Meet Jessa Villanueva, a Mindoro-raised college student scrolling through Instagram food influencers, feeling the gap between viral “unusual” dishes and her childhood staple, simple, plain, often scoffed at by elders. Jessa sat in her Manila dorm room last September, phone glowing in the dark, scrolling through TikTok food reviews. She paused on a video: some influencer calling Mindoro’s tinola nga manok “basically boiled sadness with ginger.” The comment section laughed along. One hundred seventy-three people agreed.
She felt something crack.
Not anger, exactly. More like the final brick in a wall she’d been building since high school. A wall between who she was and who she thought she needed to be. Jessa grew up in Roxas, Oriental Mindoro, eating that exact dish three times a week. Her Lola made it. Her mother still does. And until that moment, Jessa had never once told anyone outside Mindoro that she actually loved it.
“I felt like I’d been caught,” she told me over Messenger. “Like loving tinola meant I was boring. Probinsyana. Backward.”
Two weeks later, she and four classmates, all from Mindoro, launched an Instagram page: @BlandAndProud. The tagline? “Defend the dishes your Lola cooked, not the ones you post for clout.” They started with tinola. Plain chicken soup with green papaya, ginger, and malunggay leaves. No coconut milk or chili. No “wow factor” for the algorithm.
Within three months, they had 12,000 followers. Most of them were young Filipinos from provinces nobody writes travel blogs about.
And every single one of them had a dish they’d been quietly ashamed of.
The Quiet Shame of Eating “Nothing Special”
Culinary habits on Mindoro Island don’t scream for attention. They simmer. They wait, and then fill you up without fanfare. And for decades, that was enough.
But social media doesn’t reward patience. It rewards spectacle. Cheese pulls. Sauce drips. Wagyu close-ups. If your food doesn’t photograph well, it might as well not exist either. And Mindoro’s everyday meals, the ones that kept generations alive, working, and connected, don’t exactly pop up on a feed.
Tinola is a clear broth. Utan (vegetable stew) is green mush. Dried fish with rice looks, well, like dried fish with rice.
“When I was in high school,” Jessa said, “my classmates from Manila would talk about where they ate over the weekend. Korean BBQ. Ramen bars. Milk tea spots. I’d just say I ate at home.”
She didn’t lie. But she also didn’t elaborate. Because elaborating meant explaining that “at home” was tinola again, or sinigang na isda with vegetables pulled from the backyard, or tuyo so salty it made your eyes water. Meals that required no menu, no reservations, no Instagram story.
Flavors of Home
Meals that tasted like love but looked like leftovers.
I grew up eating similar food in a different province. I know the instinct. You don’t defend what you think others will mock; you just stop mentioning it. You adapt and learn what’s acceptable to celebrate and what’s safer to keep quiet.
But here’s what I didn’t expect: that silence has consequences. When an entire generation stops naming what they eat, what they grew up on, what their families cooked with care and limited resources, that food doesn’t just fade from conversation. It fades from memory. It fades from pride.
And eventually, it fades entirely.
The Turning Point: When “Bland” Became a Badge
The shift didn’t happen in a boardroom. It happened in group chats.
After Jessa posted the first tinola defense, a classmate from Bulalacao, another Mindoro town, messaged her: “Wait, are we actually doing this? Are we really going to fight for boring food?”
Jessa’s reply: “It’s only boring if you’re boring.”
That line became their rallying cry. They started documenting their own family meals. Not styled. Not color-corrected. Just real photos of real food their parents and grandparents made. Captions were short, sharp, and unapologetic:
- “This utan kept my lolo alive through typhoons. What’s your oat milk latte doing for you?”
- “Tinola isn’t bland. Your taste buds are just overstimulated.”
- “If you need seventeen toppings to enjoy a meal, the problem isn’t the meal.”
The tone was combative. On purpose. Because Jessa and her friends weren’t asking for permission to be proud anymore. They were claiming it.
And the response startled them.
Messages poured in from other provinces. Masbate. Romblon. Samar. Kids who’d felt the same shame about their own “boring” food. They shared photos of their own family meals: law-uy, binakol, linarang. Dishes most food bloggers wouldn’t touch. Dishes that never trended.
