Tatung Sarthou turns philosophical on Filipino back kitchens in new book

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MANILA, Philippines — In celebration of Filipino Food Month last April, Chef Michael Giovan "Tatung" Sarthou III, unveiled his latest published book.

Unlike Chef Tatung’s previous books, "KitchiZen: Slow Fire, Steady Heart in a World of Too Much" is not a cookbook.

Stemming from the combined words of kitchen and citizen, the chef presents it as an offering.

“Before it became a book, "KitchiZen" was already a way of being,” said Chef Tatung.

The chef explained that a "KitchiZen" is “not a culinary identity, but a civic one: a person shaped by the discipline of the stove, where fire must be watched, timing matters, and knowing when to stop is part of the craft. It is a practice of proportion — not the rejection of ambition, but the refusal of excess.”

Chef Tatung draws inspiration from this definition of what a kitchen citizen is in his most ambitious work to date — which is drawn not from imported philosophy, but from the Filipino back kitchen — from mothers at wet markets, from tinderas with dog-eared notebooks, from generations of cooks who fed the nation without recognition.

It is for them that the KitchiZen already exists. This book gives them a name.

Published by Vertikal Kreatives Inc., "KitchiZen: Slow Fire, Steady Heart in a World of Too Much" is Chef Tatung’s first work of philosophy. It comes from the kitchen, but it is about life.

“My latest work presents almost a lifetime of insights, gathered slowly and quietly, now held in one book. I wrote this from a place I know well: waking up already behind, giving more than I meant to give, and still feeling like it was never enough. For a long time, I thought that was life. The kitchen taught me otherwise,” he explained. 

Structured around four foundations — Puso (heart), Galing (skill), Buhay (livelihood), and Bayan (community) — the book moves through Filipino history and lived experience to argue that the kitchen has always carried a philosophy the wider world is only beginning to articulate. At its center is Kasapatan, or the feeling of having enough, of satisfaction with what you have. Not scarcity. Not retreat. But the point at which what you have built can already hold.

“If you have been feeling tired, stretched, or quietly overwhelmed, I wrote this with you in mind. Not just a book to read, but something to return to — a way to steady yourself,” the chef said. “'KitchiZen' expands the Simpol philosophy into new ground, introducing the KitchiZen as a distinctly Filipino civic identity — one who measures rice to the first knuckle, seasons by feel (tantiya), and understands that enough is not a concession, but a form of mastery.”

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