Marketing labels add adjectives to the names of fruits and vegetables, influencing how we think about them too. “Sweet”, “airflown”, “Japanese”, “premium” and many more have been used to create distinctions among the same types of vegetables, mostly to raise their value. While one could use science to dispute these distinctions, I recently found out that taxonomy itself isn’t free from commercial influences. Decisions to lump or split plants depended on what colonial botanists considered was valuable for trade. This gave me the idea to create a new taxonomy for commercial vegetables, to highlight the ludicrosity of labelling languages while also acknowledging the capitalistic motivations of the 18th-century classification system.

And so I published a small book. Side A features seven stories about fruit and vegetable names and the implications of their use today. Each story comes with an illustration by Sokkuan Tye that cleverly conveys the absurdity and humour that I may or may not have properly delivered through words. Side B covers my experiment with the new vegetable taxonomy and my critique of four types of labels that mystify rather than clarify the plants we eat. Almost Useful designed the book, using typography to help differentiate the vegetables discussed.

The book is available here.

Last year, I participated in a project initiated by industrial designer Hans Tan to find out what made hawker tableware in Singapore so colourful. It included an online survey that asked people in Singapore if they associated their favourite hawker dishes with particular colours, and if they prefered an array in each hawker centre or simply white. This culminated in a book, which also covers the events that led up to this vibrant (perhaps even jarring) element of our hawker culture, and discusses its future in the face of various — e.g. manpower — challenges.

When we embarked on this project, all new — and many old — hawker centres had adopted standardised tableware comprising only two or three colours. If there is a time to assess the value that tableware colours bring to Singapore’s hawker culture, it is probably now.

The book, Hawker Colours: Melamine Tableware in Singapore, comes in five colours that mimic the tableware’s. It is available for sale here: https://shop.inplainwords.sg/product/hawker-colour

Blurp: “They refer not to the green of chendol or the red of mee goreng but the riot of colourful melamine plates and bowls in which many hawker dishes in Singapore are served today. Red, green, yellow, purple, pink, and more!  

These colours defy conventional aesthetic sensibilities, and yet they have become entrenched in local hawker centres and coffee shops. Hawker Colours: Melamine Tableware in Singapore retraces their origins and mass adoption, and asks what value they still hold as the trade adapts to the changing needs of the city-state.”

When Cooking was a Crime

“Chamber pots as cooking pots. Blankets as fuel. Cooking was no easy task for those in prison. Moreover, it was illegal. But that did not stop male inmates in Singapore’s prisons and Drug Rehabilitation Centres (DRCs) during the 1970s and 1980s. Driven by the desires for a hot meal and a sense of freedom, they invented ways and means to “masak” with the little resources they had.

When Cooking Was A Crime offers a rare glimpse into the flavours of prison life based on the memories of eight former inmates. Through photographic recreations and interviews, it explores how food and cooking took on new meanings and tastes for those living behind bars.”

Research and Text by Sheere Ng
Photography by Don Wong
Design by Practice Theory
Published by In Plain Words

Stockists
Singapore: In Plain Words / Basheer Graphic Books / Kinokuniya / Objectifs / Temporary Unit  
South Korea: The Book Society
Thailand: Books & Belonging
USA: Inga Bookshop / Kitchen Arts and Letters / Draw Down Books / Hennessey + Ingalls

Singapore’s blazing sun dehydrates anything in its path – not so pleasant for the people but wonderful for keeping food good and crisp.

Before people in Singapore moved into high rise flats, and even before they owned ovens and refrigerators, food was sun-dried outside homes to extend their shelf-lives in this country’s tropical weather. Dehydration is a food preservation process that removes moisture which bacteria and moulds require to grow and cause food spoilage. Due to its geographical location, Singapore is sunny all year round, and except for the heavier rainfall between December and April, there is no distinct wet or dry season (Local Climatology). This means that the sun is a resource constantly available to the cooks in this country.

A heritage food that could not have been made without the tropical sun was agar agar laut, which translates to “agar agar from the sea”. This jelly got its name because it was made from Gracilaria seaweed, which used to be washed up onto the seashores of Siglap and Tanah Merah (Seaweed Jelly 10). During the early 1900s, the Malays, Eurasians and Peranakans collected this seaweed, which looks like loose bunches of “tentacles” in colours like green and brown, to make agar agar laut for Hari Raya, Christmas and Chinese New Year respectively (Agar Agar Jelly 10, De Conceicao, R. Tan).

The sun was first used to dry the seaweed after it was cleaned of shells and sand. After that, the dried seaweed was either cooked immediately or stored, as it was said that the older the seaweed, the better the jelly (Seaweed Jelly 10). To make the jelly, the seaweed was boiled to extract agarose, a gelling agent. Rock sugar and sometimes essence of rose was added for flavour, before the liquid was poured into a mould to cool (How Seaweed Jelly 10, E. Tan).

The sun became useful again to ensure that the jelly could be enjoyed in the months to come. After it was turned out of its mould, the jelly was sunned for several days so that it would keep for as long as six months without refrigeration. Evaporation produced a top layer of crystalised sugar that preserved the jelly. The end result was a bright amber-coloured agar agar of very firm and crunchy texture (How Seaweed Jelly 10). While nobody today collects the seaweed to make agar agar laut from scratch, the jelly is still available at some shops in Joo Chiat during Christmas and Chinese New Year (E. Tan).

The local communities also relied on the sun to make pickles, or achar, although it was less about preserving the vegetables and more about achieving the right crisp. A common mixture of vegetables for pickling includes cucumbers, carrots, cabbages and cauliflower, which used to be dried under the sun until they were dehydrated enough to produce a crunch (Blake 261). If done right, they retain this texture even as they are brined in a mixture white vinegar and spice paste for weeks.

Achar was sun-dried all year round, but especially in late September before the pre-monsoon rains of October and November. Peranakans enjoy a spicy pickle with additional sesame seeds that they also eat during Chinese New Year. Eurasians, however, prefer a tangier achar because it goes well with the mandatory ham at their Christmas tables (Blake 261, S. Tan). These days, those who still make achar at home dry the vegetables in an oven instead. Most simply buy it off the shelves.

