Vasunthara Ramasamy: "There are so many styles of chicken curry; there is even a white chicken curry. If Clarissa cooked that, people would say that that is not a Singaporean chicken curry. So what is Singaporean chicken curry? Do we have one? The consensus is that we can never have a national dish because it is very hard to represent Singapore. Bu…

Preston Wong: "The goal should always be to make the message of sustainability and reducing food wastage as mainstream as possible. What point is there if it is just within that echo chamber of eco-conscious people? For us, we can break that barrier because price is not a big issue unlike other sustainable merchandise that may face challenges of ac…

Evelyn Yap: “Singapore is not an agricultural country. That limits the kind of produce we get, but also, we don’t know what is out there because our habits have changed to shopping at supermarkets, as opposed to wet markets, which stock more diverse produce.” Evelyn Yap, chef & founder of Happivore, shares about her journey as a chef supporting far…

Edmund Wee: “We don’t get a lot of chances to form relationships with people in our lives – we’re busy, we’re working. And you have to go shopping for your food. You either shop on Red Mart or the supermarket. Why do those two when there’s a third alternative, where you can do your marketing and at the same, you form relationships. Why not? It is s…

Christopher Ng: “It is heartwrenching every time I go back to Singapore, because I see the difference. And it is a significant marked difference every year. I try to go to the places that are familiar to me, but even those places are changing rapidly although certain places are still familiar, I wonder how long they are going to last.” Christopher …

Khir Johari: “When we look at our understanding of Malay food, it is typically based on a narrow window, and that is the hawker centre. If you get a chance to visit Malay homes (your Malay neighbours or friends), that is where you get to see things that you don’t normally experience… Reading and travelling help to inform, and with that, you’ll come…

Christy Chua and Tan Aik: “Through my interviewing experience in school or at The Slow Press, I feel that sometimes when we talk to older hawkers or business owners, they might be quite unwilling to share about what they do. Sometimes they would dismiss it as, ‘I do this everyday, nothing new. It’s just normal going to work. I come here, fry some n…

Christopher Tan: “I think what everyone needs to realise is that we all have a say in how the food culture of our country evolves. We all have a stake, we all have a say, and we are all culture makers. Your national food culture is not something that you should have to order in. It should be something that you stand in, you cook, you practice, and …

Desmond Shen: “We basically tried not to throw anything away, and I think one of the steps to do that is to name the thing by its part, instead of just calling it ‘waste’. If you are trimming carrots, you take away the carrot head, end, and peel – and you call that that. You don’t call it ‘trim’, you just call it ‘carrot peel’. What are we going to…

Sheere Ng: “Our understanding of inmates is they are either repentant or incorrigible. It’s black and white. But I think that the masak shows them to be abit more multifaceted, showing them to be loyal but ill-disciplined, angry but funny as well. I learnt something from trying to understand masak, and I simply wanted to tell that story…” Sheere Ng…

Rebecca Koh: “Asian ferments used to be passed down by the word of mouth – from grandma to the mother, and from the mother to the daughters. If one generation decides, “I do not want to learn it”, then that's it… When I wanted to learn how to make rice wine, my maternal grandma had already passed on, so there's no way I could ask. I had to call my …

I reflect on 2 years of Singapore Noodles, answer your questions and share about my plans for the platform in 2021, plus: *How I decide on guests to feature on the podcast* *Behind-the-scenes of the podcast* *How I stay inspired in the kitchen* *How being married improved my cooking* *My upcoming cookbook* *The Singapore Noodles Membership* Singapo…

Gladys Foo: “When we made love letters pre-pandemic, we all will go over to my mom’s place to help out. I come from a family of six siblings, so we have everybody in the different areas. I am in charge of rolling it, my elder sis is in charge of removing the love letters from the mould to pass it to me, one of my sis is in charge of monitoring it, …

Shen Tan: “Passion doesn’t feed people – it doesn’t pay your CPF, it doesn’t pay your mortgage, it doesn’t pay for medical insurance. Singaporeans who say we are losing our hawker heritage, are, on the other hand, complaining on socials that ‘standards drop, so expensive, so little’. They can count, ‘Only got three prawns, only got two pieces of po…

Marcus Leow: “If there ever is a lao po bing (wife biscuit) in a more modern flavour, I honestly don’t think that’s bastardizing a recipe. I would say that that’s a way of keeping up with times and moving forward, but at the same time, reminding us of our roots… Like with kueh, you have so many flavours nowadays but the ones that get sold out are t…

Sowmiya Venkatesan: “In chicken rice, chicken is the primary flavour. Your rice has the chicken flavour, your chicken has the chicken flavour, and the stock has the chicken flavour, because it is a celebration of the chicken. Whereas in India, the first thing you’d do for any meat dish is dumb down the meatiness of the meat. Whether it is a fish, m…

Sharon Wee: “I always thought my mom deserves a book of her own, and I thought, why not a full-fledged cookbook… Peranakans are very guarded about their cooking secrets and recipes. I was going up against older sisters and relatives who weren’t sure if I should be doing this, sharing this publicly. You can ask a lot of families – they would feel th…

