Why do Filipinos eat with a spoon and a fork?

Dear Filipino,

Why do Filipinos eat with a spoon and fork? We use a spoon not only to eat soup but also almost everything else. Some of us can even use the edge of the spoon to cut our food.

A related question is: What other people use a spoon the way Filipinos do?

Thank you and regards,
Cold in Winterspeg, Manisnowba, Canada

Dear Cold,

Bienvenue and warm greetings to you! 

First, a big caveat: If you're looking for an explanation from someone who is an authority on refined and sophisticated dining etiquette, you've come to the wrong place!  Read no further and leave now.  Why?  Because I am a pig when I eat.  I slurp.  I make all sorts of snorting, gurgling and other suilline sounds.  I am oblivious to the world when I'm in The Zone.  The best one can say about my table manners is that I do know how to really enjoy my food, much to the consternation and embarrassment of The Filipina, who was brought up in a much more genteel environment.  Thankfully for me, she hasn't divorced me yet because of this, although it's fair to say things did get, well, quite heated at some point.  A veritable macho, I didn't back down -- hah! [The Filipina approved this line.] -- although for the sake of marital harmony and bliss, I did agree some compromise was in order, leading to our household's now decade-plus-long Dining Room Detente.


(Blogcadre.com: Pottery Barn thinks it's cool, too!)

But you're right: It is indeed Filipino custom to use a spoon and a fork (no knife) at every meal, unless the Filipino you're talking about is the sosyal type.  What's also interesting is, a common decorative item in Filipino kitchen walls or dining rooms is a giant set of spoon and fork, the ever-present yin and yang of Filipino dining which has inspired countless jokes, haikus and a film.  But you'll be glad to note that this Filipino style is going mainstream because even Pottery Barn apparently has seen its coolness and wants to profit off of it.  (Some Filipinos want to take this retailing development to the next level and are hoping that barrel men be up next, although something tells me that the time is not ripe yet.)

And being from Canada, you've probably heard about the famous "spoon-and-fork boy" who won $17,000 in moral and punitive damages against a Montreal-area school board and two of its employees following the 2006 complaint filed by the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR) with the Quebec Human Rights Commission because the school board's employees called the boy's culturally specific way of eating "disgusting" and "dirty," among others. 

Makes you wonder how the whole thing would have panned out if the Filipino boy had gone completely au naturale and used his bare hands instead, right?

But here's the deal: If you ever bump into those types of snooty Canadians and find yourself having to endure condescending language from them about how primitive our dining traditions are, you can put them in their place and let them know -- gently and in an avuncular tone to emphasize your moral ascendancy -- that unlike them, you're actually familiar with the history of utensils!

Here's how you go about it:

First, you start with the fork.  You ask them the following (without expecting an answer of course): "Did you know that men of stature in Europe and the Roman Catholic Church once expressly disapproved of its use, seeing it as 'excessive delicacy'?" 

Then, you proceed: "In fact, history has it that, in the 11th century, when a Byzantine princess who married a Venetian magistrate refused to eat with her hands, the outraged clergy and local populace invoked the Divine, saying: 'God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks -- his fingers. Therefore it is an insult to Him to substitute artificial metallic forks for them when eating.'  And as late as 1897, the British Navy forbid its sailors to use them 'because they were regarded as being prejudicial to discipline and manliness.'''

That should floor them, don't you think?

But you're not done yet, of course.  Because before they can say anything remotely intelligent, you follow up with the history of the spoon next.  Here, you can mention the following: "On the other hand, spoons have been found as relics from a period long before knives and forks began to appear." 

"Therefore," you can ask them, "if the spoon was the first of all implements to be used for eating, why do you think we should get rid of it now in favor of the knife?"

Assuming they do come up with a retort, you ask them point-blank while feigning nonchalance: "So, are Canadians' dining etiquette more similar to the Americans' or the Europeans'?" 

Wait for them to answer but whatever their answer is, you then go in for the kill and tell them: "Well, Canadian table manners are considered kinda primitive also then."

They'll likely ask you, "Why?" 

And then you'll answer: "Because the truth of the matter is that when an American is dining in Europe, his/her dining etiquette is at best considered 'savage'; likewise, when a European is dining in America, he/she is the one accused of bad table manners.  Why, everybody knows that!" 

I can guarantee you that if you go through this exercise with them, they'll never look down upon your eating habits again!

