/ck/ - Food & Cooking

This is the room service menu from my hotel.

Supermarkets have entire aisles filled with mayonnaise. They have a Spam and Spam-knockoff aisle. They have a condensed milk aisle. The butcher's sections have ordinary meats, but they also have maybe a dozen trays of hotdogs exposed to the air.

The most typical Philipino meal is probably white rice with a side of fried chicken or pork belly, and maybe some garlic seasoning. Poverty doesn't explain it. Even Indian peasants do better.
But I should emphasise that you can't imagine how poor the average Philipino is, despite living in a functional society. What doesn't make sense to me is how poorly they use their own abundant resources.

They grow coffee here, but it is extremely rare to see coffee beans for sale. 95% of the coffee sold is instant, pre-mixed with sugar and a substance known as creamer.

Coconut trees are as common as sycamores, but a bottle of extra virgin coconut oil costs something like a day's wages for the average local. The locals use vegetable oil instead, for the most part.