It’s enough to turn me off food…

No, I did not know

I live in the Philippines. Sisig is actually delicious and one of my favorites. I didn’t know that sisig was invented so recently, and I obviously didn’t know the story of the inventor’s fate. The description of the dish… while historically not inaccurate, is a bit misleading today. It originally was a poor-person’s dish that attempted to use the leftover meat from American soldiers, particularly the head. Not the brains, tongue, eyes or crap like that, but skin, face/neck muscles, fat, that kind of thing (which are all good), plus ears (which Filipinos love) and bits of cartilage (which I think sucks). Today, most restaurants use more pork belly, though I do think they throw in some “face” just to keep up the tradition. Anyway, you boil all those pieces of pork up until they are tender. Then you mince it all, fry it until it starts to turn crispy, and add a bunch of onions. Then you put all of that onto a super-hot cast iron fajita-type plate, crack an egg over the top, and carry that out into the restaurant sizzling and steaming. It’s kind of like a bacon-and-onion hash.

From your wording, at first I thought you were saying they were eating soldiers lol

Oh yeah. Accidental ambiguity there. Heheh. I checked the Wikipedia page before commenting, and what I was trying to say was that Filipinos used to get cheap/free left-over pig parts from the mess halls at Clark Airbase in Pampanga.

Yeah. [Phrasing](https://tenor.com/view/archer-are-you-coming-no-but-im-breathing-fast-breathing-fast-coming-gif-26598250).

“it’s more fun in the Philippines”

It is one of the national dishes of Phillipines.

If it’s Union soldier meat, Kenneth Parcell recommends replacing it with boiled potatoes.

Lots of British and Americans are weird about “offal” too – when I was a kid my dad considered dishes with liver and kidneys to be a treat; likewise they were working class food, but they were popular with working class people. Now people look down their noses at it – “offal” is quite derogatory.

At least the brits will still eat stuff like blood pudding and haggis. Used to find those things absolutely disgusting until I went to the UK and actually tried them. Not bad, tasty even. I’d be open to try something like that. The whole point of food like this is seasoning and preparing it well so it doesn’t taste weird.

Depends on the offal I think, like my mum would def clean out the turkey and hand-grind the liver and gizzards for stuffing back in the 90s. I think that’s still a fairly popular way Americans eat offal. 🤔 Looking it up I guess gizzards are popular in the Midwest.

Oh man, you just reminded me I haven’t had Popeye’s crispy chicken gizzards since the last time I visited the states in 2017. I miss Popeye’s.

Popeyes has gizzards? What state is this bc my local popeyes doesnt

Nebraska, but as I said I haven’t been back there since 2017 so for all I know they stopped selling them.

Yeah. I’m an expat American in the Philippines and I still don’t eat organs myself, except paté/liverwurst. I don’t think I’ve even tried most of them.

The nutrients in these types of foods are next level, which is something to consider. Historically, eating these foods is natural for us and delivered a lot of valuable needed nutrients.

I mentioned this because I read that ssig contains liver.

Sometimes it does, but it’s not a key ingredient. Honestly, everything gets chopped so small and cooked so thoroughly, it’s hard to tell one piece of meat from another.

Offals and gibblets are gross unless its served in a french restaurant at a high price tag. (Im definitely not mad people were grossed out I like liver gizzard and heart, but think fois gras is the pinnacle of dinkng)

There is the thing, that you don’t really know if the “offal” means “things that fall off” the animal (from hair to excrement), butcher’s waste or just organs like liver and kidneys. Because if it does refer to the last you would usually just name the specific organs, are they all have quite different structure and taste, so not really interchangeable, and if it doesn’t, you are getting to quite questionable territory. Second one is the most common translation to other languages, so if you eat liver, you don’t consider liver to offal. If you call liver of specific animal “offal” then it doesn’t sound like it is edible, as its waste, rather than (possibly very desirable) side product.

Yeah, but people decline kidneys or liver, saying “ewww, offal”.

Isnt everything you listed under offal stuff we eat anyway just grinded up jnto sausages?

I don’t think I listed anything anything under offal but possible definitions, and we don’t eat possible definitions here, we are all about exact language. More seriously, point was that first definition refers to things that by our food standards (and I hope that by yours as well, but lately my hopes have not been well placed) will be carefully removed to last mg before animal goes near anything that is considered part of food industry rather than farming industry. And if we go by second definition, then nothing we use is offal as its being used and thus not waste.

While I too hope that excrement and other waste products is not present in my food, I think there is some acceptable maximum that is allowable. (I think with shellfish esp shrimp a lot of people and places dont bother removing the waste products eg the poopline of a shrimp) I actually dont know what butchers waste is, but I assumed that that was edible material that is just in too small of pieces or is mostly fat/less appetizing bits to sell individually and was the stuff they just mix together and stick in sausages.

Butcher’s waste as we understand the term waste here, is the parts that go to compost/drain (content of digestive track and such) or are burnt for hygiene reasons (if there are signs of infection for example), what you grind for “meat like ingredients” (in sausages and nuggets) and additives of cattle feed are called side products or left overs. As for the scrimp, if they are sold without shell here, the “poopline” is removed by machine that also cuts out the shell, if they are sold with shell, then it is left for customer. Same as selling fish whole or pre-cut. Processed products are required to use the cleaned kind. When you buy whole animal, you are responsible for all the butchering after ending the life (and maybe letting out blood).

The British do love their emulsified high fat offal [tubes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPwQ0PmK9lw).

at one time lobster was poor people’s food. as was oxtail, and somehow spam has become more mainstream popular. as a kid, i hated most Philippine dishes, but sometime in my 20s, i learned how great Philippine cuisine is from desserts to entrees, breakfasts to pulutan (beer/alcohol snacks), anything can be delicious if you figure out how to cook/pair it well. peanut butter oxtail is delicious, but combined with shrimp paste turns it into an unsuspecting high class delicacy. it’s not unknown, Philippines is a 3rd world country and its people have become resourceful with what they have – and the food is fucking delicious. and if you ever visit a farm – fresh star apples

One good point is the cartilage is super effing healthy for you, it contains all the nutrients you need to support your own cartilage, especially glycine. It’s a natural version of collagen supplement to support tendons and cartilage maintenance. The liver also uses that glycine to detox chemicals so the need for glycine is probably higher than in historical times. Foods like cartilage are the original vitamin pills of history.

Pig head has a lot of good meat on it. And since it doesn’t use it’s head muscles a lot it’s really tender. I love Cabeza tacos, can be pork or beef but it’s from the head. Cachete is pork cheek specific. Pork jowl at Korean BBQ is so good.

There’s a “Senior Sisig” burrito chain in the bay area, but all they offer is over-priced meh adobo burritos.