It's surprising to see Filipinos wanting to eat chicken and rice more often than fish and rice, considering we're surrounded by the China Sea. Nevertheless, I see fast-food places and restaurants serving chicken more than any other food items here in Olongapo City, Philippines.
I like chicken too!
Of course I like chicken. I'm an American and a white guy at that. I've been eating chicken served in a hundred different ways since before I can remember. It was home-cooked fried chicken before I joined the military in 1978 because the small town I grew up in didn't have any chicken places. We had no special chicken recipe and going to any kind of cooking school simply wasn't necessary. The chicken was dipped in flour, mixed with a pinch of salt and a little more pepper, and fried in a greasy skillet.
At my first military duty station, I tried the brand-new (at the time) chicken sandwich at a Jack In The Box in San Diego, California. It was like chomping down on a sawdust sandwich — almost flavorless. Well, they've improved tremendously since the early 80s.
In the late 80s and early 90s, while stationed in North Carolina, I and my family would make special trips from our rural home to the city in order buy spicy fried chicken at a place called "Bojangles". It was cheap and it was good and a box came with biscuits and a half gallon of sweet iced tea.
Later, after we'd moved to Phoenix, Arizona, we tried KFC a few times, but it always seemed undercooked — it was still called "Kentucky Fried Chicken" at the time.
One day we discovered "Banquet Hot & Spicy Chicken" at a local grocery store. It came in a box, with the chicken precooked. A couple of minutes in the microwave oven and a piece would be ready to join the rice in my plate. As the years progressed, it became harder and harder to get a box before they sold out at the local grocery stores. Finding it at other stores became an adventure in itself.
Chicken in the Philippines
If chicken isn't a delicacy here in the Philippines, then I don't know the meaning of the word. The local KFC is always crowded and chicken seems to be on the menu at EVERY restaurant and fast-food joint in the city. I think we can blame Jollibee Philippines for making it popular. Oh, and it's almost always served as chicken and rice.
I know one thing for sure. When I go to KFC and return with any leftover chicken I want to save for later, I have to sneak it into my house. Otherwise, relatives pop out of the woodwork and start begging for a piece, even if they just ate!
I can't find chicken in a box, like the Banquet chicken in the US, so I either have to buy it at a fast-food place or cook it myself. I really hate to cook. I really love chicken and rice though, and if I have to cook in order to eat it, then so be it.
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This article is published as: For the Love of Chicken and Rice
I think they like having something new. I bet they ate alot of seafood all thier lives and when they can they would rather have chicken or you never know mcdounalds like the rest of the world.
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I eat chicken more than any other food. There is just so many ways to make chicken and it never gets boring.
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It is amazing that there are such different cultural differences between the two countries with chicken. It is rare to see KFC packed in my area. I would be curious to see how much chicken wings are consumed there. I hear that there is a shortage in the US right now with Superbowl approaching.
I had no idea chicken was so popular in the Philippines and I didn't even know there were any KFc's in the Philippines.
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Dude! Really? I didn't know that there were KFC's in the Philippines either…