Anthony Leow: “In the past, grannies used to pound their own spices, but when they were old, they couldn’t pound spices anymore. While making spice blends for them, we were, at the same time, learning the secret recipes from all these old grannies, because they were actually very good and experienced at cooking. This is how we picked up the trade a…

Mandy Yin: “It’s better to have tried and figured out you don’t like something. It’s not failure, it’s really not. Sometimes you have to go through an incredibly bad, difficult time to understand that’s not what you need to do, and you take a different route. One door closes, another opens. I do think there’s merit in following your passion, but al…

Rovik Jeremiah Robert: “When we draw those lines, we end up ostracizing or excluding a lot of groups who are in Singapore who are making an influence regardless of what we think, and we also lose an opportunity for our food to evolve. To an extent, I can empathize, because as a young nation, identity is determined by some level of boundary-drawing,…

Chang Pick Yin: “After I had my surgery, I couldn’t smell. Zero sense of smell. You can’t imagine how it feels like until you experience it, because can you imagine being in a kitchen and you can’t smell… At this point, because I can’t smell and therefore I can’t taste very well, the process of eating is different and diminished, so I take more joy…

Gan Chin Lin: “When it comes to substituting meat products, a lot of people can only imagine the didacticism of swapping one protein for another protein, but I think that it really expands your horizons when you think about taste and experience and how a substance reacts to heat over a duration of time… It’s really interesting to see the diverse wa…

Woo Qiyun: “Keep Cup is designed for an Australian audience. So many of these reusable cups are not designed to be culturally sensitive or culturally specific, so I’ve always been worried. I’ve even emailed Keep Cup, saying, “Your cups do not fit the way that Singaporean or tropical countries drink bubble tea for example. It does not make sense for…

Lace Zhang: “During Chinese New Year, I saw my maternal grandmother, the only one who could cook the Chinese New Year feast for everyone. She was piling the table up with her signature dishes like her ngoh hiong and her kong bak bao. In that room with three or four generations, I took a look around. She was standing there, saying that she was reall…

Yeo Min: “In my generation, very few of my friends eat Chinese pastries. They don’t really buy Chinese pastries to eat… A lot of the people who ask me if I am selling snowskin mooncakes are actually around my age. They would ask why I am selling traditional mooncakes, “I don’t think this kind of old taste would be what me or my friends would eat.” …

Yugnes Susela: “A lot of people are not aware that even in Tekka market, it is a hawker centre that caters to all races. We have very good Indian food, very good Chinese food. To be honest, one of the best duck rice is there in Tekka centre. There is an aunty selling Western food for 20 years. If you want a really good prata served by a Malay coupl…

Sook Yoon Yang: “There have been instances where some people say that they ate the best laksa in the whole world in Australia. I usually have a problem with people making statements like that not because I think Singapore or Malaysia is the best. But you cannot claim to have the best when you’ve not had all the different types of laksa… There are s…

Syazwan Majid: “We will never be able to understand fully how it is like to live in a kampung, to work hard for your food, to forage for this food. The tedious nature needed to keep our day going, that itself contradicts the notion that we are a lazy people. This narrative that paints the Malays as lazy native is really just not true. If we were re…

Surekha & Alia: “So much of food content is focused on relevance and convenience. But relevance and convenience to who? Who is it relevant and convenient to? And who owns the seat at this table? Who is dictating what is relevant and what is convenient? We have to rethink how we position recipes to be relevant or accessible or convenient, because we…

Krisada Virabhak: “When I went to the Peranakan museum, they had the altars all set up, but there was just no feel. Because it was empty – it is not sustainable to keep putting food there. The exhibits did not really reflect the offerings that they prepared. I thought maybe through my sharings, I could share with people what we prepare. Because, in…

Dhruv Shanker: “A lot of people did mention that, ‘Oh you know what, you’re not gonna miss Indian food. I’d imagine that the first thing you’re gonna miss is the food, so you’re sorted – Singapore has lots of Indian food.’ So I came with a very open mind, but I realized after moving here that the Indian food here is very different from typical Indi…

Chriss Prowler: “The problem is that everyone looks at the world now from their own perspective. It’s all me, me, me, me. You look on Instagram, ‘It’s me eating their food’. And this is the wrong thing. It should be, ‘I went to their place and ate the food’, not ‘I’m doing them a favour’. You mentioned a couple of food bloggers and video guys earli…

Loh Yi Jun: “Experimentation is very natural. Having food evolve over the years is a very natural occurrence, and within all these experimental foods, there will be some that don’t taste good – there will be some bastardized versions. But at the same time, there will be some really great, inventive dishes that drive the food industry forward as wel…

Sarah Benjamin Huang: “Growing up, everyone called me angmoh all the time throughout my entire childhood and adolescence. Even though I grew up in a house where we spoke Mandarin at home, everyone on the outside was telling me that I was angmoh and I said, “Fine, I’m angmoh, I will leave this place.” I felt that since I’m not wanted here, I’m gonna…