But dishes that meant home.
“One girl from Catanduanes told me she cried,” Jessa said. “She said she’d spent four years in Manila pretending she didn’t miss her mom’s fish soup. And seeing our page made her realize she’d been embarrassed by something beautiful.”
Why Tinola, Of All Things?
Let me tell you what tinola actually is before we go further.
At its core, tinola nga manok is chicken simmered in ginger-infused broth with unripe papaya and malunggay leaves. No tomatoes or coconut milk, and no MSG if your Lola made it right. Just clean, clear, hot liquid that tastes like care.
It’s a healing dish. You eat it when you’re sick. When you’re tired. When the day beats you down, and you need something gentle. It doesn’t punch you in the mouth with flavor. It holds you.
And that, I think, is why people call it bland. Because it’s not performing. It’s not trying to impress you. It just feeds you.
But here’s the thing about food that doesn’t perform: it asks you to pay attention. To taste the ginger and notice the chicken’s tenderness. To appreciate the bitterness of the malunggay cutting through the richness of the broth.
Tinola demands presence. And that’s deeply unfashionable right now.
“I didn’t understand why my Lola made it so often,” Jessa said. “I thought she was just being cheap. But then I made it myself for the first time in my dorm, and I got it. She wasn’t cheap. She was being intentional.”
Intentionality doesn’t scale. It doesn’t go viral. But it does build identity. And culinary habits on Mindoro Island have always prioritized intentionality over spectacle, substance over show.
The Elders Weren’t Having It (At First)
When Jessa’s Lola found out about @BlandAndProud, she laughed. Not a kind laugh. A dismissive one.
“She said, ‘Why are you wasting time defending tinola? It’s just food. Everyone eats it. What’s the point?”
This is the other side of the story that nobody talks about. The older generation in Mindoro, the ones who actually cook these dishes, don’t see them as endangered. To them, tinola is inevitable. Of course, people eat it. Of course, it will continue. Why do you make noise about something so ordinary?
But that assumption, that belief that tradition perpetuates itself automatically, is exactly how culinary habits disappear.
Because Jessa’s generation isn’t learning to cook tinola from their Lola’s anymore. They’re learning to cook from YouTube. From Tasty videos. From recipe blogs that optimize for clicks, not continuity. And if tinola doesn’t show up in those spaces, if it remains locked in the category of “old people’s food,” it won’t survive the generation gap.
“I asked my Lola to teach me,” Jessa said. “She was shocked. She said, ‘You really want to know?’ Like it never occurred to her that I might care.”
That moment, that tiny crack in the assumption that young people don’t value their food heritage, is where the shift happens. Not in restaurants. Not in food festivals. In kitchens. Between generations. When someone young says, “Teach me,” and someone old realizes, “Oh. You actually want to know.”
The Campaign Goes Offline
By December, @BlandAndProud had enough traction to try something risky: a pop-up dinner in Calapan City. They called it “Lola’s Table.”
Twenty seats. Six dishes. All traditional Mindoro fares. All the foods people used to hide. Tinola. Utan. Linarang na isda. Grilled talakitok. Rice. Nothing fancy. Everything real.
They charged 150 pesos per person. It sold out in two hours.
“People came because they were curious,” Jessa said. “But they stayed because they remembered.”
One woman, maybe fifty years old, ate three bowls of tinola. She told Jessa it tasted exactly like her mother’s, and she hadn’t had it in years. She cried into her soup.
A younger guy, early twenties, posted a photo with the caption: “First time I’ve been proud to eat the food I grew up on.”
That’s the line that stuck with me. Not the first time he ate it. The first time, he was proud.
Pride isn’t automatic. It’s taught. Or it’s withheld. And for too long, the message young Filipinos absorbed was that provincial food, simple food, “bland” food, wasn’t worth pride. It was worth tolerating until you could afford better.
But what if better was a lie? What if the food that sustained your family, that required no imports, no Instagram-worthy plating, no Michelin stars, was already the best thing you ever had? What if you just didn’t know it yet?
The Bigger Fight: Identity, Not Just Ingredients
Here’s what Jessa and her friends figured out faster than most food activists: this isn’t about saving recipes. It’s about saving the right to be unspectacular.
