Use of Banana Leaves in Filipino Food

choi

Ligaya Mishan, Unfurled, ‘It’s a Scent You Can Taste; For Nicole Ponseca, Filipino recipes call for Banana Leaves. New York Times, May 6, 2015 (in the Food section).
www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/dinin ... -banana-leaves.html

Note:
(a) “They [Banana leaves] serve as place mats, plates and to-go cartons, as a lining for pans to keep food from burning, and as pouches to seal in flavors. They impart flavors of their own, ghosts of grass and anise”
(i) placemat
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placemat
(ii) anise
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anise

(b) “At Jeepney [one of her two restaurants serving Filipino food], two nights a week are devoted to eating kamayan (kah-MY-ahn) style, with banana leaves spread over tables and food — slow-roasted pork with bagoong (fermented shrimp), adobo head-on prawns, sweet-hot tubes of longanisa — piled on top, without intervening china or silverware.
(i) Tagalog English dictionary  
kamayan (n) "all using the hands in eating"
tagalog.pinoydictionary.com/word/kamayan/
(ii)
(A) bagoong (n; Tagalog; First Known Use 1924): “a paste or sauce of small fish and prawns which have been salted and fermented that is much used as seasoning”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bagoong
(B) bagoong
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagoong
(iii) “adobo head-on prawns”
(A) adobo (n; Spanish; First Known Use 1938): “a Philippine dish of fish or meat usually marinated in a sauce containing vinegar and garlic, browned in fat, and simmered in the marinade“
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adobo
(B) Philippine adobo
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_adobo
(“This article is about a cooking process indigenous to the Philippines. For the Hispanic seasoning from which its name was derived, see Adobo”)
(iv) “sweet-hot tubes of longanisa”
(A) For definition of longanisa, see (e)(i)(A) below.
(B) Longaniza
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longaniza
(section 1.7 Philippines)
(C) “The sausage [longaniza] is not precooked so you must heat it thoroughly.”

choi

(c) “One morning in Ms Ponseca’s apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn, she prepared a slightly more modest feast, including bibingka, a rice-flour pancake swollen with coconut milk and approaching the texture of soufflé. It had salted duck eggs sunk at the center and sat in a skillet atop a banana leaf with a frayed fringe.”

bibingka
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibingka

(d) “Ms Ponseca, 38, grew up in what she calls ‘a very white neighborhood’ in Southern California. But when she came home, she took off her shoes, made rice and sat down to traditional Filipino dishes like sinagang (tamarind soup) and kare kare (oxtail and peanut stew) — all cooked by her father, who, like her mother, is an immigrant from the northern Philippines.
(i) “sinagang (tamarind soup)”
(A) Probably this is a typo. Google does not return anything for “sinagang” but a lot for “sinigang” (also: tamarind soup).
(B) sinigang
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinigang
(ii) kare-kare
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kare-kare

(e) "When some [clients of hers] expressed interest in trying the food of her heritage, she didn’t feel comfortable taking them to the cafeterialike turo-turo joints in Queens. 'I wanted a great restaurant,' she said. 'I wanted cocktails.' ”
(i)
(A) Binisaya English Dictionary
* longanisa (n; "Spanish: longaniza: type of spicy cold pork sausage"): "sausage"
www.binisaya.com/cebuano/longganisa
* turo-turo (n) "street food"
English to Binisaya - Cebuano Dictionary and Thesaurus
www.binisaya.com/cebuano/turo-turo
(B) Cebuano language
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cebuano_language
(Cebuano, referred to by most of its speakers as Bisaya or Binisaya (Visayan in English), is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people, mostly in the Central Visayas, most of whom belong to the Bisaya ethnic group)
(ii) joint (n): "a shabby or disreputable place of entertainment"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/joint

(f) "The first day [her restaurant opened], there were four customers, including her roommate and a boyfriend. (She comped them all.)"

comp (n, vt; short for complimentary)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/comp