MANILA, Philippines - I?m in awe of what the gourmet chefs and the Asia Society have been able to produce?a book they recently launched titled ?Kulinarya.? It was like putting a corset on a Philippine suman so it can stand up to the other cuisines of the world.

Its six chef authors, whose cooking I have savored all these years?Glenda Barretto and her walang kamatayang pansit luglog and bibingka, Conrad Calalang?s Mongolian barbecue and high-end Intermezzo, Margarita Fores? panini and intriguing fusions, Myrna Segismundo?s ABS-CBN offerings, Jessie Sincioco?s soufflés and desserts, Claude Tayag?s Kapampangan kitchen?have tried to distill the essence of Filipino food. They have had to decide which, of the hundred ways of cooking adobo (that Nancy Lumen claims exist) would be ?the best!? Just how did they do it? Did they have a tinola war? A bombardment of stinky cheeses? Did they brandish their irons?

Adobo, I remember, used to be called the ?national dish.? Until some historian objected that it was a colonial ulam. Then food critic Doreen Fernandez came along and decreed that sinigang was it, the national dish, because it is known all over the Philippines. I accepted that as gospel truth until I went on a food expedition to the North. It?s either that Ilocanos have no idea of what sinigang is, or Tagalogs haven?t got a clue that there?s such a thing as sinigang Norte. The strange dish before me had ginger and repolyo, and its broth was just vaguely sour. Now that?s just one of the six chefs? problems.

Of course you could say that Tagalogs don?t know what true dinengdeng is, either. Because the manangs just pick all those vegetables from nature?s refrigerator in their backyard and plunge them right into the pot. Can a Manila slicker match that?

I don?t write recipes or cook. My interest is why people eat the way they do, which is a lot safer. I learned to write on food by being surrounded by gourmets and gourmands. My husband is the type who, when the famished family is all seated at the table, will have the soup bowls recalled because ?the soup is not hot enough!? My youngest son came back from his honeymoon with a pasalubong of 12 kilos of rack of lamb (in the days when lamb was a rarity hereabouts). Another son got infinitely frustrated when he couldn?t take home Yung Kee roast goose from HK because of bird flu. On the other hand, my son-in-law?s pasalubong was all the possible fixings of lugaw instead of the sunglasses I wanted.

I don?t know if this character is a gourmet but we also once had a compulsive cook who loved to make pancit. She was good at it but it was coming out of our ears. One day, when I had specifically told her not to, I caught her cooking a whole big batch of bihon again! When I was about to scold her, she said proudly, ?Nyora, don?t stop me, I bought all these ingredients with my own money to give you a good dinner!?

Gourmets like to eat everywhere abroad, drinking civet coffee and licking French ice cream in hi-end cafés, and sipping muddy coffee (with condensed milk!) on stools on a Hanoi sidewalk. That, accompanied by traditional bread with a filling of paté (street paté being actually more like a slab of Ma Ling luncheon meat). The Lord must love gourmets because they have cast iron stomachs.

You can?t tell a gourmet, ?don?t eat cow, don?t eat goat, don?t eat pig, don?t eat snake, don?t eat grasshopper, kawawa naman (pity them).? Only when these people are truly sick or getting too fat is green salad acceptable lunch.

Gourmets lock you out of the kitchen?which is fine. You can just fix the flowers on the dining table or sip wine or talk literature. Gourmets exhibit strange behavior. One time when chef Gaita Fores dined in our house, she and my son Mol just walked around and around sniffing different herb bouquets in their hands as if they were rare flowers. Just like some people collect old wine and Santo Niños, gourmets collect patis, bagoong (including heko), vinegar, hot sauce, also coffee, rice and even salt. (Also baskets).

They are like hound dogs when tracking down something?like makroot (the Thai herb when it was still unavailable). The winner found a living makroot plant actually growing in a Marikina rented house that a Thai national had vacated.

The gourmet?s main sense organ, like the perfumer?s, is his nose. Gourmets can smell if a dish that is cooking lacks salt, while the really talented can even guess what secret condiments went into it. Good cooks, however, are extremely possessive of their recipes?even those that they?ve stolen from others. That?s why so many fine dishes have gone to the grave with them. Usually they intend to publish a cook book (even if they have no measurements written down). Or they want to hand down their recipes to a grandchild who may want to open a restaurant (but ends up an interior decorator or a banker).

I love gourmets, especially those who cook and can write an authoritative and reliable book. They know the way to a person?s heart.