Why Pancit?

Important occasions in a Filipino’s life are often marked with a bilao of pancit. That is true for me, most especially on birthdays. Fancy cakes and pastas don’t excite me, my heart only beats for a bandehado of pancit on my natal day. I want to live forever, you know, and I believe a pancit-less birthday party is a travesty. There’s no party like a pancit party – whether it be the guisado, saucy, or swimming-in-soup kind.

Beyond the tradition and its life-extending properties, pancit for me is also a food of familiarity, generosity, and comfort. The fondest memories I have of pancit were not from special occasions but from regular days highlighted by acts of love and care: those time when my dad would bring home a bag of miki-bihon guisado as pasalubong; those Sundays when we would eat beef wanton mami after the family morning jog at Rizal Park; and those times when my mom would make noodles from scratch and cook miki Iloco because little Marvin with sniffles requested it. Those are just some that endeared pancit to me.

@Pancitlove started as a blog when I was doing research on different sotanghon guisado recipes, hoping I could recreate the sotanghon guisado dish that my then barkada - now wife - Peps’ father made when I visited their house. I was foolish enough not to ask for the recipe. Weeks later, when I asked for the recipe, he said he forgot what kind of sotanghon dish he had cooked. Funny thing was, most of the stories behind the creation of different pancit I read about were born out of the same longing for the taste of pancit: to recreate the version they love. But in the process of adapting the dish to their current environment, cooks often create an entirely new dish. I tried different pancit dishes around Metro Manila first, then eventually, explored the provinces’ iterations. At first, it was just a simple documentation of pancit, the panciteria, and the stories behind them. I started Pancitlove on Instagram and it became an advocacy to encourage people to try different kinds of pancit, especially the regional ones. Hopefully, someday our very own pancit would be as prestigious as ramen, at least in our country.