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There’s a new joke circulating in the Philippines: Instead of giving your wife a diamond ring, give them onion rings
Image Credit: Supplied, Facebook, File Image
The Philippines’ onion crisis has boosted the value of the humble vegetable — and now it appears to be the country’s new gold.
A kilogram sells for close to Dh50 Onions are exorbitantly expensive in the Southeast Asian country, especially for expats living in the UAE, where they cost about AED 2 per kilo or less.
Onions have breathed life into Filipino cuisine, but they now cost more than meat in Manila – a “heartbreaking” adjustment, they say.
“People back home are busy saving onions in their cooking. My family back home has drastically reduced their use of onions,” said Ben Lebig, who has lived in the UAE for the past 17 years.
Some people even switch to smaller, less expensive green scallions. “You don’t think about it too much when you’re cooking, but now that onions are so scarce, you realize that we use them in almost every dish we prepare and eat. Most of our dishes always start with tomatoes and onions. We ethnic food Adobo With onions, the taste would be completely different without them,” Lebig said.
Here are some Filipino dishes (fried fish and steak) with spiced vinegar dressing:
“When we make stews, we have onions in them, we have soups, we even have sauces…they have onions in them. These are the foods that the family prepares every day. In the Philippines, it costs 600-800 pesos per kilogram. That means more than Dh50, no need to say the price is fluctuating.”
He added: “The joke in the Philippines is that instead of giving your wife a diamond ring, it’s better to put an onion on the ring (instead of securing the diamond).”
cucumber instead of onion
Bryan Vicente, a Filipino engineer returning home for vacation, was shocked to find that the crisis had even affected his favorite street food.
“Before, I would dip the condiment quack (battered quail eggs) will be filled with onions. The standard is to serve them with vinegar and lots of onions,” he explained. “But now, they don’t put onions in it anymore. They substituted cucumbers, which was weird. “
He shared a photo of his new ‘look’ quack:
Vicente added that onions sold in stores now look like “bingo” balls with numbers written on them.
The numbers 9 and 7 (pictured above) correspond to the price per piece – 9 pesos (closer to Dh1) for a small piece.
Expat Jay Umali, who has lived in Dubai for the past four years, agrees that many of their authentic dishes call for onions. Another Filipino, Robert Cervantes, even quipped that he “couldn’t live without it”.
“We have a lot of fried food in our dishes and all these dishes call for onions. Steak, sinangag, all sweet and sour dishes, even for dipping sauces we use vinegar, onion and garlic. It is an important part of our daily meals , even in soups like bulalo (beef shank soup),” said Umali, who works in a dental practice.
She adds that she uses at least three onions per dish and at least two dishes per meal.
“Meals are prepared at least three times, with at least six or seven onions per meal,” Umali explains.
Unimaginable onion prices prompt Some Filipino expatriates in the UAE pack vegetables into suitcases along with gifts They take them home for their families. More recently, however, many have realized that this emerging trend comes with legal baggage.
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With these developments, Umali’s relatives, who are now using the humble light bulb sparingly, made a strange request of her.
“My relatives suggested we chop up onions, grate them, make a paste and wrap them in Ferrero Kinza boxes – not chocolate. But needless to say, this might be picked up by scanners at security checks, ’ said Umali.
Lebig said a typical family of five would use 3kg of onions per week, or about 12-15kg per month, at Dh40 per kg, which is unaffordable for the average Filipino.
Another Emirati expatriate, Felizze Faye Flores-Navarro, said: “We use onions in almost every dish. We like to fry our food and the main ingredient is mostly onions. Our steaks have a lot of onions. Sisig, We add onions and we also add it to all of our dips. So, we put onions in everything we make. We have onion toppings on many dishes. “
In the UAE, Navarro buys 10kg of onions every month for her family of four.
“We ate the whole bag in one month. There were seven people in my hometown in the Philippines. In a normal meal, people would use two to four onions in a dish, depending on the size of the onions. That was earlier. But now people back home are trying to get the most out of onions. Every dish uses just one onion,” she said.
Navarro added: “I keep getting requests from family members to bring onions, but not everyone is able to bring fresh produce into the Philippines. We know we need to get approval.”
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