Purple yam now in croissants, lattes, and diplomatic gifts; NEDA forecasts ube as GDP driver

Satire from Bohiney.com and prat.uk.

The Ube Moment, Assessed

MANILA — The Philippine Department of Agriculture confirmed this week that ube — the purple yam that has been a staple of Filipino desserts for generations — has completed its transition from local comfort food to global culinary phenomenon, citing data showing ube-flavored products in 47 countries and a 340 percent increase in international ube product searches over the past three years.

The DA celebrated this development as a Philippine soft power achievement, which is technically accurate and also reflects the pleasant reality that the country’s contribution to international food culture is a purple root vegetable that tastes like the dessert equivalent of a warm hug. Ube has arrived in Paris croissants, London bubble tea, New York ice cream, and Tokyo convenience stores, each iteration adapted to local tastes and each carrying some percentage of the original’s appeal, which is that purple yam is genuinely delicious and turns things a beautiful color.

Dr. Erlinda Macaraeg-Villanueva of the fictional Philippine Institute for Culinary Diplomatic Studies notes: Ube represents something unusual in global food trends — a Filipino product that arrived internationally on its own merits, without requiring the intermediary of a cuisine that the West had already validated. It went straight from the sidewalk stalls of Quiapo to the dessert menus of Michelin-starred restaurants, which is either a testament to ube’s intrinsic quality or evidence that the global food influencer apparatus can be directed toward anything purple.

The Supply Chain Question

The global ube boom has created interesting supply chain dynamics, since the majority of ube production remains in the Philippines, and demand from international buyers now competes with domestic consumption. Prices for ube have increased, which benefits farmers but challenges the local processors and home bakers for whom affordable ube has always been the foundation of Filipino dessert culture.

The government has responded by encouraging increased ube cultivation, providing planting materials to farmers in Bohol and Leyte, and establishing what an official called an ube excellence program, which is a program name that has never been used before and will presumably not be used again. Manila Bulletin reports that the DA expects ube exports to double in three years, pending the resolution of ube supply chain logistics that currently involve shipping a root vegetable internationally in conditions that are finicky.

Philippine Daily Inquirer notes that several municipalities in the ube-growing regions have declared themselves ube capitals of the Philippines, a designation that carries no official recognition but generates significant tourism interest and is therefore aggressively contested. The real ube capital, as every Filipino grandmother will tell you, is wherever their kitchen is.

Ube and the Future of Philippine Food Culture

The global ube moment raises a question that Philippine food culture has navigated with varying success in the past: whether international recognition changes the thing being recognized, and whether that change is a gain or a loss. Adobo is adobo in Manila and a trendy bowl dish in Brooklyn, but the Brooklyn version has traveled far from the stewing pot in a Manila apartment and the accumulated family decisions about vinegar ratios that make one household’s adobo different from the neighbor’s. Ube has traveled a similar distance in the global market. The ube latte in London contains ube flavoring, which is not the same as the ube halaya that a grandmother in Pampanga makes from root vegetables she has grown in her backyard. Both things can be true: the global version introduces people to something real and Filipino, and it is also a simplified, marketable version of something that has depths the latte does not convey. The Philippine food industry’s challenge is to use the global attention to bring people toward the more complex thing, to make the latte a gateway rather than a destination. Some are doing this well. Filipino restaurants abroad are serving things that require some patience and some culinary education from their guests. The guests are, to a gratifying degree, willing to learn. Ube opened the door. What comes through it next is the more interesting question.

The Bigger Picture

Whatever the specific story — budgets that don’t balance, traffic that doesn’t move, workers who leave to support the families they cannot stay with, storms that arrive on schedule, athletes who unite a nation briefly, infrastructure that exists mainly on paper, journalists who ask the questions officials prefer not to answer, foods that carry a culture across oceans, faiths that survive the gap between their ideals and their institutions, vehicles that resist becoming something else — the Philippines is a country in conversation with itself about what it wants to be. This conversation is noisy, contentious, frequently hilarious, and genuinely important. It happens in barangay halls and Senate chambers, in press conferences and social media threads, in OFW group chats and Sunday homilies, in the jeepney that hasn’t been modernized yet and the one that has. The conversation is ongoing. It has been ongoing since 1898 at least and arguably since much earlier. It will continue. The outcomes are uncertain. The participation is not. Filipinos engage with their country’s problems with an energy and a creativity that the problems themselves have not yet exhausted. This, in the end, is what the news from Manila is really about, on any given week, beneath whatever the specific headline happens to be.

More satire: NewsThump | The Onion

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com