𝗙𝗘𝗔𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘 | 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐞 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐬: 𝐀𝐛𝐢 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐳, “𝐋𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐚 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐞𝐧” 𝐔𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐢𝐥𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Who would’ve thought that it would be possible to put anything—or everything you could think of in a lumpia wrapper? Whether it may be pizza, burger, or soup based dishes, there are endless possibilities you can think of!

Among the food content community, one creator has exceptionally captured this generation through her great skills in cooking and food innovation. An overnight sensation who rose to fame on Tiktok thanks to her lumpia recipes—the queen herself, Abi Marquez.

Abigail Marquez also referred to as “Abi'' graduated as Magna Cum Laude from the University of the Philippines in 2022. Honoring a degree in Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management.

She has starred as a guest in GMA's Unang Hirit, tik-talk segment. Abi said that she had always loved the idea of cooking, but due to the pandemic she had to learn online. Her degree did not offer any official training in culinary arts; instead it focused on management and contained a few cooking subjects.

She mentioned in an interview at F&B report that she has been passionate about cooking for as long as she can remember. At the age of four, she discovered that sharing food with her family and relatives brought her the greatest happiness. On her own initiative, she served orange juice and, with her parents’ assistance in opening the gas tank, when she cooked fried chicken for herself. Her love for serving guests cheerfully at home and praises she got for being the wonderful child she was, this act of kindness from her made them smile. Which became a driving force in her life that inspired her to do so many things.

Fun fact about Abi, she would upload song covers and share her everyday life as her content. In which it had also been a job before she graduated from college.

From there, it began with a simple yet creative idea to transform Jollibee’s choco mallow pie into a tasty, crunchy lumpia dish. She was inspired to continue creating new lumpia dishes based on the many suggestions by the netizens.

In 2022, she began uploading videos of herself cooking foods into lumpia wrappers at the comfort of her home. She enjoyed sharing other food related content, such as food reviews, funny narrated recipe videos, and inexpensive recipes that could be created for about 100 pesos.

She eventually gained a collaboration with her favorite foreign idol—Andy Cooks. Cooking the all-time favorite of most Filipinos, Pork Sinigang. She also wishes to collaborate with other food content creators. But her ultimate dream collaboration would have to be Gordon Ramsay, Joshua Weissman and Binging with Babish.

With now over a million followers and likes on Tiktok, her success has earned her the Tiktok Foodie Creator of the Year Award in 2023.

Aside from being the “Lumpia Queen”, Abi’s goal and advocacy has always been to make people’s life better through food. She wants to show them better food and how to prepare it properly at home. That they don't need to be intimidated and could be able to learn through her videos. She said to “not be afraid, to keep going even if you make mistakes.” Her informative yet entertaining cooking videos about Filipino cuisines, certainly deserves that she is no doubt one of the rising content creators in the Philippines.

Her remarkable talent and skills has been recognized by people all over the world. She outstandingly won the title of the First Filipina content creator for People’s Voice Award for Social - Food and Drink at The 28th Webby Awards and highlights that this is “our win”. Also nominated for Broadcast Media Awards under Social Media Accounts category in the James Beard Awards 2024. Marking it as another achievement unlocked.

Feature by: Kaye Castillo

Layout by: Nikko Decrito

Published date: August 07, 2024