Chef Tatung Sarthou
Lifestyle’s new four-part special on Filipino cuisine and culinary tradition, “The Food That We Are,” hosted by Chef Tatung Sarthou, is different from other TV shows, because it includes an enlightening historical context that helps explain how and why “we are what we eat.”
Basic ingredients and cooking styles before foreign influences kicked in were cited in the program’s opening telecast last Oct. 16. It clarified our preference for sour, sweet, kinilaw, sugba, tinola, salt-preserved and other dishes.
Due attention and tribute were also paid to rice, coconut, rootcrop and other basic and preferred ingredients enabling viewers to more cogently arrive at an informed appreciation of the unique “Filipino-ness” of the food we love, and which has helped make us what we are.
On the debit side, the show is sometimes too technical and academic in its presentation of facts and organizing insights. We do appreciate its deeper, richer and more contextualized information, but we would prefer a more natural, informal and non-lecture approach.
Subsequent telecasts of “The Food That We Are” have been scheduled every Tuesday at 11 a.m., Wednesday at 12:30 a.m. and 2 p.m., Friday at 9 a.m. and every Sunday at 6 a.m. on SkyCable channel 52.
Lifestyle has other food-oriented viewing treats, like “Curiosity Got the Chef” with Sharwin Tee and “Food Prints” with Sandy Daza.
Piolo Pascual’s “The Crawl,” which recently took viewers on a food-tasting trip to Osaka, Japan, will next fly to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.
Video-on-demand streaming
Elsewhere on TV, ABS-CBN shows, specials and movies will soon be available for video-on-demand streaming for PLDT and Smart subscribers. Currently, iWant TV features a livestream of the “Ang Probinsyano” concert, 10 Cinema One films and “The Online Scoop,” a collection of digital shorts providing supplementary information related to “The Greatest Love” and other shows.
Similarly noteworthy is the “trending” export of some Filipino TV shows and series abroad, like “Pangako Sa ’Yo” topbilling Jodi Sta. Maria, Ian Veneracion, Daniel Padilla and Kathryn Bernardo, which premiered in Peru last Sept. 22.
Titled “La Promesa” and dubbed in Spanish, it’s telecast on Panamericana Television, and is the second Filipino series to be aired in Latin America, after “Bridges of Love” (“Puentes de Amor”).
ABS-CBN International Distribution has sold over 30, 000 hours of Filipino TV programming in over 50 territories globally—a trend that should be encouraged.