Filipino-Australian food writer and content creator Yasmin Newman celebrates the culinary heritage of the Philippines by honoring its heirloom recipes and fleshing out fresh truths from its ever-evolving flavors.&nbsp;

From an insider&rsquo;s point of view, Yasmin Newman may seem like an outsider to the Philippines. She wasn&rsquo;t born and raised in the islands. But that impression slowly fades away the moment she starts talking about her culinary journey in the homeland. Her eyes light up; she flashes a smile while remembering her adventures. It&rsquo;s curiosity in action, or perhaps even more so, a love affair that&rsquo;s still blossoming outside its cocoon.
 A journalist by profession and a cook at heart, she combines her two passions and live to tell the tale of Filipino flavors. She&rsquo;s traveling far and wide &ndash; from Vigan to Camiguin &ndash; cooking, experimenting, and exchanging cooking techniques with the locals. Recently, she held a masterclass for culinary students at the Joji Ilagan International School in Davao City.&nbsp;
As her education and immersion continue, she&rsquo;s determined to highlight the stories of regional dishes that don&rsquo;t often get written about in cookbooks. It&rsquo;s no easy feat to traverse the unmapped routes of an archipelagic nation, but it&rsquo;s a path that compels her to move forward.

Tell me about your book Under Coconut Skies.
Under Coconut Skies is actually my second cookbook. My first one, 7000 Islands, came out ten years ago. I guess you can call 7000 Islands a catalog of some of the Philippines&rsquo; more classic, well-known dishes. I wanted to tell the history of the Philippines. The reason I wanted to do that was, at the time, there was very little documentation on Filipino cuisine in Australia, so I really wanted to put a resource out there for people to be able to understand Filipino food more. Fast forward to now, Filipino food is much more known in Australia than it was at that time. I had really been inspired by how Filipinos in the Philippines are doing interesting and different things with Filipino food. They&rsquo;re pulling out these beautiful heirloom ingredients but expressing themselves as young Filipinos...Under Coconut Skies got those wonderful classic dishes but it also highlights a lot of the regional dishes that don&rsquo;t often get written about in cookbooks, like food from Mindanao. The new dishes are also reflective of me as a Filipino-Australian. I wanted to bring my Australian roots into the way I cook Filipino food for my family and my friends.
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How similar and different is Australian cuisine from Filipino cuisine?
Native Filipino food bears a lot of similarities with Australian food. Australia is known for its beautiful ingredients. So, it&rsquo;s really about bringing the ingredients to the front and center. And if we look at Filipino native food, that&rsquo;s what it&rsquo;s all about: beautiful ingredients, minimal touch, and letting those flavors shine like in kinilaw and sinigang.&nbsp;&nbsp;
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What&rsquo;s your favorite Filipino food?
It changes all the time. But when people ask me that question, I tend to say crispy pata because it was the one I first fell in love with. There was a period of time when I really liked it, and I still do. I really think that Filipinos are masters of pork, like deep-fried pork with crispy skin, soft flesh, and the sawsawan. So, all of these elements are so Filipino. I also really like ensaymada.&nbsp;
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How long did you make this book?
A long time. It&rsquo;s a real labor of love and, you know from end to end, we usually go through processes, like convincing a publisher to do it. And in my books, I like to tell of a place and go spend time there. I spent a lot of time in the Philippines. In writing, I really want to be immersed so I lived in the Philippines for two months while I was researching and writing. And then, there&rsquo;s like another three months of more writing and testing. So, from end to end, it&rsquo;s over a year. And then, I have to go to Australia. So by the time it comes out, it can be one to two years since I started it.
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Tell me more about your Filipino heritage.&nbsp;
We are based in Sydney. I was born and raised in Sydney. My dad is Aussie and my mom is Filipina and they met in Australia. My mom got a post-graduate scholarship to the University of Sydney. That&rsquo;s where she met my dad and they fell in love, then she came back here, and then ultimately decided to go back to Australia to raise a family. My mom sees her family regularly, so we have this connection to the Philippines. Pretty much every year, from when I was born, we would go to the Philippines. My mom&rsquo;s family is from Mindoro so all of our family holidays were with our family there.
I wanted to tell the story of Filipino food and connect with the Filipinos because I wanted to get to the heart of the regional food. I spent six months in the Philippines. I came here, stayed with my cousins in Manila, and then I started traveling to different regions in the Philippines like Vigan and Bacolod. I was writing stories on that, which led to a podcast on Filipino food and my first cookbook. Since then, I&rsquo;ve tried to come back to the Philippines every year. I have two young kids now, so I&rsquo;m really grateful for what my parents did for us. I have other friends in Australia who have a more complicated sense of identity and heritage. I feel grateful that my parents gave us the opportunity to connect with our family. That bred this whole love affair and connection. I find it such a beautiful thing to have so I wanted to give that to my children as well. That&rsquo;s how we ended up landing in Siargao.
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What do you think Australian folks could learn from Filipinos and vice versa?
What really sets Filipino food apart, as Australians are familiar with, is having the sweet, salty, sour combination, a matrix that you'll find within Southeast Asia, I think the ratios that Filipinos do it in are particularly unique and that kind of pushes the bound in all of those directions. There is a lot of fun and experimentation that could come from Australians knowing that and teasing out those edges. What Filipinos could learn from Australians? I think a cleanness of flavor, like celebrating the ingredients that you have in a light, clean, untouched way and just letting that come out. The Philippines already does in their native food.

Are there any specific ingredients or condiments that really stand out for you that you found here in the Philippines?
It depends on what you define as a condiment, but like, you know, you'll probably think that it's so utilitarian, but calamansi and suka to me are very unique and particular to the Philippines. They are very singular in our identity. There are beautiful vinegars all around the world but the ones that we have here, like the unfiltered kind, are very special in my mind. The banana ketchup is very Filipino, and interestingly in Australia, there are brands that are remaking that.

What's your favorite dessert or pasalubong?&nbsp;
Pastel. In part, because it's sweet and in part because I really loved Camiguin during my time there. When I went there, I didn't actually know about it. It wasn't the pasalubong that had brought me there. I just heard about this island, and it was kind of beautiful, and I chanced upon pastel.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Is there a particular region in the Philippines where the impact of their cuisine really affected you? Or is it Siargao?
In Under Coconut Skies, a Filipino food writer friend of mine took me to Quiapo, and that was one of the first times I got to try the food of the Maranao tribe, and that really moved me. I had read about it but I haven&rsquo;t tried it. There are some of the dishes in there like the burnt coconut chicken where they use this spice paste or kind of chili paste called pamapa itum. It&rsquo;s made from coconut powder. I&rsquo;m very captivated by that. I don't have a particular favorite, but because in more recent years I have spent more time in Mindanao, I have been very inspired by what I saw there.&nbsp;

How could Filipinos get to know their culture more through food? Do you think taste is more of an instinct or do you think we should study it religiously as in follow canons and standardize measurements?
I think that's what makes food so interesting in that we need it, it's fuel for our bodies, but it's also the thing that we come together over so many times throughout the day.You can do that through the taste or you can do it for understanding the history of a dish. There are so many layers to food beyond just the taste. There's no one way to do any dish; that would be boring. We wouldn't have the food here that we have today if people weren't continually experimenting. It&rsquo;s ever-evolving.

Favoring Flavor

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