i'm getting skinny

Soonretired · 2020-12-26T16:03:11+01:00

when these people cut up a pig or cow or chicken there is nothing left to eat.the other day they butchered a pig and rose brought me a plate and it was stacked with 2 inch chunks of breaded pork, i tried to eat it and found out it was big bones with some gristle under the breading. i chewed what i could off of it but ended up with about one mouthful of meat after 40 minutes of work. i think the parts that had actual meat like the ham areas and loins etc they cut into small cubes like the carrots in mixed vegetables and cook that in a big giant pan stirring it with a big spoon until its all chewy like rubber and inedible. maybe they do that so nobody get 'a good part' while others get the chunks of bones and gristle.end result nobody gets any real "pork" out of the deal and the whole pig is wasted. same with a chicken its chopped up into unrecognizable chunks and you cant get a good bite of meat anywhere, its all work trying to chew and pick what you can off a random bone,never get a bite of chicken tho,nothing you can sink your teeth into and say it you got a bite of meat.soon its all gone and you feel like you had nothing to eat! whole chicken gone to waste.maybe they are just skinny too.. cows are rare but when we do get beef its just gristle and fat and bones. out of 4 lbs. you can find enough to make a sandwich but you have to spend hours cutting the little pieces of meat off of the chunks of gristle and bone.maybe the owner of the cow keeps all the steaks and ribs and such and sells the scraps off as 'beef' to people who never saw a steak and dont know they come from cows. but from what i have seen them do to chickens and pigs i doubt there is any usable meat left when they get done chopping up a cow either,most likely the entire cow goes to waste as well.the part that would have been a steak is probably diced up and boiled til its rubber like the pork. in short, i have had meat here when i went to outback steakhouse 3 years ago in manila. and i have had meat here when i went to MacDonalds or Burger King or kentucky fried chicken. so maybe 10 times i have had meat in 4 years. wait, i did get quite a few cans of hormel chilli at the 'american store' in town at $4 a can. that is so good to get ahold of and find a 'meatball' size piece of beef in it ! it just seems after hundreds of years of killing pigs and chickens here someone would have learned by now how to butcher one. they dont eat vegetables here or salads either,there is a tree that attempts to grow that has little round leaves on it and everyone pulls branches off of it and puts them in 'fish soup' type stuff. but for the most part they dont eat vegetables here, no carrots unless its tiny slivers like a garnish i have seen in something called 'panzit' which is like a block of noodles like what you would see in "cup-a-soup" they do eat fruit but rarely, mostly unripe mangoes, i dont know if the mangoes dont get a chance to ripen or what but there are lots of mango trees around here and i have yet to see a ripe mango on a tree, they climb all over the trees and remove every green hard mango.we get pineapples off and on. and i learned how to make guaccamoli out of avacados. i crave those so i know they have what my body needs. i eat that on toast as fast as i can find them. in the stores in town you can buy sweet ripe mangoes and they are delicious. bananas we do get. and they have some hard kind of banana things they boil like potatoes. but i try to keep some peanut butter on hand for when we get bananas to make peanut butter and banana sandwiches. they do have some kind of big looking beans,they look like green beans but are a foot long or more and hard. tough skinned lookin things, i see people buy bundles of them with a rubber band around it but never ate one or seem them eaten. generally they eat fish, one day old 2-3 day old does not matter, dried out in the sun with flies landing on it then fried in oil till it smells like you stepped in dog poop in the whole house.fish of any type from minnows to foot long tunas and bait sized anglefish and fish you see in aquariums in america.they eat them, any condition. rarely fresh, they dont take ice out in the boats so most fish is caught in a gill net and dead for at least 3 hours or more in 70 degree water before its hauled in and tossed in a bucket and passed around in the summer heat another few hours before it ends up in a pan of oil or in some soup with those little leaves or sliced in half and laid out in the sun to dry,usually it takes 2 days to dry them because it rains,so they have seen alot of flies and sat around half dried over night at least once.before they are called 'dry fish'. so yeah, fish.. and rice,rice ,rice. this also in any condition or age, usually they make a big pot in the morning and its scooped out like ice cream all day for breakfast lunch and dinner, so rice comes in 'chunks' also. cold dry chunks of rice scooped out and set beside the "fish" make breakfast,lunch and dinner. its easier to eat rice when its in chunks anyway i guess because you can pick up big 4 or 5 inch chunks of it with your fingers and take a bite. i dont like 'fish' or "rice" I ate rice in america but it was hot and i liked the long grain and wild rice like in pilof or whatever its called. more that plain white rice. and when i did eat white rice it was hot and had butter melting on it with black pepper. i did eat fish in america too but it was fried, well, fried different than here.i usually got mine at the gas stations in the black neighborhoods of america, they always had catfish in the glass case and it was constantly being replaced as fast as they could fry it up and it was served with fries and tartar sauce and man was it good! , either that or at my brothers house and he caught the fish his wife cooked.. it had corn meal on it as breading, they dont have corn meal here. and it was like a fillet or something and tender and hot and didnt smell like fish or poop. here it just looks like a small dead fish washed up on the beach and they pick at it and pull off the little meat parts with their fingers. no "taking a bite" going on, too many tiny bones. and i liked to have tartar sauce with my fish. they dont do that here. i found a recipe on the internet and we have some pickle relish i have been saving for a year and we can get mayonaise. so, one day when i see a fresh fish big enough to eat i will fry it up and eat it, wishing i had some corn meal the whole time. but so far i have not been inclined to make that tartar sauce.yet. i saw a good size red snapper a few years ago and bought it and ate it with catsup, it was ok but the ketchup here is made from bananas and dyed red, not tomatoes, they dont get too many red tomatoes here, like the mangoes they are picked small and green and for some reason they are hollow, even the few red ones i have had were small and hollow inside, the seeds where there and air spaces and the outside 'shell' but there's no "meat of the tomatoe" like they say in that ketchup commercial. anyway , i'm getting skinny.