Besides preservation, heat from the sun also helps to create rich, intense flavours that food otherwise would not have in their natural state. Singapore’s scorching heat was instrumental in the local soy sauce industry before modern technology took over in the 1980s. The condiment used to be made by leaving large jars of cooked soy beans to ferment in the sun for months (Ng, Sauces Make Good Food 14). An optimal temperature for this process is between 30 to 35 degrees Celsius, which Singapore’s climate can satisfy throughout the year. To produce dark soy sauce, the jars soak up the sun for many more months, until the liquid darkened and its flavour became more concentrated (Tay).

However, this traditional method of production requires a lot of space, which is costly in this land scarce city. With the exception of one producer, the remaining in Singapore have adopted the modern chemical hydrolysis method, which manufactures high volumes of soy sauce in just two days (Ng).

Despite the lesser reliance on the sun for food production in Singapore, the nation continues to relish flavours produced by this method. Belacan (shrimp paste), keropok (fried crackers made of fish or shrimp) and salted fish are just some examples of everyday food imported from neighbouring countries that have continued to take advantage of the tropical sun to satisfy our tummies.  

Works Cited
“Local Climatology.” National Environment Agency, www.nea.gov.sg/weather-climate/climate. Accessed 22 Feb 2018.
“Seaweed Jelly.” The Straits Times, 23 Mar 1936, p.10.
“Agar Agar Jelly.” The Straits Times, 26 Mar 1936, p.10.
“How Seaweed Jelly is Made in Malaya.” The Straits Times, 27 Mar 1936, p.10.
De Conceicao, Aloysius Leo. Interview by Zaleha Bte Osman. 18 Nov 1998, www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/viewer?uuid=ec29abf4-115f-11e3-83d5-0050568939ad-OHC002057_011. Accessed 22 Feb 2018.
Tan, Richard Swee Guan. Interview by Zaleha Bte Osman.14 Apr 1999, www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/viewer?uuid=f60303c6-115f-11e3-83d5-0050568939ad-OHC002108_003. Accessed 22 Feb 2018.
Tan, Elsie. Personal Interview. 15 Nov 2017.
Tan, Sylvia. “Delicious Memories.” Asia One, www.asiaone.com/singapore/delicious-memories?page=0%2C1. Accessed 22 Feb 2018.
Blake, Myrna L., et al. Singapore Eurasians: Memories, Hopes and Dreams. World Scientific Publishing, 2017.
Ng, Sor Luan. “Soya Sauce Steep in Tradition.” The Straits Times, 12 Jun 2017, www.straitstimes.com/singapore/soya-sauce-steeped-in-tradition.
“Sauces Make Good Food Better.” The Singapore Free Press, 20 Sept 1955, p.14.
Tay, Leslie. “Kwong Who Hing: The World’s Best Soy Sauce Might Be Right in Our Own Backyard.” I Eat I Shoot I Post, 17 Jun 2011, ieatishootipost.sg/kwong-woh-hing-the-worlds-best-soy-sauce-might-be-right-in-our-own-backyard/.

Many cooks talk about a mortar and pestle producing better spice pastes than a blender, although few can say why. Kenji Lopez of Serious Eats has by far the best explanation. Pounding crushes the cells of the vegetables, he says, whereas a blender cuts them. Since crushing ruptures the cells to release more aromatic compounds, a mortar and pestle produces more flavourful results.

I wanted to know how well this theory applies to sambal belacan, a chilli paste consisting only of chillies and belacan, a sun-dried, fermented shrimp paste. Unlike other aromatics like garlic and shallots, there are two parts to a chilli, the fruit and the seeds. The latter are spicier than the former, that’s why people sometimes remove the seeds to tone down the heat of what they are cooking.

Chillies are spicy because they contain capsaicin. According to Harold McGhee, chillies produce capsaicin from its placenta, the pale, spongey tissue in the middle of the fruit that holds the seed. From the placenta, capsaicin spreads to the seeds and then the fruit, where it becomes less concentrated.

I already know that chilli seeds escape the blades intact (unless you have a Vitamix), whereas a pestle could beat them beyond recognition. What I wanted to find out is:

1. If this difference has any impact, besides spiciness, on the resulting sambal.
2. If the recipe calls for seeded chillies, would pounding and blending produce a significantly different flavour profile?

To answer these questions, I made four sambal belacan using the two methods, and with each method I made a sambal with chilli seeds and one without. The ingredients are standardised by weight:

32 g big red chillies, pre-cut into chunks
9 g red chilli padi, pre-cut into chunks
10g toasted belacan

Here are my findings:

Pounded, without seeds
This sambal tasted bright and refreshing like a capsicum. While it was spicy, it didn’t cause my tongue too much pain. The chillies released its juice as I pounded them and more accumulated at the bottom of the resulting paste as it sat longer. Belacan is meant to make the sambal pungent and salty but I found these two qualities a little too prominent in this sample.

Blended, without seeds
I used a handheld blender because the sample size was too small for a regular blender to do its job. That’s a downside of the machine: you’ll need to be making enough for the blades to reach the ingredients and blend them well. My handheld blender wasn’t capable of melding the belacan with the chillies either, leaving tiny bits of shrimp paste in the sambal. But other than that, I didn’t think this sample tastes any different from the pounded version. So if I were to make a sambal with seeded chillies, I would use a blender for convenience. Toasted belacan could be broken down into powder first to mix well with the chillies.

Pounded, with seeds
I removed the chilli seeds to pound them first, so that the juice of the fruit wouldn’t get in the way. They turned into a fibrous mass similar to a dried-out ginger. I took a bite, and it was awfully spicy as expected. In terms of flavour, it was somewhat dull. There might be a hint of nuttiness but by then my tongue was too swollen to tell for sure. It turned out that the fibres are great for keeping moisture within the paste. There was no liquid at the bottom of the sample even after hours. It appeared that the pounded seeds functioned as a binder like what candlenuts does for spice pastes. They may have also helped subdued the strong belacan flavour a little, creating the most well-balanced sambal of all the samples.

