In most of the world, soups are usually salty or creamy. Filipino soup chose a different path: it goes sour. The sour taste can come from tamarind, green mango, calamansi (a small Filipino citrus fruit) or tomatoes. Each ingredient gives the soup a slightly different kind of sourness.
A typical bowl of sinigang has chunks of pork or pieces of fish, plus a colourful collection of vegetables: kangkong (water spinach), long green beans, white radish, okra, eggplant and tomatoes. Everything is boiled together until the meat is tender and the vegetables are soft.
Filipinos often eat sinigang in the wet season - the months when it rains a lot. There is something cosy about a hot, sour soup when you are inside listening to the rain on the roof. Like with adobo, families have their own version: some make it sourer, some milder, some use only fish, some use prawn.
Sinigang is also a great way to teach kids about taste. Most children grow up knowing four basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter. Sinigang shows how powerful sour can be when it isn't from a sweet like a lemon sweet, but from a savoury bowl of soup.