Posts Tagged → national identities

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 →

Delicious Designs

Food is a popular choice of gifts amongst Singaporeans. Local snacks are a common souvenir from overseas trips, festivities are celebrated by the exchange of boxes of pineapple tarts or kueh bangkit, and what better way to build fellowships than stabbing one’s fork into a colleague’s food?

For many Singaporeans, food has also become a great introduction to their country. This is how it often goes: “You know chili crab, chicken rice, or laksa? Well, they come from Singapore.”

A tiny problem is that food is an imposing and intrusive gift. Sharing the joy of food or the concept of one’s culture is great, but pressurizing others, by ways of social etiquette, to literally digest them is not. As much as chili crab is great, people like variants of them, or for some, not at all.

A recent trend in Singapore’s design scene offers a solution. Food has become a popular subject matter for local designers: From kueh tutu erasers by Winston Chai and Yong Jieyu, to Lee Shu Han’s noodle poster, and the nonya kueh sticky notes by the Singapore Souvenirs collective—there is now a spread of delicious food-inspired design products available for consumption.

lee shu han noodle poster

image from shuhanlee.com

image from farmstore.sg

image from farmstore.sg

While these cannot be eaten like the real dishes, they are functional as vehicles for conversations with foreigners over what these food are and the relationships Singaporeans have with them. If it’s with a fellow Singaporean this conversation is to be had with, not a word is needed to strike a chord with that person.

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Thanks to Malaysia, Singaporeans have a place where they can relive the past

tanjong pagar railway

In the final days of Tanjong Pagar Railway

“Bhai makes one of the best teas.” Salem S.O. took a sip of his tea and put his cup back onto the table. The rest of the men around the table nodded in unison and picked up their drinks too. It was a humid Tuesday afternoon and the lunch hour crowd had just left. From 11a.m. on, all of the 50 or so tables at M.Hasan Railway Station Canteen were filled with workers from the nearby port and offices. As the lunch hour ended, the crowd had dispersed, leaving behind their plates of leftover curries and noodle soup and customers like Salem and his uncles.They are the people who neither live nor work nearby, but will travel here as often as once a week, ordering multiple rounds of teas and lingering to admire their surroundings. In the evenings and during weekends, they even come with their families — all three generations in tow — as part of their weekly or monthly gatherings.

All the food in this canteen is Halal: no pork, and all other animals except fish are slaughtered according to Islamic law, which explains why most of the customers are Muslims. But the food is only part of the reason why Salem and the others alike keep coming back here. Except for the one or two outstanding dishes, the Malay and Indian cuisines served here, according to them, are common and ordinary in taste. What keeps them attracted to this canteen is that it looks, smells and sounds like the past. The aged stonewalls and exposed water pipes; the train engines’ deafening boom; and the pungent smell of belacan that wafts freely in the air and then clings to people’s clothes — all of them attract the connoisseurs of the old and the forgotten.

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