Blended, with seeds
As expected, the seeds remained intact. This sample had bits of belacan in one bite, and too much seeds in another — a far cry from the pounded version. Maybe it wouldn’t be so inconsistent if I had made a bigger portion with a regular blender, but I believe the outcome would still be less than ideal.

Conclusion
If spiciness isn’t a problem, I would include chilli seeds in my sambal anytime and pound instead of blending it.

If seeded chillies will be used, then a blender will do just fine. It is faster and produces similar results to a mortar and pestle’s.

Unless I’m making a small amount. Then, I would do it manually. A mortar and pestle can do the work in less than five minutes and they are easier to clean than the machines.

I love a good meal. Then, I become too dependent on it for happiness. Mind you, I’m enjoying life, but I like little bursts of joy to brighten up a sluggish day. So, I fulfill my food desires even if it means making an elaborate Vietnamese summer roll in a weekday afternoon. No, taking the bus for a carrot cake better than the one selling downstairs is no trouble at all.

But whenever my sunny side up sticks to the pan, or a packet of chicken rice is missing its chilli sauce, I become upset and frustrated. My husband, who can usually live with small mishaps like these, also dread them in anticipation of my disappointment. I knew then that I must look for more reasonable emotional returns from a meal.

Considering the other reasons we eat may be a good start. Some of my most vivid food memories, I realised, were about negotiating relationships. I have pleased and appeased or, soothed anxieties through eating. Joy was the last thing in my mind in those instances.

…

I was 9 years old when I ate an entire pot of rice meant for my parents, maid and I. The first helping was dinner. The second was greed. The rest was a game of dare I played with myself. I sat alone in front of the TV as usual, probably looking for attention when I think about it now. I wet the rice with the herbal broth of bak kut teh and drank it like a porridge, a competitive eating technique (so I learned later).

Dad came home first. Our maid explained why a new batch of rice was cooking. He let out a “wah”, but looked more baffled than impressed. It was anti-climactic. Nobody fussed over me like I wanted. Also, I was suffering from the grains bobbing up and down my throat. Next time I wanted my parents to be proud of me, I just did my homework instead.

…

I pulled a similar but more modest stunt in my teens. This time I was trying to hang out with my friends while getting my father off my back. We no longer had a maid, so he had been cooking dinner and I was expected to be home after school. I obliged because he was fierce. Only when I was much older he told me the symbolic meaning of those meals: they made us a family, rather than mere roommates sharing a place to sleep.

Not knowing this then, I was resentful to be made to skip Long John Silver’s with my classmates. Dad had no idea that after-school gossips cemented the friendships of teenage girls. I feared becoming dispensable to my clique if I wasn’t around much. So I ate out, and then again at home. I tell my husband today that this was how I stretched my belly too big.

…

When I was 20, I landed in the hospital with typhoid from meals that I still might not reject if given another chance. I was an intern covering a story in Arughat, Nepal, a small village in the hills. For three nights I lived with one of my interviewees, Satrughan Shrestha, in his two-storey mud-coloured house. We ate dal bhat (rice and lentil soup) prepared by his wife and teenage daughter.

Dal bhat was a typical meal of the common folks so I was surprised when they offered me fish on top of that. I ate it with mouthfuls of rice and swallowed quickly because it was fishy. My hosts could be offering me the best that they could afford and I did not want to hurt their pride by rejecting it. Alas, we had fish every day.

To go back to Kathmandu, I had to take a five-hour bus ride to Gorkha to transit. Shrestha took me on his motorbike to cut short the journey. Despite having rode three hours through winding roads and rivers where he had to dismount and push the vehicle across, he insisted on buying me lunch before I journeyed on. He didn’t speak English and neither do I speak Nepali. There couldn’t be a more proper goodbye than a meal together. I just wished it wasn’t the fish.

We ate it at a tiny but crowded restaurant beside the bus station. As we tucked in, I felt a wave of nausea and pain in my abdomen. I wanted to get through the meal without alarming Shrestha, so I took a bite whenever I could bring myself to. After lunch, I went to the toilet thinking that I should pee before the long ride. Instead, I threw up the entire meal, but felt much better after that.

Two nights later in Kathmandu, the pain came back and even moved around my torso. I was admitted to the hospital, where I learned that I contracted typhoid. Maybe I became complacent since I recovered quickly, but it felt good that this happened because of a meal (or meals) I ate to show others gratitude, rather than for my own joy.

…

I also eat when I don’t have much to say to others present. I don’t fancy melon seeds because it is too much work for a tiny bit, yet I always reached for the ones at a Chinese wake. Experts could crack the shell and pull out the seed with only their teeth. I do that unsuccessfully, and then battle it with my fingers.

But struggling buys me time to think what else to say to strangers across the table. Even in the company of familiar faces I sometimes would rather space out. Pretending to be keen on melon seeds allow me to do that without being rude. I’m not sure why it’s a tradition for people to provide the snack at wakes, but it sure is useful for breaking awkward silences.

…

There have been other reasons why I eat — to heal, to fulfill or understand — each of them more desirable in many circumstances than gaining pleasure. I still look forward to a good meal, but maybe not expect joy, because it is overrated.

It wasn’t the Chinese restaurants bringing Singapore Noodles to the locals in Tallinn, the capitol of Estonia, as is the case in many western countries. When in the city to visit a friend earlier this year, I didn’t see any Chinese restaurant, but there was no difficulty finding the dish.

Singapore Noodles made its way to Estonia through the “Asian” restaurants operated by the Indian and Nepali immigrants. These restaurants sell a mixture of Indian, Chinese and Thai dishes — some classics, while others unrecognisable to the members of the respective community. Plenty of dishes are named after a certain city — Shanghai Lamb, Hong Kong Chicken, Sichuan Beef — usually inventions to pique the curiosity of unsuspecting customers.

I stumbled upon one Asia Cafe and its owner Prem Karki, from Butwal, Nepal. The small outfit is a short walk from the Balti Jaam Market and the city’s main railway station. Like other Indian and Nepali immigrants in Tallinn, Prem found home in the Baltic state after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, to which Estonia once belonged. He arrived 12 years ago but most of whom he knows personally were there before him.

