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A VIEW TO PRE-COLONIAL PHILIPPINE HISTORY, ARTS AND CULTURE TALK: “THE FOOD IN IDENTITY – A SHORTENED STORY OF PHILIPPINE BRANDING”
2021-09-06
31 August 2021, Toronto, Ontario – The University of the Philippines Alumni Association of Toronto (UPAAT), in partnership with the Philippine Consulate General in Toronto, presented on 26 August 2021 at 8:00 pm (Toronto time) via Zoom, its second lecture of the Summer 2021 Quincentennial Commemorations in the Philippines (QCP) Talks on Pre-Colonial Philippine History, Arts and Culture titled, “The Food in Identity, A Shortened Story of Philippine Branding”.
As in the last two (2) webinars held on 25 March 2021 and 5 August 2021, this last lecture is one of the Consulate General’s Filipino community events for the 2021 Quincentennial Commemorations in the Philippines and also a continuation of UPAAT’s event contribution to the 2021 QCP in Toronto and around the world, which aims to promote the richness of Philippine heritage and culture from pre-colonial times and its continuing evolution through present times.
UPAAT President Ms. Agnes Manasan welcomed the participants to the event while UPAAT Executive Council & Education and Awareness Committee member Ms. Helen Balderama was the emcee of the webinar.
Consul General Orontes V. Castro graced the webinar and delivered his Special Greetings to all the viewers of the webinar. He mentioned that people’s dependence on food is the basic element that connects peoples all over the world, bringing people together. He added that in modern civilization the end to human hunger is still an ideal in spite of science and technology. He ended with the hope that the learnings from the UPAAT Talk on Filipino Food will “resonate with the participants and that Filipino food and ingredients will find a permanent place in foreign cities’ everyday life and be eventually integrated in world cuisine.”
The resource speaker was Ms. Felice Prudente Sta. Maria, Philippine Cultural Heritage Advocate and Culinary Historian who studied in UP Diliman. She was former President of the Board then Vice Chairman for Cultural Development at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila. She was also the former Commissioner for Cultural Heritage at the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) of the Philippines and former Commissioner and Chairman of the Social and Human Sciences Committee at the UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines. She is presently a Trustee at the National Museum of the Philippines and Board of Advisers at Ayala Museum.
In the webinar, Ms. Sta. Maria shared insights from her newly-published book “Antonio Pigafetta’s Philippine Picnic”, which explores a largely overlooked construct in the study of Philippine history – the role that food played on the first encounter between Ferdinand Magellan and his crew, and the natives of Homonhon Island. She also shared this in the just concluded successful project of the Philippine Consulate General in Toronto, in collaboration with the Mama Sita Foundation, titled “Mga Kuwentong Pagkain: Filipino Food Cook-along Series” held on 23 July, 6 August, and 20 August 2021, where she is one of the guest speakers.
Ms. Sta. Maria mentioned that Ferdinand Magellan and his crew, which included Antonio Pigafetta who was assigned the role of a chronicler keeping a record of the voyage, settled in Homonhon Island in the Province of Eastern Samar after surviving three (3) months of extreme hunger while crossing the unchartered Pacific Ocean. Nine (9) men from the Zuluan Island of Samar gifted Magellan and his crew with uncooked fish, two (2) coconuts, one (1) jar of uraca wine, and bananas. This showed the generosity and hospitality of our ancestors to foreigners suffering from hunger and scurvy.
Ms. Sta. Maria introduced the word “Nayanaya” from the 1851 Visayan-Spanish dictionary by Father Felix Encarnacion, which has two meanings. Firstly the word means “to entertain and to serve guests”, and secondly “to be a happy person”. She added that “putting the two definitions together, we find that Filipinos become happy by entertaining and serving others. We not only enjoy eating but feeding others. Nayanaya is a possible Filipino synonym for hospitality… it is a people-to-people word…... founded on human relations, as in the way ancestors cared for Magellan’s crew….”.
A Q&A followed after the lecture. UPAAT President Manasan thanked Consul General Castro for gracing the event. A Certificate of Appreciation was presented by Ms. Manasan to Ms. Sta. Maria for the very informative lecture and presentation. Ms. Manasan also recognized the previous resource speakers of the UPAAT Culture Talks.
The webinar was officially closed by Dr. Mayrose Salvador, Chair of the UPAAT Education and Awareness Committee who thanked Ms. Sta. Maria for the informative and interesting presentation.
The webinar is available for viewing via YouTube at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwm_3QJulso – END