Kamayan

Kamayan is a Filipino cultural term for the various occasions or contexts in which pagkakamay (Tagalog: "[eating] with the hands") is practiced, including as part of communal feasting (called salu-salo in Tagalog). Such feasts traditionally served the food on large leaves such as banana or breadfruit spread on a table, with the diners eating from their own plates. The practice is also known as kinamot or kinamut in Visayan languages. While kamayan started out as a common folkway before the arrival of European colonizers, its culturally significance has become elevated in the Philippines' postcolonial culture, since the practice of pagkakamay had been discouraged by the Philippines' Spanish and American colonizers.
A separate tradition which involves eating with the hands straight off the table is the boodle fight, a tradition of the Armed Forces of the Philippines originally practiced by Philippine Military Academy cadets, and drawn from a similar tradition at the United States Military Academy West Point. The intent is to build military camaraderie by getting military personnel to enjoy the same food together, regardless of rank.
Among restaurants outside of the Philippines, however, the term "boodle fight" has often been conflated with "kamayan" and "salo-salo," and the terms tend to be used synonymously when marketing the Filipino food experience.
The Tagalog term "kamayan" is formed from the root word kamay and the noun-forming suffix "-an" which indicates "collectivity, object, place, and instrument." Both "pagkamay" and "kinamot" mean "[eating] with the hands", from the root words kamay and kamot, both meaning "hands".
Meanwhile, "Salu-salo" means "feast" or "banquet", a reduplication of salo, "to eat together" or "to share food".
Kamayan also describes the traditional communal feasts or family meals, where rice and various colorful dishes are placed on banana leaves and eaten together. The banana leaves are washed and slightly wilted over open flames to bring out an oily sheen and then laid out on a long table. In the Batanes Islands in the northern Philippines, large breadfruit (tipuho) leaves are used instead in a serving tradition called vunung or vunong.
Pagkakamay describes the act of eating with the bare hands, which is the traditional pre-colonial method of eating in Filipino culture. This is done by forming a small mound of rice, adding a piece of the accompanying dish for flavor (the ulam), compressing it into a small pyramid with the fingers, lifting it to the mouth nestled in four cupped fingers, and then pushing it into the mouth with the thumb. The entire process only uses the fingers of one hand. It never uses the palms of the hands and the fingers also never enter the mouth. The other hand is not used and may instead be used to hold the plate or a drink.
Kamayan is an informal and intimate method of dining. It has a general atmosphere of sharing, and participants usually talk throughout the meal. It does not have the strict etiquette and rules of western dining, and the dishes served depend on what is available. Kamayan may be done in private family meals or in gatherings, parties, picnics, or fiestas.
The practice of kamayan is pre-colonial. It has been described in by Antonio Pigafetta in the Magellan expedition, as well as by Spanish missionaries during the Spanish colonial period. While utensils like wooden spoons and ladles existed for serving and cooking in pre-colonial Filipino culture, they were not used for eating.
The practice was tolerated during the Spanish period, but it was suppressed during the American colonial period when American dining etiquette and the use of spoons and forks were aggressively promoted.
Kamayan became a particularly popular way of celebrating Filipino culture in the 1980s and 1990s, a fact reflected in the ubiquitous popularity of an upscale restaurant chain called "Kamayan."
A boodle fight is a meal that dispenses with cutlery and dishes. Diners instead practice kamayan and eat straight off the table unlike typical instances of eating with the hands off individual plates. The food is placed on top of a long banana leaf-lined trestle table and in the true military practice, diners do not sit in chairs but instead stand shoulder to shoulder in a line on both sides of the table.
A senior officer or enlisted personnel then utters the traditional command for the boodle fight to begin:
The name "boodle fight" likely originated from the term "boodle", which is American military slang for contraband sweets such as cake, candy and ice cream. A "boodle fight" is a party in which boodle fare is served. The term may have also been derived from "kit and caboodle"; caboodle is further derived from boodle or booty.
A growing number of Filipino restaurants are serving meals boodle fight-style. In commercial contexts, the dishes in a boodle fight are arranged equidistantly throughout the table to ensure everyone has equal access. Rice are typically plain steamed white rice that is not too mushy, sinangag (garlic rice), or rice cooked in coconut leaves (puso). Typical dishes aside from rice, includes inihaw (barbecues, including lechon, whole roasted pork), lumpia, fried meats (like crispy pata), tocino (cured pork), tapa, longganisa (sausages), pancit (noodles), boiled eggs or salted eggs, seafood, dried fish, and blanched, fresh, or stir-fried vegetables. These are provided with a variety of sawsawan (dipping sauces), calamansi, bagoong, as well as pickled vegetables (atchara). Desserts are also included, like ripe or unripe Philippine mangoes, pineapples, watermelons, papaya, young coconut, leche flan, and various kakanin (rice cakes). Drinks are usually fruit juices, beer, wine, or softdrinks. As a rule, soups and stews are not included.