These immigrants, including Prem, set up restaurants but did not specialise in their own cultural cuisine. The number of spices and ingredients they would have to import from South Asia, Prem explained, would have made their restaurants cost-prohibitive for the locals. To keep their food prices low, the entrepreneurs filled their menu with Chinese dishes, which needed only “water and a few spices”.

What Prem referred to are the Indian Chinese dishes from India. I know little about this cuisine but Prem said it was very common in the bigger cities. He had worked as a cook at a few Indian Chinese restaurants in Delhi, where he lived for 14 years since 1988. It was in India where Prem and the other Nepali immigrants first learned to cook the Chinese dishes that they now sell in Tallinn.

Singapore Noodles, according to Prem, is a classic dish at the Indian Chinese restaurants. It comprises wheat noodles (instead of rice vermicelli), chicken (or lamb and fish), egg, cabbage, carrots, turmeric powder, MSG and dash of orange food colouring. There is no bean sprouts, prawns or onions as in Malaysia or Hong Kong. Such restaurants also tend to sell Indian and Thai dishes too, which explains the selection of cuisines that are being offered by the South Asian immigrants in Tallinn.

In Estonia, Prem replicated what he picked up in India. His Singapore Noodles are turmeric yellow in colour, and there was also no bean sprouts, onions or char siew but cabbage, carrots and chicken. He, however, replaced wheat noodles with flat rice noodles (as in pad thai) because he thinks it makes for a better dish.

The curry flavour of his noodles reminded me of the Singapore Noodles I had in New York, more so than the same dish in Hong Kong. Prem said he used a pre-mixed curry powder no different from what was available in Nepal or India. I assumed he meant that it was similar to what he was familiar with in South Asia. I do not think there is only one curry flavour in the region. Because of our language barrier, I couldn’t get him to elaborate.

Asia Cafe‘s main clientele are Estonians attracted to its low food prices, big portions and wide range of foreign flavours. That little tinge of spice in Singapore Noodles (5 Euros) is a welcomed change from Estonian cuisine. The dish has also been familiar food for tourists from Germany, America, Canada and Australia. Prem likened Chinese/Asian restaurants to McDonald’s — everywhere and a comforting presence to the homesick.

Previously, I understood that Singapore Noodles proliferated in the UK and US through the Chinese immigrants and their restaurants. My encounter in Estonia shows that there is a different group of people — the Indians and Nepalese — propagating their own interpretation of the dish in at least one city where they outnumbered the Chinese. I’m now curious about Indian Chinese cuisine and how Singapore Noodles wound up to be a part of it.

My favourite reading this year: Margot Finn’s Discriminating Taste. The author observed a shift in America’s mainstream food culture during periods of widening income gap, and attribute the greater attention that people today pay to food to what she calls “class anxieties”. When the middle class is doing well and the upper class isn’t claiming much of the nation’s wealth, she explains, the former could scale the social hierarchy through hard work and the money they are paid. But when the super-elites emerge and even professional incomes are not enough for “class-climbing”, the middle class rely more on cultural forms of distinction, such as the gourmet or organic food they eat. While some “foodies” may be genuinely concern about nutrition or sustainable agriculture, they are also looking to differentiate themselves from the masses.

These two arguments left a deep impression on me:

There are as many opinions about taste as there are permutations of upbringing, cultures and socioeconomic environments. Gourmet food did not become one because they are universally pleasing. They have been judged to be good taste by people, specifically the elite tastemakers, who based their opinion primarily on scarcity. This is why gourmet food are either expensive or require a very niche knowledge to access. The author has no interest in judging people who consume gourmet food to distinguish themselves, but she takes issue with those who claim that this practice is “classless”. Many food enthusiasts argue that they aren’t highbrow if they also eat lowbrow food. But gourmets eating diversely, Finn argues, doesn’t make eating gourmet food inclusive, and their ability to buy and enjoy both high- and lowbrow food only serves to communicate their privilege. Calling gourmet eating an inclusive gesture, she adds, obscures the fact that food reproduces class hierarchies.

The book also deals with the elitism of contemporary food movements. The advocates of organic, local, or slow food consider their food choices morally superior, but few have evaluated their real impact. For example, transportation contributes only 11% of greenhouse gas emissions in the total lifecycle of food supply chains, as opposed to the 83% generated during the production stage. But people are fixated on food miles and fail to consider the energy efficiency of farm operations. Few are also aware that organic certifications permit the use of organic pesticides and fertilisers, some of which are highly toxic to marine life and have caused worker injuries. Being natural doesn’t mean no or low toxicity. Supporters of these food movements pay more for “better food” without enough understanding of these things suggests that it is the idea of “virtuous eating” that they are more interested in.

This is my interpretation and it may not do justice to Finn’s arguments. Best if you read it yourself. I liked the book because I never thought to look at food trends in tandem with income inequality. Compared to the others I’ve read, the author is also more critical of the movements (some may say too critical), nudging me to evaluate the motivations behind my food choices.

Thank you for joining me this weekend afternoon. I’ll be talking about my research on Singapore Noodles, which I started in 2015. This particular dish interest me because it bears the name of Singapore yet most of us here will not consider it Singaporean. I started paying attention to it when I was living in New York. I thought it was bizarre to have something I didn’t recognise representing me and my country.

But instead of brushing it off as fake news, I wonder about the meanings it holds for the people who do enjoy it. Singapore Noodles may be foreign to Singaporeans, it is local to others elsewhere. I think this irony deserves an investigation.

What I will share today is what I’ve found so far. I am not yet done with the research. It turns out be a massive project, involving at least three variations of Singapore Noodles, many cities and immigration stories of different people. I will tell you right away, that I still don’t know who invented the dish, but the investigation has revealed many interesting themes. You’ll see how food cultures are not bounded by national borders, how the foodways of immigrants in different places interact with one another, and how one dish can embody multiple, sometimes contrasting meanings.

I am going to take you on a journey to several places.

