ube

Ube is Tagalog, from the Philippine languages' word for the purple yam (Dioscorea alata). The word is related to similar terms across Austronesian languages — ubi in Malay and Indonesian, uhi in Samoan. The yam itself is native to Southeast Asia and has been cultivated in the Philippines for centuries. When cooked and mashed, it produces a vivid purple color that is natural, not artificial. The intensity of the color varies by variety but is always startling.

In Filipino cuisine, ube is used primarily in desserts: ube halaya (mashed ube jam), ube ice cream, ube cake, ube ensaymada (brioche-like bread), and halo-halo (the shaved ice dessert that layers ube with a dozen other ingredients). The flavor is mildly sweet, nutty, and vanilla-like. It is not grape-flavored, which is what non-Filipinos expect from the color. The purple promises something exciting. The flavor delivers something gentle.

Ube went global around 2017-2018, driven by Instagram and food blogs. The vivid purple was photogenic — ube doughnuts, ube cheesecake, ube lattes, ube soft-serve appeared in trendy bakeries from Los Angeles to London. Filipino-Americans led the trend: Manila Social Club in Brooklyn, B Sweet Dessert Bar in Los Angeles, and dozens of Filipino-owned bakeries introduced ube to non-Filipino audiences.

The ube trend brought both pride and frustration to Filipino communities. Pride, because a Filipino ingredient was finally getting international recognition. Frustration, because some non-Filipino businesses were profiting from the ingredient without acknowledging its Filipino origin, and because the trend reduced a versatile ingredient to an Instagram aesthetic. Purple food photographs well. But ube was food before it was a color.