We like our foods very fatty, very starchy, very salty, sweet and sour. And sometimes it?s not just taste that determine our preferences; we attach social meanings to particular foods

LAST year, I sponsored a short culinary course for two young relatives, hoping the new skills could get them some work. Alas, as with caregivers and computer technicians, the market seems saturated with chefs.

So a few weeks back, I had them put up a small eatery strategically located near a university and a large office building. I played the despotic capitalist and asked that they only serve healthy foods, and also to try to educate the university students and expose them to the wonders of the world?s cooking: tapas, sushi, tortilla wraps. Mind you, I asked them to keep prices as low as possible, because I really wanted to see if people could be convinced to go healthy.

Within a few days, they begged me to be more lenient with the rules. The customers weren?t interested in world cooking or healthy foods; they wanted dinuguan and lechon kawali... and hamburgers, barbecue and Coke.

There?s actually no paradox here between wanting dinuguan and hamburgers. Both still reflect a conservative palate conditioned by culture. We like our foods very fatty and very starchy. Taste-wise, we tend to be mono-gustatory, preferring food that is very salty, very sweet or very sour, but disliking hot and spicy dishes. With beverages, we like them sweet, whether soft drinks, fruitlike juices, tea, coffee and even wine.

There are reasons for these culinary preferences. Some may be biologically-based?our bodies crave certain nutrients simply because they are, well, nutrients, whether carbohydrates for energy or salt to prevent dehydration.

On top of these biological needs, we attach social meaning to particular foods. Very fatty and starchy foods were fiesta or feast food at one time, eaten only on special occasions, usually communal village celebrations. They were also prestige foods, a way for a host to show off how he could afford to have several pigs butchered and share his surplus of rice.

Our desire for salt may have come from the way we preserved fish and seafood, whether as daing (dried fish), patis (fish sauce) or bagoong (anchovy sauce). The Chinese gave us toyo (soy sauce), which we now douse on every imaginable food.

Sweet foods were prestige foods too, especially with the colonial influence. Pastries and cakes are still ?special? foods for many Filipino families. Sour foods, thankfully, added zest and tang to our diet, whether sinigang (using tamarind, guava or the Ilonggo batuan), or sour mangoes (with salty bagoong).

We are actually quite open to new foods as long as they do not deviate from the kind of cultural template just described. We took in the hamburger... and added salt and toyo. Many Filipino Muslims buy from Bodhi vegetarian restaurants because they?re sure the food there has no pork.

Food is always a way of maintaining or opening social boundaries. Smaller societies fear outsiders... and outside food, with constant warnings about strangers and the food they bring as possibly being poisonous, or a tool for sorcery (kulam).

Our food is loaded with history. The Filipino indio had ambivalent feelings about the Chinese, but the intermarriages and the sidewalk pancitero (convenience food vendors) inevitably brought in Chinese influences into our cuisine, all the way up to the names.

Spanish and American influences came in the context of colonialism. They were our masters, and so their foods meant power and prestige. With American foods, heavy marketing helped as well with the acceptance.

With 9 million Filipinos now living overseas, one would expect an explosion of new culinary influences; but again, we see how the social factor comes in. Sure there are Japanese and Korean restaurants and occasional kebab stalls, but these are more popular with expatriates. Other new cuisines are still limited to expensive fine dining places.

For the majority of Filipinos, I suspect there?s actually resistance to the food of their host countries (with the exception of the United States), almost a way of saying: ?Hey I?m here only to work.? ?Filipino? food?I use quotation marks since that can include hamburgers, Spam and instant noodles?becomes comfort food, providing solace while in faraway lands, some perceived even as hostile. The greater the tension with a host culture, the more resistance to their food. Note too an almost racial undertone to the refusal to eat goat meat or mutton, with references to a fear that they?ll end up smelling like...

There are, certainly, other social influences shaping our food tastes. The fast pace of life in the cities made fast foods, including instant noodles, inevitable. Advertising has also played a major role in pushing certain foods.

The irony is that healthier foods have now become almost a privilege of the upper classes. I?m not just talking about the more expensive organic foods, but also having the luxury to prepare a meal (and not just nuking it in a microwave), and sitting for a leisurely meal.

Watch out though. In the long run, I actually think more Filipinos might go for some of the new foods, including healthier diets that might include vegetarian meals, as such foods get endorsed by celebrities and by upper-class Filipinos.