• We will start off in the virtual world, where we’ll get a sense of who’s eating Singapore Noodles, and what it looks like.
• We then move on to Singapore, to learn how the dish is connected to the Cantonese.
• In Kuala Lumpur, Singapore Noodles contains ketchup, and we’ll speculate why.
• Next stop is Hong Kong, where curried Singapore Noodles is typical. We will find out why this version gets to be the popular one in the western world.
• We will then go to New York. Chinese immigrants there tend to work in restaurants and we’ll learn why these restaurants sell Singapore Noodles, Hong Kong-style.
• Finally, I’ll end with some words on what Singapore Noodles can tell us.

My sources include:

• Restaurant owners, chefs, academics whom I’ve interviewed
• Research papers
• Newspaper archives
• Food media and blogs. In 2015, I googled “singapore noodles recipes” and examined the first 80 results that came up.
• I also studied about 5000 Instagram posts that are hastagged “singaporenoodles”. Last month, I looked at another 120 to get an update.

What is Singapore Noodles?

If you haven’t had Singapore Noodles, this is a general idea: It has noodles, meat, at least a few vegetables, all of these stir-fried together. Most people buy rather than cook it at home. It’s an affordable, one-dish meal.

What Noodles?

Those of you familiar with Singapore Noodles would expect rice vermicelli, but there are also wheat, glass and konjac noodles.

What Meats?

Mostly chicken or beef.

What Vegetables?

Vegetables could be any kind. I’ve seen baby corn, snow peas, broccoli and even a fruit like avocado. Regardless of the ingredients, we can see that all of them are turmeric-yellow in colour.

Must Have Curry!

That is because they all contain curry powder. The media and blogs agree that curry is the key ingredient, although they differ on the style.

Who eats Singapore Noodles? According to Instagram, they are mostly Caucasians. More than half are from the US and UK, followed by Canada and Australia. If there are Asians, they tend to live in these countries too.  

About 80% of those who shared the images are women, even though the proportion of female Instagrammers is only half. This is probably because Singapore Noodles has been co-opted into several popular diets, and more women than men subscribed to them.   

Vegans, Vegetarians and…

A good number of Singapore Noodles pictures are hashtagged vegan, vegetarian and gluten free. Among these, 3 out of 10 are also hashtagged homemade or homecooked. The vegans and vegetarians use only vegetables in their recipe, but get to be creative with the noodles. The gluten free community, however, is attracted to Singapore Noodles for its rice vermicelli, one of the few noodles that agrees with them. If you google “rice vermicelli recipes”, Singapore Noodles will come up in the very first page.

Good for Dieting?

In 2015, Instagram was flooded with pictures of a ready-made Singapore Noodles newly launched by Slimming World, a weight management company based in the UK. This triggered a revival of interest in Singapore Noodles among the English women looking to lose weight. Many shared pictures of their new diet, consisting of chicken, prawns, peas, wheat noodles and curry powder.

So Caucasians, mostly women, love Singapore Noodles, because they believe it is good for health and body shape. Besides the homemade ones, where else can we find the dish?

Who Sells Singapore Noodles?

At the local Chinese restaurants and takeout.

What does that make the noodles? The media is undecided between Asian and fusion.

Others thought it’s a good idea to exoticise the dish. They call it:

Despite their uncertainty about what Singapore Noodles is, there’s one thing the media can agree on, that is the dish did not originate in Singapore:

Do we really not have Singapore Noodles here? To answer that, we have to take a look at its other names.

Other Names

星洲米粉. 星洲was a shorthand for Singapore, while 米粉means rice vermicelli in Mandarin. In Cantonese, it is also called星洲炒米, with an emphasis on the cooking method, 炒, which is stir-fry. 星洲米粉 or 星洲炒米 are not only available in Singapore, but also in Malaysia and Hong Kong. They are similar in terms of ingredients and their connection with the local Cantonese. This suggests that they are varieties of the same dish.

Singapore

Let’s start with Singapore. This is a 星洲米粉 I recently had at Circuit Road hawker centre — quite typical of the Singapore Noodles here. There are mock char siew, prawns, bean sprouts, cabbage, egg and green chillies. You can tell from the colour that there is no curry powder, and neither do the vast majority of Singapore Noodles here.

The Cantonese Connection

Today, we find Singapore Noodles mostly at zi char stalls and some Chinese restaurants. But back in the 1940s, the dish was a specialty of Cantonese cooks, who set up stalls at Chin Choo Pa Sat, where People’s Park Complex is today. That was a time when the Chinese pretty much lived, worked and ate with people of their own dialect. The Teochew hung out at Clarke Quay and ate char kway teow at the Ellenborough Market, whereas the Cantonese preferred the hor fun at Chin Choo Pa Sat.

Mr Hooi Kok Wai, here in the picture, is one of the four “Heavenly Kings” of local Cantonese cuisine. He remembers Singapore Noodles from the open-air food stalls at the market during the 1940s. These stalls, which he called “dai pai dong”, are similar to today’s zi char stalls. They sold a range of dishes to the regular folks, and operated from evenings to past midnight, some until 6 am in the morning.

The Ingredients

Their Singapore Noodles contained real char siew, which the stalls produced separately for sale. There were also prawns, onions, bean sprouts, spring onions, red chilies and 蛋皮, thin omelet cut into strips. Except for a couple of vegetables, the ingredients are almost the same as what I had at Circuit Road. Even the mock char siew hints at the 1940s version. The replacement seems necessary, since zi char stalls today don’t produce roast meats, and nothing else in their menu requires char siew.

Again, Singapore Noodles from the 40s had no curry powder. Between now and then, Mr Hooi hasn’t come across any curried Singapore Noodles, which means that the idea probably didn’t come from Singapore.

Cantonese Restaurants too

Cantonese restaurants also serve Singapore Noodles. They started doing so by the 1970s, according to Mr Hooi. This is a 1987 advertisement for a Hungry Ghost Festival menu. 星洲米粉 came in the 8^th course of the most expensive set. Like the stalls at Chin Choo Market, Lucky Restaurant was also Cantonese, selling dim sum and roast meats too. I suppose their Singapore Noodles would come with char siew.

