We the (food) citizens of Singapore

THERE are few things that make us uniquely Singaporean more than our food. Whether it's chicken rice, bak chor mee or that all-time favourite of those breaching stay-home notices - bak kut teh - there's always something that makes us feel we're home, truly.

But even as we find comfort in flavours we grew up with, there's always this niggling question: So what's next? With a new generation of chefs and home cooks in the narrative, should heritage cuisine stay rooted in the past or is there a new story to be told?

With National Day upon us, several cookbook authors and chefs ponder the future of heritage cooking while fondly recalling the dishes that best capture the Singapore identity for them.

Christopher Tan, food scholar, cookbook author and instructor

While much of Christopher Tan's work revolves around documenting Singapore's food culture, he doesn't agree that heritage recipes are sacred.

"Heritage isn't something that 'was done in the past' - it's a living and dynamic part of culture-making that stretches from past to present and future," says the author of The Way of Kueh. "Every generation imparts heritage knowledge and practices to the next generation to make them relevant to their own time, which often involves change."

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In that sense, making rempah with a high-speed blender rather than a mortar and pestle doesn't make it less 'heritage', he says. "That heritage comes from other aspects - its significance to my ethnic community, my family's taste preferences, memories, etc. The dish is 'authentic' to me in my own time, however unthinkable an electric grinder may have been to my great-grandparents."

For him, nothing says Singapore more than kueh tart, or pineapple tarts. "I grew up helping my Grandma and Mum to make them for Chinese New Year, and when I started to teach cooking professionally, they were the first signature bakes I taught. But I also love kueh tart because they are a great example of Creole cuisine, bringing together many cultures in one recipe - Dutch-style butter pastry, jam made from a South American fruit and Indonesian spices."

Yet it's also deeply rooted in Singapore given "how it's dear to many communities here", he adds. "Eurasians make them for Christmas, Peranakans for Chinese New Year, Malays for Hari Raya, Chetti Peranakans for Deepavali. Everyone enjoys them."

However, the 'modernising' of this treat hasn't always been for the better. "The past couple of decades have seen Western influences creep in, such as pastry spiked with cheese, nuts or chocolate. Lately, they've leaned towards the savoury and quirky (contrived) - salted egg, fried chicken skin, hae bee hiam. I don't expect the experimentation to end soon, but I hope everyone will appreciate how a good kueh tart can be when you stick to the basics and use really good ingredients - premium butter, fragrant pineapples, best spices and so on."

Pamelia Chia, chef and cookbook author

Her desire to document the tradition of wet markets led chef-turned-author Pamelia Chia to pen Wet Market to Table in 2019, and she continues her passion for Singapore's food heritage through a series of video tutorials on her Instagram account @sgpnoodles.

"What defines Singaporean food to me is the way it utilises humble, cheap ingredients that would otherwise be discarded, transforming them through the alchemy of time and skill", she says. Think bones/crustacean shells boiled to make prawn noodle soup, or the likes of sup tulang, kway chap and feng. "Our ancestors were influenced by the diversity of racial groups living in Singapore - they were the true masters of fusion."

That's why for her, satay bee hoon is what best represents Singapore. Although recipes suggest that the gravy is really diluted satay sauce, she dug deeper and discovered that the original hawkers used unconventional ingredients such as five spice powder, dried shrimp and tee poh (dried flat fish). "I was surprised because these are Chinese ingredients which I couldn't imagine in a rempah-rich, Malay-style satay sauce."

While she doesn't believe in keeping heritage recipes unchanged for the sake of it, it's important to "understand the origins and 'back stories' of a dish in order to modernise and innovate respectfully".

While new age hawkers who do not understand the spirit of a dish may end up with something inauthentic, it could well become a reference point in the future, she adds, given the nature of fusion. Even so, she mentions Melvin Chew - a kway chap hawker who also launched the Hawkers United movement - "who talked about how the format or medium of the dish may change, but its spirit and flavours are still old school and unadulterated".

Malcolm Lee, chef-owner of Candlenut

While chicken rice is the first dish Malcolm Lee has to have after an overseas trip, it's ayam buah keluak that he identifies with most as a Peranakan Singaporean. It is perhaps one of the most polarising traditional cuisines in the way that it divides purists who still insist on the mortar and pestle way, and those like Chef Lee who approach it from a traditional yet modern perspective.

"I grew up eating this", says Chef Lee. "My Popo and Mum would always cook this, and I had to help pound and fry the rempah. We had to soak and scrub the nuts, painstakingly crack them open and remove the bits of broken shell. But it was worth it because the black nut filling mixed with rice, gravy and sambal belacan is one of the best combinations ever."

But he believes that "as cuisines worldwide evolve, we should too, but it doesn't mean changing the dish totally". For example, "When I saw that people loved the black nut more than the chicken itself, I decided to extract a lot of the nut flesh and cook it together with the chicken and sauce, so the gravy itself has a lot more buah keluak. But I didn't change the rempah or anything. We've also substituted chicken with prawns, squid, beef and pork, which are all delicious". And given buah keluak's earthy, chocolatey, coffee and rich texture, he's even used it in desserts with great success.

"The point is that you must have an in-depth understanding, knowledge, technique and stories behind the original dish before you can attempt any changes", points out Chef Lee. "Otherwise you're just mashing random ideas and flavours together and it won't last, like fads."

Of course, every adaptation he makes still has to be approved by his grandmother and mother. But the crux of it lies in what his Popo once told him. "She said, 'I share with you these (traditional) recipes. You can do what you want with them' ".