Because the pressure to perform, to optimize, to make everything shareable and viral and aesthetic, doesn’t just affect food. It affects identity. It tells young people from provinces like Mindoro that they need to become something else to matter. Something louder and more polished. Something urban.
And when you internalize that message, you don’t just stop cooking tinola. You stop valuing the life that produced tinola. The quiet life. The slow life. A life where feeding people well is enough.
“I realized,” Jessa told me, “that defending tinola meant defending my Lola. Her choices. Her priorities. The fact that she didn’t chase trends or worry about what people thought. She just cooked what worked. And it worked because it was true.”
Truth doesn’t trend. But it lasts.
And that’s the paradox Jessa’s generation is navigating. They grew up in a world that rewards performance, but they inherited values that prioritize substance. And instead of abandoning one for the other, they’re trying to do both. To be visible without being fake and to celebrate their roots without romanticizing poverty. To say, “This is enough,” in a culture that constantly whispers, “More.”
It’s exhausting. But it’s also necessary. Especially when culinary habits on Mindoro Island represent something larger: the right to exist without performing, to feed without impressing, to matter without going viral.
The Myth of “Authentic” Filipino Food
One thing that bugs me: food writers love talking about “authentic” Filipino cuisine. But they almost always mean the same ten dishes. Adobo. Sinigang. Lechon. Halo-halo. Pancit. Kare-kare.
All valid. All delicious. But also, all are performing a version of Filipino identity that fits neatly into food tours and travel blogs. They’re safe. They’re explainable. They photograph well.
But what about the dishes that don’t perform? The ones that only make sense if you grew up eating them? The ones that taste like context rather than composition?
Tinola is one of those. So is utan. So is tuyo with kamatis and bagoong. These aren’t dishes you order at a restaurant. They’re dishes you inherit. And if we keep defining “authentic” as “marketable,” we lose them.
Jessa’s campaign isn’t trying to make tinola trendy. It’s trying to make it okay. To give kids from Mindoro permission to say, “Yeah, I eat that,” without flinching. Without apologizing. Without waiting for some influencer to validate it first.
That’s harder than it sounds. Because it requires rejecting the premise that food needs to earn its place on your plate by impressing strangers. When you look at culinary habits on Mindoro Island through this lens, you see something different. Not backwardness. Not poverty cooking. Just people feeding themselves honestly, with what they have, in ways that work. That’s not something to overcome. That’s something to protect.
What Happens Next?
@BlandAndProud is still running. They’re planning another pop-up in Manila this March. They’ve started a YouTube channel teaching basic Mindoro recipes. Jessa graduated last year and moved back to Roxas. She’s working with local schools to document family recipes before the elders who remember them are gone.
“I don’t think we’ll save every dish,” she said. “But I think we’ll save the idea that they’re worth saving.”
That’s the realistic version of hope. Not some grand revival where tinola becomes the next food trend. Just a slow, stubborn insistence that what you grew up on matters. That your Lola’s cooking wasn’t a placeholder until you discovered “real” food. That simple doesn’t mean inferior.
And maybe, just maybe, the blandest dish in Mindoro is actually the most honest one.
The Part I Can’t Explain
There’s a moment when you taste something from your childhood and your whole body remembers. Not just the flavor. The context. The weather. The person who made it. The version of yourself who didn’t question whether it was good enough.
I had that moment with tinola last year in Puerto Galera. I wasn’t even looking for it. Just stopped at a carinderia, asked what was ready, and the woman ladled a bowl for me. On my first sip, I was nine years old again, sitting in my grandmother’s kitchen, listening to her hum as she cooked.
I don’t know how to explain that to someone who didn’t grow up on it. And I don’t think Jessa does either. But that’s okay. Because this campaign isn’t about convincing food snobs that tinola is secretly gourmet. It’s about convincing kids like Jessa that they don’t need permission to love what they love.
That their taste, their memory, and their family’s cooking are already valid. Already enough. Already worth defending.
Even if it never goes viral. Especially if it never goes viral.
Here’s What You Can Do
If you’re from a province people don’t write about, and you eat food people don’t photograph, here’s my challenge:
Name it. Out loud. On your socials. In conversations. Stop hiding what you eat. Cook it. Ask your lola, your mother, your tita for the recipe. Write it down. Film it. Because once they’re gone, so is the knowledge.
