Long Beach City College’s APID (Asian Pacific Islander Desi) program hosted a virtual Viking Vault cooking event on May 11, in honor of May being Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage month.
Students watched the Zoom event to learn more about the food culture, and how to cook various Filipino foods.
The virtual cooking show started off with a special Filipino song performance by the 2021 ASB Spring Sing winner, Jeremy Lucero who performed with his brother John Lucero.
The Lucero brothers performed a song in the Filipino language, which was Lucero’s own cover song called, “Kung Maputi Na Ang Buhok Ko by Noel Cabangon.”
In the english language this transaltes to, “If my hair is white will you still love me and if we are old I hope we do not change.”
LBCC’s APID celebration also had two of their very own APID faculty members go live on Zoom to show how to prepare quick and easy traditional Filipino dishes using some of the Viking Vault products.
The two faculties that cooked for the virtual event were, Margaret Antonio-Palomares, LBCC assistant director of Cal-Works and Judith (Judy) Quilaton, LBCC transfer center enrollment specialist.
There were three dishes the two cooks prepared for the virtual event which were pancit, spam musubi, and an avocado milkshake.
According to Antonio-Palomares and Quilaton, pancit is a filipino dish made with noodles, your choice of meat, usually chopped chicken breasts and a lot of vegetables.
Antonio-Palomares said, “In the Philippines we use a lot of vegetables, so a whole onion would be needed to go inside the pancit dish. Memorial Day is the next holiday coming up and this dish is really easy and economical.”
The pancit dish usually uses chicken breasts, but for those who are vegan can use several different vegetables like carrots, green onions, cabbage, mushrooms, tofu in place of the meat, garlic and more depending on your vegetable preference.
Next, the dish that was being prepared was spam musubi which is more of a Hawaiian snack dish. spam musubi is usually fried or grilled, marinated with oyster sauce and teriyaki sauce, and wrapped in seaweed with a bed of white plain rice. It is prepared and wrapped much like sushi.
The virtual cooking show ended with a dessert, an avocado milkshake, which is a Filipino type of drink for dessert. The drink is usually not too sweet because of the balance with the avocado flavor base, adding sugar would be optional.
For the avocado milkshake they used soy milk which was provided from the Viking Vault.
Quilton, “As a kid my mother would always prepare this traditional Filipino drink and it is so simple you just need 4 ingredients; avocados, milk, ice, and of course a blender.”
May is dedicated to the API community and it’s dedicated to celebrate and recognize all of their history, traditions, culture and achievements.
The Viking Vault provided the APID faculty with some great items and products to prepare the foods. The recipes are being held at the Viking Vault this month for students who are interested, as well as the basic needs program for students who are interested in free food.