Willin Low, chef-owner of Roketto Izakaya

When Willin Low coined the phrase Mod-Sin, he sparked a food movement of sorts as a younger generation of chefs sought to put their own spin on heritage food to express their own identity in a western-dominated food scene. However, Chef Low says it was never his intention to "replace, elevate or evolve heritage food".

If anything, "I merely wanted to pay homage and celebrate heritage food in a way not done traditionally before".

But he had two guiding principles, namely, it had to taste good and retain the spirit of the original dish. A part of him longs for traditional food to stay the same, but "then again, heritage food is the result of evolution and adaptation", he says. "If there are better ingredients or cooking methods, there's no reason to resist. But change shouldn't be for the sake of change - it must evolve, not devolve."

He picks satay bee hoon and bak chor mee - both Teochew inventions - as quintessential Singaporean fusion, the latter being essentially Chinese noodles but with the addition of sambal chilli ("which is Malay/Indonesian inspired"). At Roketto, his scallop her keow (fish dumpling) is a tribute to satay bee hoon, with glass noodles and spicy satay sauce with seafood. His bak chor mee is nothing like the original in terms of flavour, but follows the same concept - negitoro (instead of minced meat) served on top of glass noodles cooked in lard and shallot oil.

As for whether Mod-Sin chefs will play a big role in the heritage story, he doesn't know. "I'm sure the guys who created Hokkien mee or kaya didn't do it thinking they would be part of the heritage story. It was probably 'revolutionary' then but in time became heritage. We can only do the food justice and cook it well so that people will go, 'hey, we love this enough to keep it alive' ".

Khir Johari, food historian and cookbook author

The story of Singapore Malay food and how it evolved within the cultural fabric of the larger Malay world, is one that hasn't been told well, and Khir Johari plans to address that with his upcoming book, The Food of Singapore Malays - Gastronomic Travels Through the Archipelago, to be launched in October. It's taken 10 years for him to put the book together, and it promises to be a delicious history of how food has played a part in moulding Singapore Malay culture.

Among the dishes of note is mee rebus, "a dish created in Singapore before WWII", says Mr Johari. "While mee has been around in the Nusantara for a long time, Rumah Jawa at 51 Sultan Gate - which served as the central kitchen for satay production - came up with the thick and delicious gravy with its accompanying garnishes. One critical ingredient was udang geragau or udang pepai (better known to some as sakura ebi) which came fresh off the docks at Clyde Terrace market (where Gateway stands today on Beach Road). Taucheo was added - a symbol of multi-ethnic Singapore. Mee rebus tells us that Singapore was not just a receptacle for Malay food from the archipelago, but it was an active innovator, coming up with other beloved dishes such as mee siam and roti mariam."

You can find mee rebus everywhere now but the original flavour is increasingly hard to find, "with recent innovations that are not sensitive to the heritage mee rebus represents", he adds. "Horror stories include mee rebus with chicken slices or gravy with curry powder added to it."

It boils down to the same heritage issue. "It can evolve, but the key is for younger chefs to have a deep knowledge of the dish first. Only then can they develop it in ways that are true to its soul. I object to chicken because it clashes with the dish's essential character, defined by the udang geragau, taucheo, ground peanut and sweet potato. Likewise, adding curry powder ruins its original flavour profile - it is Javanese in essence".

To him, innovating with heritage is one thing, but beyond a certain point, it becomes something else. "That's when I would prefer that it be given another name. It can reference traditional mee rebus, but it should be clear that it is something different".

Devagi Sanmugam, chef and cookbook author

Apart from fish head curry, prata and its meat-filled sibling murtabak personify Singapore Indian heritage food for chef-author Devagi Sanmugam.

"The original roti prata came from Kerala in South India where it was known as 'Malabar Parotta'", says Chef Sanmugam. "When the British colonised Singapore and Malaysia, they also brought in a large number of labourers from Tamil Nadu and Kerala to work in rubber estates and palm plantations. Some of them became street vendors selling food that was familiar to them, including parotta." But the recipe evolved through the years - "It wasn't as oily as it is now", says Chef Sanmugam. "It was incredibly soft yet crisp, flaky and fluffy."

Getting good prata is increasingly difficult with the second generation unwilling to take over family businesses, she says. And when they do, it's more to run a business than make roti prata. It's hot and tedious work, so "they would either poach a prata maker from another shop or rely on foreign labour". On top of that, "most prata sellers now get ready-made dough from factories. Only very few vendors would invest in a dough kneading machine".

Change, then, doesn't have to be a bad thing. "People should know the history behind a dish to understand our heritage and identity", says Chef Sanmugam. "But it doesn't mean we have to hold on to the old ways. They can be time consuming and some of the dishes are now 'unhealthy' because they were eaten by our forefathers who did not lead sedentary lives. We need to modify dishes to suit our health, taste and time."

She points to herself as an example. "I'm 65 years old now and some of the dishes have already evolved in my hands! I've made roti prata with spelt and whole wheat flour. With a nonstick pan, I don't use as much oil. I don't add sugar or condensed milk and I'm still able to get a good prata. I've also experimented making it with bonito flakes, dried prawn powder, black sesame seed powder and even kelp".

So long as one doesn't "go overboard with 'new' ingredients like truffle, sea urchin or mayonnaise, heritage food can evolve and maintain its soul. What's important is that those who create new dishes must know and remember where they originated so that in future, they can share the story too".