The point here, of course, is that we really sometimes have to stand our ground and let other people know that eating styles are a highly cultural thing.  Ask any chopsticks-wielding kung fu master!

But still, why do we eat with a spoon and a fork?  And is this cultural eccentricity ours alone?

The answer to the latter question is no, because actually, the Thais and the Indonesians also eat just like us: The spoon is the primary utensil used for eating (with its edge often serving the functions of a knife) while the fork is used primarily just to push the food onto the spoon.

But again, why?

Stumped, I turned to The Filipina's in-law who studied culinary arts and accounting -- let's anonymize him by the name "Chef A" -- to account for this.  Here's the theory he propounds:

Chef A believes that the use of a spoon and a fork is perfect for the way Southeast Asians prepare and cook their food.  He said that unlike, say, the Americans who like their meats and other food items in big slabs and humongous chunks, Southeast Asians generally prepare their dishes in bite-sized pieces -- chopped, minced or ground -- thus leaving no real need for a knife. 

Also, Chef A theorized that because of the humidity and absence of natural refrigeration in the tropics, the region's cooking style has evolved to take the environment into account.  Hence, Southeast Asians tend to overcook their food through excessive grilling, boiling or sauteing, making sure to kill the bacteria; as a result, the dishes tend to be tender, soupy, saucy and/or otherwise perfect enough, susceptible enough and soft enough to eat using just a spoon.  That's why, he adds, meats cooked rare are also not native to Southeast Asians because these meats would require refrigeration prior to cooking and also a knife for eating.

To me, Chef A's explanation makes a lot of sense.  I only wish Chef A can also explain to The Filipina why her husband's eating style is actually endearing to his Korean and Japanese friends, and why that should be the case with her too.

Got a question for The Filipino?  Email him now at askthepinoy@gmail.com.

Why is "Milk!" a Filipino expletive?

Dear Filipino,

How did the Spanish word "leche" become a Filipino cuss word?

Tony S.
Los Angeles, CA

Dear Tony,

You have to understand that when the noble Spaniards decided to colonize and Christianize us, they didn't really bother educating us about the finer distinctions between the eschatological and the scatological.

If you're confused as to which is which because they are almost homophonic and homonymous, here's a short guide: The former deals with the Second Coming, the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment, heaven and hell; the latter, on the other hand, is about giving someone hell.  One is obsessed with fatal matters, the other with fecal matters.

This is an important starting point because it appears the Spaniards have mastered both.  That's why they are credited with having brought many to the Christian fold and having formulated one of the world's most devastating invectives ever hurled, as compiled by Cracked.com.  And the Spanish insult in the Cracked.com compilation provides the clue to the riddle behind the Filipino expletive.

So, why "milk"?


(Source: Jane Heller.) 

Some people who have some familiarity in this area think that milk, when used as a profanity in Spanish, refers to male sperm, presumably because of the similarity in color between the two liquidy substances, and that somehow because of this reference, the phrase in and of itself becomes offensive. 

I urge you not to buy into that line of thinking.

The etymological theory to which I subscribe is the one which is reasonably related to the eschatological-scatological conundrum I mentioned above, and it is this: that "leche" is derived from "Me cago en la leche," which literally translates to "I defecate in the milk."

Now, this phrase is meant to be not just irreverent and profane but outrightly blasphemous of the Catholic rite of Communion.  Why?  Because leche is used interchangeably with the word hostia ("host") -- as in "Me cago en la hostia," among many other colorful usages, especially in Spain and Puerto Rico. 

For Catholics, the "host," of course, is the religious symbolism for the "Body of Christ," or the transubstantiated Host of the Eucharist.  So how more offensive can you get to Catholics than by uttering that deplorably hideous phrase?

Whether the Filipinos who first used leche as an obscenity knew of its etymology, nobody really knows, I think.  We do know that the Spaniards did not really want Filipinos to learn Spanish, but the natives caught on to their overlords' language anyway, albeit incompletely and inaccurately. 

In this case, they probably got the "milk" part and that part only -- but appropriated it nonetheless for their own use.  (It's also entirely possible, of course, that some just purposefully shortened the phrase to make it more emphatic and more punchy while at the same time avoiding the use of the potty word cago.) 

Hence, many Filipinos now commonly say "Leche!" (pronounced and spelled sometimes as "Letse!") when they swear.  And when they want to direct their ire to a specific person or persons, they say, quite nonsensically, "Leche ka!" ("You're milk!") or "Mga leche kayo lahat!" ("You are all milk!"), without really comprehending what they are in fact saying and without knowing they may be "attacking" their very own religion.