Defend it. Not aggressively. Just honestly. When someone dismisses it as boring, ask them what they think “interesting” actually means. Push back on the idea that complexity equals value. And feed it to someone who’s never had it. Not to prove anything. Just to share. Because food only survives when it’s eaten. And identity only survives when it’s claimed.
Jessa and her friends figured that out at twenty-two. Took me a lot longer. Don’t make mistakes. Don’t wait until your Lola’s gone to realize her tinola was never bland. It was just true.
If you grew up eating something your classmates made fun of, and you’ve spent years pretending you didn’t miss it, here’s your permission: miss it. Out loud. Cook it badly the first time. Call your mom for help. Burn the rice. Oversalt the broth. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you tried. Because nobody else is coming to save your Lola’s recipes. That’s on you now.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What exactly is tinola, and why is it considered bland?
Tinola nga manok is a Filipino chicken soup made with ginger, unripe papaya, and malunggay leaves in a clear broth. People call it bland because it has no strong spices, no rich sauces, and minimal seasoning. It’s subtle. It relies on fresh ingredients and careful simmering rather than bold flavors. To some, that reads as boring. To others, it’s comforting and intentional. The culinary habits on Mindoro Island prioritize this kind of simplicity.
2. Is this movement actually changing how young Filipinos see provincial food?
Yes, but slowly. Social media campaigns like @BlandAndProud create space for young people to reclaim food they were embarrassed about. The shift isn’t mass-market yet, but in private conversations, group chats, and small gatherings, kids are talking about their family recipes without shame. That’s the first step. Visibility follows behavior, not the other way around.
3. Why focus on Mindoro specifically?
Mindoro’s culinary habits represent a broader pattern across less-touristy provinces. The food is practical, rooted in fishing and farming, and designed to sustain rather than impress. It doesn’t get written about. It doesn’t attract food bloggers. But millions of Filipinos grew up on similar meals. Mindoro is a case study, not an exception. Understanding culinary habits on Mindoro Island helps us understand food culture across rural Philippines.
4. Are older generations supportive of this pride movement?
Mixed. Some elders think it’s pointless to “defend” food everyone already eats. Others are quietly pleased that young people are asking for recipes. The generational gap isn’t hostility; it’s an assumption. Older folks assume tradition will continue automatically. Younger folks see how fast things disappear when no one names them. Both are right.
5. Can simple food like tinola really compete with modern food trends?
It’s not about competition. Tinola doesn’t need to beat Korean fried chicken or ramen bowls. It needs to stop being treated as a fallback option. The goal isn’t for tinola to trend. The goal is for kids to stop feeling embarrassed about admitting they like it. That’s a lower bar, but it matters more.
6. How can someone outside Mindoro support this kind of movement?
Document your own family’s food. Ask for recipes. Cook them. Post them without apology. Support local food projects that aren’t trying to go viral. Eat at carinderias, not just trendy cafes. And when someone dismisses provincial food as boring, don’t let it slide. Ask what they mean. Make them explain why “simple” equals “inferior”.
7. What happens if these dishes aren’t preserved?
They disappear. Not dramatically. Just quietly. One generation stops cooking them. The next generation never learns. Within thirty years, dishes like tinola become “grandma food” that nobody remembers how to make. You lose the recipe, sure. But you also lose the identity it carried. The values. The memory. The connection. That’s the real loss. That’s what happens when culinary habits on Mindoro Island aren’t documented and defended.
8. Is there a way to make traditional food appealing without changing it?
Yes. By changing the narrative, not the dish. You don’t need to add truffle oil to tinola. You need to stop treating simplicity as a flaw. The food doesn’t need fixing. The shame does. Once young people see their food as valid, not inferior, they’ll cook it, eat it, and share it. The dish stays the same. The pride changes everything.
Other Articles You Might Like
- I Traded Boracay for Dinagat’s Stingless Jellyfish Lagoon
- How Cultural Preservation Traps Mindoro Island’s Indigenous Communities in Poverty
- The Loneliest Goodbye: Making Friends as a Solo Traveler in the Philippines
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