But today, Singapore Noodles are not so commonly found, in restaurants or even zi cha stalls. At our next stop in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore Noodles is much more common, and appreciated by the locals.

KL’s Cantonese Connection

Any Malaysian who enjoys hawker food will have eaten Singapore Noodles. It is a classic one-dish meal at tai chow, a no-frills eatery much like Singapore’s zi char. Tai chow used to be on the streets, offering affordable food to the hard-working folks. The Cantonese were the main players in this business. Tai chow literally means “big fry” in Cantonese, referring to the restaurants’ primary method of cooking — quick stir-fry over big flames. Tai chow subsequently moved into the ground floor of buildings, selling more upmarket dishes to the middle class. But Singapore Noodles remained a perennial presence, so much so that some Malaysians are convinced that it was created in KL.

Once Upon a Time

One of them is Malaysian food researcher Lim Kim Cherng, who published an essay about its origin in 2006. He believes that Singapore Noodles was created in KL towards the end of WWII. The story goes that, one day, a tai chow received a customer near closing time, so it had to put together a meal with scraps. There were bee hoon, char siew, bean sprouts, egg, onion, chilli and dried shrimps. Happy with his food, the customer asked for its name. Apparently, Singapore was a more prosperous city than KL at the time, so the tai chow owner came up with 星洲米粉, to give that plate of leftovers an upgrade.

Unfortunately, this tai chow is no more. But I visited two old establishments in KL that have been serving Singapore Noodles for at least 50 years. They are Sek Yuen and Sang Kee, shown in the earlier slide. One was opened in 1948 and the other in 1955.

Char Siew is Key

Their Singapore Noodles are quite the same, and consistent with the “original” described in the story. They both have char siew, which seems to be a standard ingredient in KL’s Singapore Noodles. According to Sang Kee, tai chow in the past produced their own siu yok and char siew. This is why they could offer the roast meat in their Singapore Noodles. But skillful masters of Cantonese roast have become elusive and expensive to engage. Most tai chow today have stopped selling roast meats. Sang Kee and Sek Yuan now buy their char siew instead.

If you recall, dai pai dong at Chin Choo Pa Sat also produced char siew and put it in their Singapore Noodles. These stalls were selling the dish at about the same time when the KL version is said to be invented. It seems that the dai pai dong in Singapore, and tai chow in KL, were somehow aware of or even influencing one another, and as a result, both cities had the same dish by the same name.

The Ketchup Twist

Although they are similar, there is one differentiating ingredient between the noodles in both cities. The Singapore Noodles in KL contains tomato ketchup. According to Sek Yuan, ketchup is essential to a tai chow kitchen and was particularly popular in the 70s. It can be found in several dishes such as ketchup prawns ee-fu noodles.

But the original seasoning for Singapore Noodles was actually Worcestershire sauce, and Sang Kee still sticks to tradition. The owner, Mr Lee, told me that most tai chow were still using the sauce for Singapore Noodles up till the 1960s, but they later switched to tomato ketchup because it was cheaper. Maybe, also because it was becoming popular.

Is Ketchup in Singapore Noodles a Cantonese Idea?

Before we move on to the next city, I want to make a speculation: that is tomato ketchup and Worcestershire sauce are also a Cantonese influence in Singapore Noodles. While there were British in Malaya during colonial times, and they would have created local demand and access to these condiments, I think two different food cultures like the British and Chinese will have to have an extensive dialogue to converge. At the end of this talk, I will discuss the influence of Hong Kong’s modern Cantonese cuisine around the mid-century. Some of its hybrid dishes could give us a clue. But hold that thought for now. We will first examine the Singapore Noodles in Hong Kong.

Sold in Hong Kong’s Cha Chaan Teng

If you go to a cha chaan tng, you will find Singapore Noodles in their menu. This connection goes back to the 1950s, when cha chaan teng emerged to offer affordable foreign-style cuisine. Western food and Southeast Asian fare were becoming popular with the rising middle class, because they considered them modern and cosmopolitan.

The Foreign-Style Dishes

They consumed French toast, Russian borscht, Xiamen Noodles (left) and Singapore Noodles (right) to display their social status, and differentiate themselves from those who couldn’t afford the same. These food symbols didn’t come cheap. 星洲炒米cost $1 in the 1950s. That was three times more than the price of wanton noodle, a common local street food.

The ingredients in Hong Kong’s Singapore Noodles is almost identical to the ones in KL and Singapore. Some cha chaan tng may replace char siew with ham that they also use in their breakfast service, but that’s only because they want to keep their inventory small. That aside, I think it’s safe to say that Singapore Noodles in the three locations are the same dish.

The Curious Curry

The only distinguishing element in Hong Kong’s rendition is curry powder, which gives the noodles a turmeric yellow hue. This isn’t a surprise because Hong Kong has a love affair with curry. Curry beef brisket, curry fish balls, curry pork chop are just some of the many curry dishes popular in Hong Kong. Singapore Noodles could be part of the same trend that gave rise to these dishes.

Several authors and academics attribute the Singapore Noodles in Hong Kong to the Southeast Asians who migrated there in the 1940s and 50s. Some of these immigrants set up restaurants selling Nanyang cuisine, and that included Singapore Noodles. There’s little information about what the dish was like, and whether it contained ketchup or Worcestershire sauce. But I am certain that the curry version came about only later, in Hong Kong, since it is unheard of in Singapore and KL.

Why does the West only know of HK’s Singapore Noodles?

We already know that Hong Kong’s Singapore Noodles is the only version that became popular in the West. Why and how did that happen?

Immigration was the first thing that come to mind. When I was studying in the US, I learned that many Chinese Americans came from Hong Kong, but the bulk of them were actually born in mainland China. Hong Kong, for some reason, became a stopover for these immigrants. That reason, was communism.

Communist Effect on Singapore Noodles

After the Chinese Civil War and the victory of the communist party in 1949, millions of mainland Chinese escaped to Hong Kong. The subsequent famine continued to drive a steady flow of Chinese to the British colony between the 50s and 60s. Why Hong Kong? Because immigration was restricted by China. Other than Hong Kong, the Chinese in China could only migrate to Socialist countries such as the Soviet Union.