They do know one thing:  That when they're yelling these intended obscenities, they want to give the recipients some measure of hell.  As to the recipients, they can only wish, quite understandably, that the Second Coming is indeed nigh.

Got a question for The Filipino?  Email him now at askthepinoy@gmail.com.

When was male circumcision first practised in the Philippines?

Dear Filipino,

My question: When was circumcision of males first practised in the Philippines?

This question is asked in connection with news that a man in San Francisco is proposing a ban on circumcision. 

Carlos Borromeo,
San Francisco

Dear Carlos,

When I talked to a good friend about your question, he suggested maybe it was first practised when, in 2008, then-Florida Gators' star quarterback, Tim Tebow, who now plays for the Denver Broncos in the National Football League, decided to go back to the Philippines (where he was born) for his spring break that year in order to play "quarter-hack" instead. 

Imagine: The future of some Filipino boys
actually depends on the quality of the
'workmanship' of this NFL dude.

So take a bow, Tim Tebow! :-)

Kidding aside, of course, the answer to your question, Carlos, necessitated a bit more research.  So I did.

One Filipino writer, Rommel G. Rebollido, in an article for Sun Star which was reposted by CIRP (which stands for Circumcision Information and Resource Pages), claims that "in the Philippines, where it has been a tradition for over a century now, there is nothing definite as to how and when it really began."

Fair enough, even though there's no mention of his sources.  But then he adds, "common belief has it that the practice was introduced by western colonizers."

By "western colonizers" and his dating of the "tradition" as being "over a century now," was Rebollido referring to Americans who occupied the Philippines after the official end of the Philippine-American War in 1902 and who are believed to be the ones to have popularized the practice among Koreans?

Since Rebollido wrote his article in 2005 and Filipinos could not have adopted American traditions immediately right after the war to allow for traditions to be "over a century now," was he in fact referring to Spaniards as the "westerners" who "introduced" the practice?

Actually, whether Rebollido was referring to Americans or Spaniards is irrelevant because his claim has no historical foundation.

In other words, he and those who espouse this "common belief" are wrong.  For in fact, according to the accounts of Antonio de Morga, a Spanish lawyer, high-ranking colonial official in the Philippines, and the historian who published the book Sucesos de las islas Filipinas (Events in the Philippine Isles) in 1609, which  is considered the best and perhaps most important work on the early history of Spanish colonialism in the country:

A few years before the Spaniards subdued the island of Luzon, certain natives of the island of Borneo began to go thither to trade, especially to the settlement of Manila and Tondo; and the inhabitants of the one island intermarried with those of the other. These Borneans are Mahometans, and were already introducing their religion among the natives of Luzon, and were giving them instructions, ceremonies, and the form of observing their religion, by means of certain gazizes whom they brought with them. Already a considerable number, and those the chiefest men, were commencing, although by piecemeal, to become Moros, and were being circumcised* and taking the names of Moros. Had the Spaniards' coming been delayed longer, that religion would have spread throughout the island, and even through the others, and it would have been difficult to extirpate it.

Morga was explicit -- was he not? -- that the practise of circumcision in the Philippines predates the Spaniards.  He also implied quite clearly that it was introduced by Mohametans -- i.e., Muslims!

Now, did you notice the word which I emboldened and italicised?  Did you notice the asterisk? 

Yes?  Good -- because I want to add the following annotation:

"This custom has not fallen into disuse among the Filipinos, even among the Catholics."

Now, guess who made that annotation?

Well, who else but our very own national hero, Jose P. Rizal?

Yes, sir!  Morga's  work apparently impressed Rizal so much that the latter decided to annotate it and publish a new edition.

But why would Rizal add that phrase -- "even among the Catholics"?

My theory is this: Because Rizal knew that religious male circumcision is more closely followed by Muslims and is also universally observed by followers of Judaism, even though the practice is, for some mistaken reason, being generally associated nowadays with members of the country's predominant religion (i.e., Catholicism).  In fact, I was surprised to learn that, historically, the Roman Catholic Church has actually denounced religious circumcision for its members in the Cantate Domino, which was written during the 11th Council of Florence in 1442.

In any case, I would be interested to find out if that San Fran man succeeds with the ban.  So would Tim Tebow, I'm sure.

Got a question for The Filipino?  Email him now at askthepinoy@gmail.com.