Some insist that its essence lies in the bitter clash of ampalaya and the pungent tang of bagoong. Elsewhere, cooks feel free to tinker, adding shrimp paste, squash, or whatever their pantry yields, as if to remind us that Filipino cuisine delights in its own mutability.

Amid this chaos of interpretation, a peculiar debate has erupted over how pinakbet should be recorded in print — a debate that, like the dish itself, refuses to settle neatly into a single recipe.

On March 10, food heritage researcher and Lokalpedia founder John Sherwin Felix said in a press conference that he was facing a cyber libel complaint after he publicly flagged the errors he spotted in the Filipino cookbook Kayumanggi: A Kaleidoscope of Filipino Flavors and Food Traditions, published by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). 

Kayumanggi, published in April 2025, features recipes for 150 regional Filipino dishes. 

It was the book’s author, chef Jam Melchor, who filed the complaint against him. Felix said he received the subpoena on February 25, and filed his counter-affidavit before the Office of the City Prosecutor in Makati on March 10.

Melchor declined Rappler’s request for comment.

Melchor complained that Felix had pointed out erroneous details ranging from the origins of specific ingredients like tawilis, to the accuracy of the recipes for regional dishes — one of them being pinakbet. 

In Kayumanggi, Melchor acknowledges pinakbet’s Ilocano roots, stating in the recipe’s introduction, “It holds a special significance as a dish originating from the Ilocos Region of the Philippines.” 

However, the pinakbet recipe she featured lists bagoong alamang (shrimp paste) as a primary ingredient, which is commonly used in pinakbet Tagalog. 

Felix said Kayumanggi’s recipe is inaccurate. 

“The description heavily leans on the Ilokano version or context of pinakbet. However, it provides a method and recipe for a non-Ilokano version. One thing to note is that pinakbet originally uses boggoong (bagoong), the liquid fermented fish sauce, not alamang,” Felix wrote on Lokalpedia’s Facebook page in September 2025. 

“Regional cuisine is full of nuances, so one must be more accurate about which version of pinakbet is being discussed,” he added. 

Pinakbet is a vegetable dish from the Ilocos Region. While Museo Ilocos Norte says there is no singular way to make pinakbet, it attests that what defines the original Ilocano version is the use of ampalaya and bagoong.

“These two ingredients best define the inclinations of the Ilocano palate. This particular clash of extreme tastes, the bitter and the salty, is not to be found elsewhere in the country,” Museo Ilocos Norte wrote in a 2008 post. 

Pinakbet is a staple in Filipino cuisine, and several regions across the country have since adapted the dish, adding extra ingredients and switching some of them out for their alternatives here and there. 

A 2021 research paper by Ivy Bartido and Belinda A. Ramos from the University of La Salette, Incorporated entitled Ethnic Variants of “Pinakbet”: Versatility of a Filipino Exotic Food states that the original Ilocano dish only calls for five main ingredients to maintain its authenticity: okra, ampalaya, bagoong, eggplant, and tomatoes. 

Bartido and Ramos explained that the recipe also requires the use of specific variants of the ingredients. For instance, while bagoong is typically either made with shrimp or fish, what’s used in the Ilocano version of pinakbet is made with a small fish called monamon. 

The pinakbet recipe in Kayumanggi also lists cubed squash as an ingredient. This is more commonly found in the Kapampangan version, as Bartido and Ramos stated in their research paper. 

In pointing out the supposed errors he spotted in Kayumanggi’s pinakbet recipe, Felix cautioned that regional cuisine should be treated with accuracy — especially considering the wide range of versions pinakbet has. 

What’s your take on the debate? – Rappler.com