Philippines

Filipino food chases a signature sour-salty-sweet balance, from vinegar-braised adobo to sinigang's tamarind broth and lechon roast pork. A Malay base layered with Spanish, Chinese, and American influence makes it one of Asia's most distinctive tables.

Adobo is a method, not a region and not a Spanish import. The vinegar-and-salt way of cooking meat is pre-Hispanic and found across the archipelago; Spanish friars simply wrote it down, and a Tagalog dictionary of 1613 records it as adobo de los naturales, the natives' adobo. The souring agent in sinigang shifts too, from tamarind to kamias, guava or calamansi.

Eating with the hands has a technique and a name. In pagkakamay a small mound of rice is pressed together with a piece of the ulam using the fingers of one hand, lifted in four cupped fingers and pushed in with the thumb, and the fingers never go into the mouth. At a salu-salo the table is lined with banana leaves wilted over a flame first to bring up their sheen.

A sweet Filipino chocolate rice porridge, traditionally eaten with salty dried fish on the side.