Post new topic

Fil-Am Mom Active member

Member since 06 June 2020

Fil-Am MomActive member29 December 2020 07:10:44

#41

manwonder wrote:
"Step in" to the kitchen & dictate what & how you want your food prepared (seperate dishes for you is so required)...e.g : I hate flabby chunks of fat with the meats being stewed/cooked so I stepped in & got my partner to prepare food with my ISO standards with extra spices/herbs...also I dislike Filipino spaghetti that has sweet condensed milk mixed & with a miserable amount of cheese...so that too has been adjusted to my ISO standards. I'm very happy now as it has worked out & I enjoy my slightly tweeked dishes & I find that my partner actually enjoys it too.
So do "Step in" you'll be amazed at the changes that can be made.
Omho

Your post is the first time I've read about adding condensed milk to spaghetti sauce. I know banana ketchup is used to make it sweet, but not condensed milk. That would make it too sweet. So, I looked it up. And I found a recipe for making a spaghetti sauce which tastes like Jollibee spaghetti. It uses condensed milk. I wish there were a nutritional info on fast foods here in the Philippines.

Enzyte Bob ViP

Member since 26 October 2018

Enzyte BobViP29 December 2020 07:38:53

#42

3772

Fil-Am Mom wrote:
Next time you go to a grocery / mini mart, look for and stock up on tomato ketchup. Most large grocery stores have Heinz and Del Monte. Smaller ones carry Del Monte. They come in a bottle or a large squeezable sachet.

I buy the large bottles of S&R's Members Select Ketchup, I believe it may be Hunts. Heinz gives me heartburn so their brand is not Heinz. Also I stock up on Kraft Mayo if it's available.

When I first moved to the Philippines I was learning to make the adjustment from Dollars to Pesos, Inches to Centimeters, Yards to Meters and Pounds to Kilos

Well I had one big screw up, in one of the supermarkets they had a deli and I was thrilled. They had Pastrami and it looked really good. As it was expensive they priced it by the gram and I thought it was by the ounce, so I thought the price was reasonable.

I ordered a pound and a half. What I got was a kilo and a half. I didn't pay much attention to the printed price on the sticker. On checking out, to my surprise I bought $40 USD worth of Pastrami.

Jackson4 Serial expat

Member since 21 July 2018

Jackson4Serial expat29 December 2020 12:18:51

#43

675

bigpearl wrote:
Soonretired wrote:
lol i should have moved near a robinsons or S&R it seems !

You should stay where you are Soonretired given you recently got rid of another problem,,,,,,, will save lots of Pesos.

OMO.

Cheers, Steve.

There is always something you would not like when you move to a place with different culture or unfamiliar country other than where you grew up. I know so. I worked and lived in Saudi Arabia. It IS a whole different world. Good paycheck but no beer & no women. 😵
Anyway, since I cannot change the culture in Saudi, I had 2 choices, adapt and make a life there or leave. I left before my contract is up. Management said: we understand, this place is not for everyone.
I guess my message is "stay where you are, adapt" and make life there. You can leave too, That will set you back some moolahs and maybe the spouse will be less happy.

manwonder ViP

Member since 21 January 2020

manwonderViP30 December 2020 12:05:04

#44

1901

Btw you can order S&R products fm the shopee website that has the COD option...do check it out & yes I do have my own moringa tree.

Jackson4 Serial expat

Member since 21 July 2018

Jackson4Serial expat30 December 2020 15:06:04

#45

675

manwonder wrote:
Btw you can order S&R products fm the shopee website that has the COD option...do check it out & yes I do have my own moringa tree.

Moringa tree, papaya trees, you should start raising chickens too. 😂

manwonder ViP

Member since 21 January 2020

manwonderViP30 December 2020 15:31:09

#46

1901

Jackson4 wrote:
manwonder wrote:
Btw you can order S&R products fm the shopee website that has the COD option...do check it out & yes I do have my own moringa tree.

Moringa tree, papaya trees, you should start raising chickens too. 😂

I'd like to but they a little too noisy for my liking....the trees on the other hand are silent and bountiful with very little maintenance required...especially my 8 papaya trees.

Articles to help you in your expat project in the Philippines

Lifestyle in the Philippines
About to move to the Philippines? Wondering how you're going to adapt to your new environment and lifestyle? ...
Getting married in the Philippines
Getting married in the Philippines provides a backdrop of immense beauty through stunning beaches, tropical ...
Dating in the Philippines
The beauty of the Philippines, with its dramatic modern and old Spanish architecture, plus the golden sands and ...
Obtaining a Philippines driving licence
Whether you are converting your existing foreign driving license or applying as a first-timer for a Philippines ...
Leisure activities in the Philippines
Consisting of more than 7,000 islands, the Philippines is a real treasure that you can explore during your stay ...
Choosing your neighbourhood in Manila
Choosing a neighborhood is one of the most critical decisions that expats need to make when moving to Manila. Each ...
Diversity and inclusion in the Philippines
The culture of the Philippines is very diverse. This is due to the large mix of different nations in this country, ...
Phones and Internet in the Philippines
When moving to the Philippines, the first ‘essentials' is telecommunications; Getting a local sim card and ...