On top of that, few places were open to Chinese immigrants. The US, Canada and Australia had policies specifically to keep Asians out. The UK was relatively welcoming, but only to those born in British territories. In the mid 1960s, things began to change. US, Canada and Australia revised their immigration regulations and removed the entry quota for Chinese. Finally, those who had escaped to Hong Kong could move on the west. These immigrants, with some knowledge of the food in Hong Kong, would introduce Singapore Noodles to their new home.   

In NYC, Singapore Noodles was reproduced…

My research on the journey of Singapore Noodles, from East to West, is largely based on New York City. The dish is as well known to the white Americans as it is to the local Chinese. This means that the noodle was reproduced in professional rather than just domestic kitchens.

The immigrants who left Hong Kong for the Big Apple were likely to work in a restaurant or laundromat. This was a ripple effect of the discriminatory laws against the Chinese that started from the previous century. Basically, there were no employment opportunities for them, except for cooking and washing, the only jobs that the white men didn’t want for themselves, because they thought these were too feminine. Although the economic restrictions on the Chinese had eased by the 1960s, the immigrants who arrived after still turned to the restaurant business.

Why? If you’re beginning a new life in somewhere new, you will probably seek advice from people who were there before you. What else but the restaurant or laundry business could their predecessors teach them? Most importantly, waiting tables didn’t require good English. If they work in the kitchen, they didn’t need to speak at all.

Chinese = Cantonese-Style

When the Chinese set up restaurants in Manhattan they didn’t sell just any food. They served Cantonese-style dishes. This started with the earlier immigrants who took inspiration from the Cantonese cuisine of Guangzhou, and then tweaked it to suit the taste of the white Americans. These immigrants were actually Taishanese, also from the Guangdong province further down here, but their traditional diet was peasant food that would not appeal to any paying customer. So instead, they copied Cantonese food and localised it. This formula became such a success that it was replicated by the immigrants who arrived later. That is why the Chinese American restaurants in Manhattan today are mostly Cantonese-style.

Singapore Noodles in Manhattan

These restaurants would introduce Singapore Noodles to the New Yorkers. One explanation is that the post-1960s immigrants from Hong Kong put it in their menu, and it caught on. This will explain why the Singapore Noodles in Manhattan are curried. The ingredients, however, vary depending on the restaurant’s inventory. I’ve not seen one that comes with char siew. It’s usually bits of stir-fried pork or chicken. Vegetables that white people favour, like broccoli and capsicum, are common here.

While Instagram suggests that Singapore Noodles is only popular with the Caucasians, it had actually been a regular diet of the local Chinese. Chris Cheung, a well-known chef in NYC, told me it was popular with the community in the 80s. He used to have the noodles with dim sum, because it was cheap and filling. Chris also confirmed that his favourite restaurants were owned by immigrants who came to New York by route (root) of Hong Kong.

Even if not from HK

There’s another explanation to the widespread presence of Singapore Noodles in Chinese American restaurants. This is Great NY Noodletown. People on Yelp think that it has the best Singapore Noodles in Manhattan. One of its owners, Stephen, came from Hong Kong in the 70s, but the restaurant was opened earlier, in 1964, by his partner who came directly from China. By the time Stephen joined the business, it was already serving Singapore Noodles, Hong Kong-style. I asked Stephen what made his partner put it in the menu if he had no personal memories of it. Stephen said, and I quote, “When open a Cantonese restaurant, everyone will follow Hong Kong style.”

Rise of HK’s Cantonese Cuisine

I thought Stephen was being boastful, but he was right. After 1950, Hong Kong was the leader of Cantonese culinary artistry, and its take on the cuisine was an inspiration for Cantonese restaurants everywhere. It began in the early 20^th century, when political upheaval in China drove renown chefs and restaurant owners from Guangzhou to the British colony. The subsequent famine in the 1950s, cultural revolution between the 60s and 70s, brought culinary in-deavours in the mainland to a halt. While Cantonese cuisine in Guangzhou slipped into decline, Hong Kong took it to new levels.

This could explain why Great NY Noodletown, and other Chinese American restaurants, would take ideas from Hong Kong even if they had no prior relationship with the place. While Singapore Noodles does not fall into the category of modern Cantonese cuisine that Hong Kong was becoming known for, I don’t think the businesses were sticklers for authenticity. Over time, Singapore Noodles, prepared Hong Kong style, became a staple in Chinese American restaurants across New York City.

The massive number of Chinese migrants passing through Hong Kong to a better life, coupled with its culinary influence, helped propelled Singapore Noodles to global fame. But the further it travels and the more it transforms to suit local taste, the more its Cantonese roots became lost on the people who appreciate it today. This is why Singapore Noodles is many things: vegetarian, pescatarian, even fancy with a steak. The fuzzier its origins, the more people could make it their own without being accused of inauthenticity or appropriation.

Is Ketchup in Singapore Noodles a Cantonese Idea?

Before I end, I want to quickly go back to the ketchup and Worcestershire sauce in KL. I said they could be Cantonese-influenced, and that’s because the new Cantonese cuisine developed in Hong Kong consisted of these sauces. After 1900, the Chinese elites in the British colony developed a taste for Western flavours, which had been exclusive to the Europeans in the previous century. In modernising Cantonese cuisine that was fit for the new rich, the chefs in Hong Kong incorporated western ingredients, giving rise to hybrid dishes such as ketchup-flavoured sweet and sour pork and ngao yuk, steamed beef balls topped with Worcestershire.

This was the kind of Cantonese cooking that became a model for Cantonese chefs in Southeast Asia. I know that the two surviving Heavenly Kings of Singapore, Mr Hooi and Sin Leong, regularly use tomato ketchup, Worcestershire and HP sauce in their cooking for dishes such as fried garoupa and chilli crab. They told me that they were introduced to these sauces by their mentor from Hong Kong during the 1950s. I suspect that the tai chow in KL have also been influenced by Hong Kong, and that is why the same sauces are so well integrated into their food repertoire.