Lim Boon Kian: “I want people to understand that Bangladeshi food is not just for low-level people. Bangladesh is a country; they have their own culture and they are very proud of their food. I started Bangla Lim with the intention of introducing this cuisine to the public, and to let poorer workers have another option, to have better food… I have …

Robert Chohan: “The Singaporean world of coffee offers something completely different – there’s no espresso, there’s no latte, there’s no cappuccino. It’s strong coffee with old school milk and sugar, and for people that want something different, they have evaporated milk. This entire world of coffee is the backbone and blood of Singapore because e…

Dana Safia: “When it comes to jamu, people always think that it is a placebo effect as it has a long tradition. To them, it does not fit in the modern world anymore. This is the reason why I think it is time to redesign what jamu is and rethink how we convey the message of what jamu means to the general public… We are all immigrants in Singapore – …

Hung Zhen Long & Jason Chua: “We enjoyed the hawker life, but we were thinking that we cannot do it for a long time. Back then, our neighbouring stalls were all old people who have been doing this for 40-50 years – they have been doing it since they were young. A lot of them are now actually having a lot of health problems. We want to work towards …

Seasonings Magazine is a collaboration between Hafizah Jainal (Hafi) and I, Pamelia Chia. It is a quarterly food publication that provides an insider's view into Singapore's festivals and festive food. In each issue, we highlight the beauty and cultural richness of one "season" in Singapore, to show that you don't have to belong to a specific race …

Tan Ding Jie: “I never really appreciated cooking or Singaporean cuisine until I went to the UK to study. Over there, you really see what everywhere else has to offer. Even though there were a lot of Singaporeans in London, strangely enough, you don’t see a lot of Singaporean restaurants. Coming back to Singapore, that was when I started to redisco…

Vasanthi Pillay: “The Western world has a way of repackaging our culture and selling it back to us. So firstly, I would say that we as Asians must be more aware of our own food and lifestyle, and embrace that… Yoga comes from India, it was taken to the West, repackaged and sold it back to us. And now everyone is asking for yoga that is RYT Alliance…

Ken Koh: “We had been losing money for years, not because our sauce was not good, but we had no marketing, no awareness. It was a sauce that survived for 60 years purely because of word of mouth and the quality of our products. We don’t have a price advantage – my cost is a lot higher, nine months versus two weeks of soy sauce brewing. I visited 13…

Shamsydar Ani: “There came a point in my life where our family dynamics changed and Hari Raya was different. That was the year my mom was taking a step back and was just like, ‘I don’t want to celebrate Hari Raya this year – I don’t want to cook, I don’t want to make ketupat.’ When Hari Raya came around, she herself felt that something was missing.…

Khee Shi Hui: “We tried to explain to some relatives that cared very much for things like shark’s fin. We took that off our wedding menu and tried to explain as best as we could. Not everybody would understand, but we tried to stay true to at least that. It was not possible to omit meat, so we tried to discuss options with the restaurant to see wha…

Chong Jin Yuan: “It’s frustrating because it takes 3-4 hours to roast, and the whole process from drying to roasting to tasting the product when it cools down requires the entire day. If it does not turn out the way you want it to be, you just do not have the time or energy to redo it. There is a lot of technique. It is not just one step that can m…

Syarifah Nadhirah: “Prior to Paperweight Studio, I was already leaning towards botanical drawings and paintings. At one point, it struck me to do more research and learn more about our local ecology because there’s so much we can learn from just in our own backyard. There are so many things that we overlook. We try to illustrate more plants that ar…

Sam Wong: “What is the Cantonese mentality towards cooking and eating? The Shanghainese prefer to wear beautiful clothes, maybe spend $100,000 on a watch to make yourself look pretty. The Cantonese would rather spend all their money eating the best things – fish maw, abalone. The saying here is that nothing belongs to you until it enters your stoma…

Nor Hadayah Mohammad: “Malay cooking is very vast – it’s not just limited to rendang, lontong, sambal, or nasi lemak. It is beyond that. What the average Singaporean does not know about heritage food is that Malay heritage food is influenced by a myriad of civilizations, for example the Arabs, Indians, Chinese and Yemenese… I wish to write a recipe…

Aruna Shanmuga Vadivel: “I would say that it is a functional food because it’s got so many medicinal properties that I only learnt about in my early 20s… My mom was a working mom in Singapore. To her, the easiest dish you could come up with in 10 minutes is rasam and it is a dish that is so healthy.” Vadivel, a Singaporean Indian residing in Austra…

Hairil Sukaime: “Urap is said to signify thanks or gratitude for the life that one has because it comes from the word urip, which means ‘alive’ or ‘living’. Some also say that it symbolizes harmony and togetherness, the way all the ingredients come together.” Sukaime, blogger of Eat Food Live Food, shares about the Malay dish urap, plus: *Significa…