"Magic Sarap" and Chefs

Ok, time for something different. I just wanted to make a long winded comment about Maggi's "Magic Sarap" seasoning granules.

I am by no means a chef, but I'm a student of cooking and cooking things right. If there's one thing I learned, if you intend to be a "real" chef, you create everything from scratch as much as possible. If you're making sinigang, you don't buy a sinigang mix. You make that sinigang from scratch with fresh tamarinds.

If you're making something something simple, even something like adobo, you don't buy a ready made adobo marinade mix. You just use soy sauce, vinegar and garlic.

I think that's a great way of cooking because you are aware of and are in control of everything that goes into the food that you serve.

"Magic Sarap" replaces salt in that it provides sodium and many other flavor enhancers like monosodium glutamate (MSG), iodized salt, spices and stuff like "meat powder". It's a flavor enhancer that's supposed to enhance the taste of food.

Chefs are not supposed to need "flavor enhancers" because they can do all of this from scratch. Because as chefs, that's what they're supposed to do. That's what they have studied to do and have trained to do. It's what they're supposed to be proud to do. They don't take shortcuts.

So this is why I'm puzzled why a lot of local chefs, even one I've respected for years, go and peddle "Magic Sarap". There's Judy Ann Santos, and there's even Sandy Daza. I mean, SANDY DAZA?

What really drives me to a rage is this Marvin Agustin ad that seems to show Knorr's Ginataang Gulay mix tastes better than one made from scratch. I mean wtf. Peddle that shit all you want, but when you start to say shit like this is better than one made with real ingredients, then you're out of your God damned mind.

I believe chefs cannot separate their training and what they do in their own restaurants, and the persona they present to us in commercials. They're professionals in that what they practice in their cooking is what the should practice when they try to sell us "products". Is Sandy Daza trying to tell me that he uses Magic Sarap in the food that he serves at his restaurant? And is he happily telling me to don't cook from scratch, just use these shortcuts? Is that the kind of cooking knowledge he wants to pass on to me? To all of us? How does that reflect on him as a chef?

What do I have against Magic Sarap? Not too much, actually. It's just that I had this idealized idea of what a chef is like, and they would never and should never use something like this.

But additionally, Magic Sarap contains MSG, which can exacerbate allergic reactions from susceptible people. READ THIS FOR MORE.

Magic Sarap also includes vaguely described elements like "meat powder". What is that? What kind of meat are we talking here? This means anything cooked with Magic Sarap, even if they're vegetables, cannot be considered meat free. Vegetarians beware.