FILIPINO SNACKS

 The Filipino word for ‘snack’ is meryenda, referring to something eaten between meals, in the mid-morning or mid-afternoon. For meryenda, Filipinos enjoy bread and pastries above all else. This could be in the form of pandesal — plain or manually filled with cheese, peanut butter or some other spread as a simple sandwich.

After baked goods, it is fruit and then chocolate that Filipinos love to have for a snack.

traditional Filipino snacks

Kakanin are traditional rice delicacies like puto and kutsinta.

Tsitsirya are thought of as junk food in the Philippines. Examples of favorite Filipino tsitsirya: corn chips and cheese curls.

Pulutan are snacks or finger food that Filipinos eat when drinking beer or liquor.

Baon is the packed lunch or snack Filipinos bring to school or work or when traveling.

Banana Chips, Cakes, Candies, Chicharon, Chips, Chocolates, Cookies, Corn Snacks (kornik), Crackers, Fish Snacks, Fruits, Hopia, Jelly Gummies, Dried Mangoes, Pandesal, Pinoy Biscuits, Seed Snacks (watermelon and squash seeds), Wafers like Jack n Jill’s Hello, Peanuts (adobong mani), Paborita, Pilipit, Otap, La Pacita Prima Toast, Pasencia, Mamon Tostada, Rosquillos, Bingo, Oishi Pillows, Egg Cracklets aka Galletas…

A popular brand of crackers in the Philippines is Skyflakes (particularly the chocolate flavor and the more recently formulated sweet-milk Condensada flavor). There’s also Fita!

You can buy Filipino snacks like Boy Bawang, Chippy corn chips in Garlic & Vinegar flavor, Ilocos Chichacorn, Leslie’s Clover Chips ham&cheese, Nagaraya adobo cracker nuts, Sunflower Crackers, Dried Mangoes and Chiz Curls on Amazon. #CommissionsEarned

TSAMPOY

Commonly spelled as champoy, rarely as sampóy.

Tsam·póy is a popular Chinese sweet in the Phlippines. It is made from the Myrica rubra fruit called yangmei, which has also been called Chinese bayberry or Chinese strawberry. The raw fruit at its prime is a briliant red (see photo below), but the preserved fruit that is sold as a treat is dark brown to black in color. Each fruit has a single seed in the center.


The origin of the name may somehow be related to Chenpi (陳皮), which in Hong Kong is transliterated as Chanpui and literally means “citrus peel.” A popular Cantonese sweet is called Chanpuimui (陳皮梅 or “tangerine-peel plum”).

The Difference Between Champoy and Kiamoy? →

TIKOY

Tikoy word origin: Filipino adaptation of the Hokkien Chinese words: ‘ti’ and ‘ke’ which mean sweet and cake.

Shin Shin Tikoy
Shin Shin Tikoy Box

Tikoy is the most popular treat during Lunar New Year festivities in the Philippines, as iconic as the Chinese New Year’s cake nian gao is in other countries. In fact, it is likely based on the nian gao of southern China from where Fukienese immigrants to the Philippines came.

WHAT IS TIKOY?

Or… how is tikoy made?

Continue reading “TIKOY”