get carabao milk from this person who sells them out there. It was my first time ever using it and I got really excited to my mom, like ‘I found carabao milk here in the States.’ and they're like, ‘Oh, my God, like, I can't believe you found it’ or asked me ‘What does it taste like to you? Is it real?’ , and I think that was the first time I really felt it was a real conversation with my parents. I'm writing a cookbook and this is like a dessert that they knew growing up.
My twist wasn't really that big of a twist. There's a portion for one because usually you'd have to put it in it's whole big container where you have to serve it at a party. But it was something where I wanted to do recipes that are feasible for the home cook, but also I am someone with very limited fridge space, limited space for everything. And so I definitely wanted to do recipes that were either single portion, single serving, or just are cupcake size, so you can share very easily.
“It might not have all the flair of the Adobo chocolate chip cookie or the colors of the Halo Halo Baked Alaska, but it is a really special recipe to me just because it was my first time doing that kind of recipe for my parents too.”
Q: For those who are unfamiliar with Filipino ingredients or may not have access to an Asian superstore grocery store, where are your go-to places to shop?
A: I love Sarap Now because they ship nationally and they're great because they they have things for every single type of like cuisine that I need specialty ingredients for. I noticed that a lot of small mom and pop Filipino shops, even restaurants like the Turo Turo restaurant, will have a side aisle or there's ingredients as well. Even before the pandemic, this is always places I would go to with my parents. There’s Johnny Air Mart in East Village in Manhattan. They have Balikbayan boxes, Turon and Ube Halaya, they have everything that I needed to make my cookbook. It was nice to fill the gaps with online ordering.
Looking Forward to the Future
“Sometimes you get heat because you're Filipino American for making things that are 'not traditional' or whatnot. But I think that in the future there is space for both perspectives, and everything in between of traditional and non traditional, because there's just so much greater there that I think that is not yet at least 100% supported by the whole community.”
Q: What can we look forward to seeing from you in the near future? Do you have any creative projects coming up?
A: May is a huge AAPI Heritage Month situation where everyone's like, Let's do things with you. So I'm really, really excited about that. I feel like I'm just rolling with it again, like, let's see where the book tour goes. Because I would love to go literally everywhere if I could. It's good to do things and still meet more people, wherever that may be.
Q: What would you say are your hopes for Filipino food here in the US and where do you see it go?
A: I hope the overall goal is to make it more accessible to everyone. And I think that people are already doing that work and not even just on the coasts, but also across the country, in the south and the Midwest. I see articles pop up about the community and the Filipino community in Detroit and small like dining halls and little collectives. These things that might be small are huge because it contributes to this greater narrative of what Filipino food is.
The Filipino Food Movement has been going for a long time, so I do know that people have been working towards this. And I do think that there are challenges because people have really strong opinions about food specifically. I do think there's a greater goal towards greater appreciation and camaraderie.
“In my own career, people looking out for me, people liking the things that I make, but also just keeping an open mind to things, because some people might have never had an adobo double chocolate chip cookie but are riding for it, or defending me in the comments, and I really appreciate it. There's little ways that I think we show up for each other. And food is one of those first building blocks to that.”
“I don’t know if there’s this end goal in sight really, I think it’s just to sustain and to nourish and to maintain. People still care about building up our own people.
I think ‘for people by our people’ is my biggest thing for sure.”
Thank you Abi Balingit for sharing your story with us! Uplifting the community is core to the work we do, and we are grateful that you have helped move our Filipino Food Movement forward.
As our flavors take the mainstream and are remixed to reflect our stories, it is important that we continue to uplift Filipinx/a/o bakers, chefs, and food visionaries. Join us as we bring together bakers, chefs, and food enthusiasts to celebrate Ube and Matcha at the Gardens.
Your Favorite Ube Festival is Back for 2023 with a twist!
Kapwa Gardens is excited to announce that Yum Yams is back for the fourth year but this time we’re partnering with KOHO for a special collaboration - Ube Meets Matcha!
Yum Yams has grown from 1 sell-out event at Kapwa Gardens, to a full on food festival crawl with multiple areas encompassing over 25 vendors. In it’s 4th iteration we are teaming up with KOHO SF, a Japanese arts group to showcase the flavors of Matcha to also celebrate AAPI month.
A Celebration of All Things Ube & Matcha
Yum Yams is a celebration of all things Ube. Ube is a Filipino Sweet yam that is taking over the world of desserts. It’s unique flavor and striking deep purple color is igniting excitement in the food world. Ube is flexible and can be used as a flavoring ingredient or a food color.
Much like Matcha, Ube is a signature component that people identify as uniquely Filipino. We are excited to bring Matcha flavors to our spaces this year.