What can Singapore Noodles tell us

• We are more connected to the “outsiders” than we think we are. Because food travels with people, and people learn from one another all the time, we share many aspects of our culinary cultures with other ethnicities and nationalities. Because of that, using food to express an identity, that is, drawing the line between “us” and “them”, is often problematic.

• We saw many variations of Singapore Noodles. The dish is not bounded by ownerships or definitions, and has been adapted by many people. It is, today, as relevant and personal to the vegans in the US as it is to the working class in Hong Kong. Singapore Noodles may seem like a cultural orphan, but it has a place everywhere it goes. We can’t say the same for dishes that are burdened with identities and symbolisms, therefore off limits to interpretations.

My Journey Continues

There’s a lot more that I need to find out:

• How Worcestershire and ketchup ended up in KL’s Singapore Noodles
• What type of curry powder was first used in HK’s. It could be Indian, British or Chinese, and each will tell a different story about the people producing or consuming Singapore Noodles at the time. 
• I recently learned that in Estonia and places around like Latvia there is a group of Indian and Nepali immigrants selling Singapore Noodles at their Asian restaurants. This is Prem Karki, a Nepali who has worked in a restaurant in Delhi and now runs his own business in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. His Singapore Noodles also contains curry, but uses pad thai noodles. Prem told me learned to cook that in India. There seems to be a whole different immigrant story in another part of the world and I hope to investigate that.  

THANK YOU.

This story is a part of my research about Singapore Noodles’s origins and how it has impacted the lives of those who eat it and also those whose identities it has been associated with. Other related stories can be found here.

Singapore Noodles is widely available in Hong Kong. It is also the only Asian city where the noodles is flavoured with curry powder. This means it could be where the curried Singapore Noodles in the UK, US and other western countries originated. I visited Hong Kong in May this year and spoke to few people to learn about the city’s Singapore Noodles. They were Veronica Mak, an adjunct assistant professor at the anthropology department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong; Vivien Chan, visiting Scholar at Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences; Mr Kwan, third generation owner of Mido Cafe; and Lan Chun Chung, owner of Lan Fong Yuen (he does not sell Singapore noodles, but has some knowledge of the dish). I summarised the key points about Singapore Noodles there:

Used to be Expensive

Singapore Noodles was available in Hong Kong by the 1940s, when it cost around $1 until at least the 1960s. Wanton mee, a quintessential Hong Kong dish, was only 30 cents during the same period.

Sold in Restaurant or Cafés

It wasn’t a street food like Malaysia or Singapore, but was sold at brick and mortar restaurants and western-influenced cafes that later became known as “cha chaan tng”. When Mido Cafe opened in 1950, it offered an international menu that included French toasts and Singapore Noodles. The latter was priced at $1. Three of the four interviewees, including Kwan, pointed out the Singapore Noodles was often sold alongside beef chow fun (干炒牛河), whether it was in the restaurants or Mido Cafe. This connection could be worth investigating.

While some dai pai dong today produce Singapore Noodles, it came about only in the recent decades. These street stalls go back to the post-war years when it was set up by people struggling to make ends meet. The British government subsequently licensed them according to food categories: congee and cheong fun, sandwich and tea, noodles, tong shui, and one-dish meals. Each dai pai dong could only sell food from one of the categories. While there were noodle stalls, the early hawkers could not have produced Singapore Noodles as the dai pai dong in those days were very short of space and simple in set-up. Roasting char siew would be impossible. Besides, made-to-order dishes, which is what Singapore Noodles is, were uncommon among dai pai dong until the 1970s. That is to say that Singapore Noodles in Hong Kong has a longer history with cha chaan tng than dai pai dong.

Ingredients

Singapore Noodles in Hong Kong are almost identical with the ones in Southeast Asia. Like KL’s, Hong Kong’s Singapore Noodles comprises real char siew, along with egg, prawns, bean sprouts, red chillies, spring onions, chives and onions. A cha chaan tng that doesn’t stock char siew would use ham instead. Kwan from Mido heard that eggs were added because the Cantonese cooks believed it would prevent the rice vermicelli from clumping together.

Curry

The key ingredient in Hong Kong’s Singapore Noodles. While many cha chaan tng buy pre-mixed curry powder from their supplier, Mido makes theirs from scratch, starting from whole spices. The cafe grinds them while aromatics like onions and shallots, and then fries the paste until fragrant — much like how we cook our rempah in this part of the world. Mido does not add coconut milk because it spoils quickly, but uses broth. Their Singapore Noodles reminded me of Tsui Wah’s curry brisket. Both curries are distinctive and unlike any (Malay, Indian or Chinese-style) curries that I’ve tasted. It also reminded me of five spice powder, and I’m guessing they used a lot of cinnamon powder. Kwan said Hong Kong’s curries tend be sweeter, but was reluctant to elaborate. The scholars I interviewed haven’t done any research on Hong Kong’s curries, but Veronica noted that there were already Indians selling curries in Central by the 1960s. I’m interested to find out if they or the immigrants from Nanyang played any role in popularising curry in Hong Kong.

Nanyang immigrants in Hong Kong

After the communist party ruled China in 1949, it called on the overseas Chinese to return home. According to Veronica, many in Nanyang responded accordingly but later regretted their decision. By the 1950s, some of these immigrants moved again but this time to Hong Kong, to which they introduced Nanyang dishes via their eateries and restaurants. I need to speak with these people to find out if they have anything to do with Singapore Noodles.

Xiamen Noodles

Also widely available in cha chaa tng, this dish is exactly the same as Singapore Noodles except that it contains a sweet and sour sauce instead of curry powder. Cha chaan tng named several dishes after cities around the world to emphasise a cosmopolitan menu, so the dish may not have anything to do with Xiamen after all. Mido Cafe has this dish since 1950 so I guess it may have an intertwining history with Singapore Noodles.

This story is a part of my research about Singapore Noodles’s origins and how it has impacted the lives of those who eat it and also those whose identities it has been associated with. Other related stories can be found here.