Post Category → Immigration

Banana Flower Sambal: A Connection Between Southeast Asian and Sri Lankan Cuisines

I knew that, even though the commonly seen sambals in Singapore are sambal tumis and sambal belacan, there are many varieties of this chilli paste, especially in the neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia. There is sambal tempoyak that is made of fermented durian, there is sambal balado comprising of tomato besides the usual suspects, and there are sambal petai, sambal setan, sambal rica rica…

But I didn’t expect to find, while browsing old newspaper archives, sambal recipes that call for, separately, binjal, salted fish roe, and banana flower. While a quick search online gave me little leads about the first two renditions, I found contemporary recipes for banana flower sambal—many from Sri Lanka, and one by renown Singaporean cookbook author Sylvia Tan. The old recipe that I found was published in The Singapore Free Press in 1912. It was among three sambal recipes all of which written in both English and Malay. Interestingly, the recipes had a preceding story describing the festivities of Hari Raya. There was no byline, although I speculate that the writer was a British, because he or she made a reference to the old Oxford saying “Fingers were made before forks” when describing the Malays’ preference to eat with their hands. The writer also drew a parallel between the sambal-curry and the English roast beef-Yorkshire pudding relationships.

What is Banana Flower Sambal?

The banana flower sambal recipe (jantong pisang sambal) caught my eye because it was made by boiling banana flowers, cucumber, and chilli in coconut milk. Boiling as a method of combining the ingredients is rather unusual since the sambals that we come across today are typically stir-fried.

Screenshot of Singapore National Library Board's newspaper digital archive

Screenshot of Singapore National Library Board’s newspaper digital archive

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One doesn’t need to be Singaporean to cook Singaporean

photo by Kristina D.C. Hoeppner via Flickr

photo by Kristina D.C. Hoeppner via Flickr

As more Singaporeans receive higher education and prefer comfortable working conditions, foreign labors play significant role in producing material objects such as buildings. Things get complicated, however, when they also become an important source of labor for the production of cultural objects, such as food.

Because foreign laborers have not participated in Singapore’s social life, they do not possess the same taste for food as Singaporeans. Common complaints about cooks from China are that their versions of local delicacies such as char kway teow and chap chye peng are too salty. This is common in commercial kitchens helmed by immigrants. Think about Japanese and Korean cuisine prepared by Latinos in the United States.

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Recipes vs Reviews: Performing the Singaporean Identity through Blogging

Singaporean food bloggers living overseas share mostly recipes of what Singaporeans eat. There are FEAST to the world and Mummy, I can cook!.

Feast to the world's popiah entry in June 2012

Feast to the world’s popiah entry in June 2012

Mummy, I can cook's satay entry in July 2011

Mummy, I can cook’s satay entry in July 2011

Singaporean food bloggers at home, such as ieatishootipost and camemberu, in contrast, rarely bestow culinary wisdom. They review restaurants, hawker stalls, and sometimes businesses remotely relevant to F&B, like airlines. Overseas and domestic Singaporeans cover different aspects of food because the further one drifts away from home, the hazier the idea of “Singaporean” becomes. Continue reading →

How the Exclusion Period drove Chinese American Men into Domestic Kitchens

At the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS) Annual Meeting & Conference this month, I presented a paper on the feminization of the early 20th century Chinese men in America, and how it led them to accept the traditionally feminine task of domestic cooking. The following is an adaptation of my five minutes speech. I have added more information for a more complete picture of my research.

I have always wondered why in my family, it is my father and my grandfather who cook. Now, we are not Americans, we are Singaporean Chinese, but like the story of many Chinese in the United States, my grandfather and his kinsmen from South China sought jobs in a foreign land. Women didn’t tag along, so the men cooked for themselves.

I wondered if this was the case for the American Chinese. Indeed, this was what sociologist Rose Hum Lee observed in her 1956 study on the marital relations of Chinese families in San Francisco. She noted that the husbands brought home groceries and taught their wives cooking. This was unthinkable in a patriarchal Chinese society.

Well, the men in America were no typical Chinese. They came to the United States in their youth and reached adulthood without too much womanly concern for their welfare, until the US government loosened its grip on Chinese immigration in 1947. Prior to that, the Chinese were the most hated community in the United States, because of reasons illustrated in the following picture. They were perceived as economic enemies who monopolized the industries, leaving the white men jobless. The results were institutionalized discriminations that I argue attributed to the egalitarian division of labor in Chinese’s marital homes as observed by Lee.

A grotesque octopus monster (left) working tirelessly in every industry, leaving the white men (right) jobless. (The Wasp, March 3, 1882 illustration from Yellow Peril!)

A grotesque octopus monster (left) working tirelessly in every industry, leaving the white men (right) jobless. (The Wasp, March 3, 1882 illustration from Yellow Peril!)

In 1882, United States enacted the Exclusion Act to restrict Chinese immigration to the United States. Prior to that, the Chinese community was already a predominantly male society because Chinese female immigrants were thought to be prostitutes, and therefore denied entry. Married Chinese men had little chance to reunite with their wives, while the bachelors could not start a family. Because these men could not demonstrate heterosexual norms, there were doubts on their sexuality. The early Chinese immigrants in the United States sustained the image of lesser men.

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Boston University’s new Chinese dishes baffle Chinese students

Boston University announced last month that it would add 15 new Chinese dishes to its residential dining menus. But the dishes did not impress the very people the dining services were courting.

In the comments section of the announcement published on BU Today, a news and information website managed by the university’s marketing and communications office, a student named Phyllis wrote, “I am from Beijing, China. The sad thing about this news is that none of the new added food item I have eaten or even heard of when I was in China… It is still American-Chinese food.”

Adding new Chinese dishes was part of BU’s effort to retain the Chinese students in campus housing after the mandatory stay period in freshman year. While 75 percent of American and non-Chinese students return to campus housing in their sophomore year, less than half of Chinese students do so, according to BU Today.

Other BU students from China and Taiwan expressed a similar sentiment. Most found dishes like “Sichuan chili chicken and eggplant, sticky rice”, “pho chicken bowl, ramen noodles” and “soy caramel beef lettuce wrap, glass noodle salad” perplexing. “Caramel beef?” said Jiaan Yu, a sophomore from Nanjing. She frowned and pulled back her head as she read the list of dishes. “Seriously these are Chinese food?”

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