The many flavors of ‘tapas’
Since dinner in Spain starts at the relatively late (for us Filipinos) hour of 9 or 10 p.m., Spaniards have adopted the practice of going out for early evening grazing, moving from bar to bar or restaurant to restaurant to partake of snacks or appetizers accompanied by wine.
The noshes are known as “tapas,” derived from the Spanish verb “tapar,” to cover. It turns out that in earlier times, a piece of bread or cardboard would be placed on top of a glass of wine to protect the contents from flies. Someone eventually thought of topping this “cover” with meat, spread or cheese, giving rise to “tapas.”
These days, the choice of tapas goes far beyond just canapés or bread spreads. Often served in small saucers or ceramic cazuelas, tapas can range from cheese slices, olives, croquetas, tortilla, and gambas (shrimp), or heavier fare like paella, callos and cuts of meat. For some, tapas can even replace dinner altogether.
Just as important to a proper tapas experience, along with the wine, is the convivial company, whether with a group of friends, or with strangers one encounters while visiting different bars and eateries.
Perhaps it’s a tribute to the role of tapas in Spanish culture that the Spanish Embassy, the Spain Tourism Board with Fuego Hotels, is devoting this year’s edition of “Flavors of Spain” to a “Tapas Festival.” Six restaurants: “Purple Feet” of Wine Depot, Cirkulo, Terry’s Bistro, Gaudi, Tapella and Barcino, are participating in the festival, offering their own takes on tapas and giving diners a taste of the many flavors of Spain.
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Located at the back of the Wine Depot shop along Garcia Street (formerly Reposo) in Makati, Purple Feet is the domain of Chef Martin Legasto, who trained in the United Kingdom and also oversees two cafés in Alabang and Greenhills located inside Wine Depot shops.
Asked about the unusual name of his restaurant, Chef Martin mutters: “Well, you know how feet turn purple when they’re used to mash grapes into wine…” One wall of the space is covered in blackboards with the specials of the day scribbled in chalk. But Legasto says diners can walk in, spot an ingredient, and request him to cook an entirely different dish, a challenge this young chef relishes.
For the Tapas Festival, Legasto prepared a wooden board filled with classics of the tapas repertoire: tortilla flavored with red pepper; two kinds of croquettas filled with blue cheese and manchego cheese and using béchamel sauce as the base; and deep fried calamares (squid) that came with a spicy Kafir lime sauce. These were accompanied by paella, while the kitchen prepared slices of bacon from the famous “black pig” of Spain, bursting with flavor from the translucent strips of fat.
We washed everything down with red wine: Arzuaga’s Ribera del Duero, and talked about everything culinary, from the Spanish influence on Filipino cooking (“our palates are the same, minus the sugar, which Filipinos have a fondness for”), to sources of “hard-to-find” Spanish ingredients, to chefs who continue to inspire Legasto’s cooking. “I don’t consider myself a chef,” he confesses, “I’m still a student, I have so much more to learn.”
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Representatives of different member-countries of the Asean gathered in Manila over the past two days to discuss ways to promote the “human rights approach” to the issue of maternal survival.
This may be in part due to the fact that many member-states won’t be able to meet their commitments on MDG 5, on reducing the maternal mortality rate (MMR). This, despite the fact that other member-states, such as Singapore and Malaysia, have successfully lowered their MMRs to match or even surpass that of developed countries.
The conference was organized by the DFA in partnership with the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), whose Philippine representative is Ambassador Rosario G. Manalo. Other partners were the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW), the Department of Health, and NGOs EnGenderRights Inc., and the Likhaan Center for Women’s Health.
The aim of the two-day affair was to “start the development of Asean best practices and regional approaches on reducing maternal mortality and morbidity.”
The conference also highlighted current initiatives and best practices being implemented in several member-states and in other regions to promote maternal health.
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Speakers emphasized that maternal mortality is an important indication of the status of women in a country as well as of the state of the overall health system. The human rights aspect of maternal health promotion, said a speaker, is the states’ “obligation to protect” the right to health and care of women and girls.
“Women in the region need help very badly,” declared Ambassador Manalo, urging state representatives to adopt the “human rights-based approach,” saying it is stronger and carries more force with governments.
Among the successful strategies is the training of skilled birth attendants. In Cambodia, the adoption of a “ladderized” curriculum for midwives gradually builds up their skills that enable them to safely deliver babies.
Dr. Mariella Castillo of the World Health Organization regional office, presented in a workshop an “evidence-based” program, called “Unang Yakap,” that was conducted by the WHO and the Department of Health in response to outbreaks of septicemia (infections) in government hospitals some years back.
“Unang Yakap” or “first embrace” not only resulted in a list of “best practices” in the delivery room and immediate post-delivery period, but also in a program to re-train health givers on the new paradigms of mother and infant care, as well as to spread the message that harmful practices must be abandoned and replaced by “evidence-based” approaches.
